Murfreesboro nudists? You bet your sweet patootie
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) — Drive through the gates at Rock Haven Lodge, and it's the nude volleyball players you see first. Tanned skin — so much skin — in various shades of beige and brown like the sand patch where they play. Then there's the tennis court. On a recent Saturday, two men played a match in nothing more than white sneakers, socks and one black knee brace.
It's been a busy summer at Rock Haven Lodge, Tennessee's only nudist park sanctioned by the American Association for Nude Recreation. Last month the resort helped set a skinny-dipping Guinness World Record, with more than 13,000 nudists splashing in pools across the country, and the park has activities planned through the rest of the year. Nudist recreation — including nude cruises and "nakations" — has, after all, grown from a $120 million industry in the early 1990s to about $450 million today.
So given its dip toward the mainstream, what's the appeal of leaving all body parts bare? Nudists enjoy pointing out that the original Olympic athletes competed in the buff. They often cite the freedom and natural state of it all. And they leave behind insecurities about body image along with the trappings of a wardrobe that might label them as lawyer or lumberjack.
"There are people from all walks of life here. And that's the thing," said Rock Haven owner Susan Palmer. "Once you take all your clothes off, you're judged not by what you wear, but who you are."
Palmer peels off her T-shirt before stepping out of the park's office and hopping onto a golf cart for a spin around the property. She's tall and thin with a short gray haircut, and she sits comfortably in her own skin. She's also 63 and has had a mastectomy.
Not that anyone would judge at Rock Haven. At nudist parks, gawking is not cool. Unlike swimsuit-strutting scenes in Vegas — or the local YMCA, for that matter — sizes don't get sized up the same way.
"There's a lot of eye contact," Palmer said.
Driving past the tree-shaded camping area, the clubhouse, pool, snack bar and cabins, Palmer waves to other nudists — some 200 are members or visitors, and there are 22 full-time residents — while trying to articulate what she likes about the lifestyle.
"Just the freedom of being in the sun. Just being in nature," she says.
"See how nice that breeze feels?"
Palmer wasn't always comfortable going nude. In 1993, when her late husband suggested they try nudism on a trip to Jamaica, she said, "You want to do what? You're out of you're mind."
But after stripping down for a swim under the hot Caribbean sun, the couple asked hotel staff to move them from the "prude side" of the resort to the "nude side."
By January of the next year, they were members at Rock Haven. And in 2005, previous Rock Haven owners Nancy and George Volak convinced the Palmers to purchase the property, since the Volaks were moving to George's native Czech Republic.
Today, Palmer sees plenty of shaky hands when the paperwork gets signed at Rock Haven.
Nick Nixon, 48, who now lives and works on the property full-time, said that on his first visit he sat nervously by the pool with his "nose in a book all day."
And Volak wrote an account of her first experience at a nudist resort for Rock Haven's Web site. She took one look at all those naked bodies and passed out cold. After coming to, she spent five hours in the pool — submerged to the neck. But during her years as Rock Haven's owner, she became an outgoing advocate of nudism, speaking about its merits academically at Middle Tennessee State University.
When Richard Lloyd, a professor in the sociology department at Vanderbilt University, explains nudism from an academic perspective, he can't help but throw in an anecdote from The Simpsons. When Homer runs from the house in a rush — forgetting that he's wearing no clothes — Lisa calls after him: "Dad, hide your shame."
Lisa had a point. Lloyd said that nudists repudiate the idea of shame — a concept that for some goes back to Adam and Eve, original sin, and their awareness of being naked.
"This is the statement that people are making — a freedom from bodily shame," Lloyd said. Going nude is a way for people to say "I'm OK with who I am," he continued.
And group nudity can promote community and become a social leveler. When everyone is nude, status symbols are moot.
"It's certainly democratizing," said Lloyd, who acknowledged that nudism isn't for him. "Clothing is a dominant way in which we construct identity."
For many, though, no clothes means sex. But Lloyd says that when everyone is nude, it de-eroticizes the state of being naked.
Still, everyone's human, and one of the guidelines of nudism — along with taking a towel for sitting everywhere one goes — is to practice discretion. Any outward signs of excitement should be covered.
After all, Rock Haven Lodge is a family park. There is a 13-year-old resident, and some vacationing or member parents bring children.
Carolyn Hawkins, public affairs coordinator for the American Association for Nude Recreation in Kissimmee, Fla., said she raised her son and grandson in nudist parks with "no reservations at all."
But raising a child in a nudist parks raises some eyebrows.
Even if eroticism is removed from the equation, said Aimee Lyst, a child psychologist with the Pediatric Associates of Franklin, her concern for children exposed to nudism is their ability to assimilate in more typical social settings. Boundaries outside a nudist park are different from boundaries inside, and children must learn to live within both. 'You never know about people'
Despite its growth, some nudists prefer to keep their lifestyle under wraps. Nudism isn't for all, as even the most ardent nudist will tell you.
"When we had jobs in the textile (clothed) world," said Palmer, who worked as an accountant, "we didn't tell anybody where we went on the weekends. They'd think you were a crazy nudist."
Not until giving her notice before retiring did she let the comptroller of the firm in on her secret.
"An opportunity has arisen," she told him. "We're going to buy a nudist park in Tennessee."
"You're nudists?" he said.
"You just never know about people," she responded.
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