Skinny-Dipping Takes on a Greater Meaning as I Age
By Elizabeth Passarella
My husband and I have started watching a new show called The Diplomat. It is about a no-nonsense Foreign Service Officer, played by Keri Russell, who is asked to serve as the United States ambassador to the United Kingdom, only her husband, a former ambassador with a little bit of a god complex, keeps interfering instead of letting her do her job. One night last week, my husband and I decided to watch an episode, despite the fact that our middle child, who is 11, was still awake. He was sitting right there with us on the couch, drawing in a sketch book. We assumed he'd be too bored by the talk of back-channel communication and Iranian intelligence to pay attention to the more R-rated parts, and we were right—until Keri Russell's fictional husband and a woman who was not Keri Russell took off all of their clothes and jumped into a lake on the grounds of the ambassador's house after sharing a bottle of wine on a picnic blanket.
My son lifted his head and looked at the TV as both actors' bare bottoms disappeared into the water.
"Ew. What are they doing?" he asked.
"Skinny-dipping," I said.
"What's skinny-dipping?"
"Swimming naked," said my husband. "Your mother loves it."
It's true. I do. But as I watched the two characters from The Diplomat, two people who should not under any circumstances have been naked together, doggy paddle towards each other and, of course, start making out, I was annoyed. The mistake most people, including television writers, make when they think about skinny-dipping is that it's sexy. Or about sex. Or leads to sex. And that is not the point at all.
I have been skinny-dipping since I was around my son's age. My friend Vanessa and I shaved our legs for the first time at her house in the summer after 5th grade (actually, her mother shaved them for us, so that we wouldn't slice our kneecaps into a bloody mess) and discovered that stepping into her pool felt bizarre and exhilarating on our newly smooth calves. It was as if we were wearing wetsuits, the water thick and heavy, touching but not touching. The next summer, or maybe a couple after that, we began occasionally stripping off our one-piece bathing suits and tossing them on the hot stone deck when Vanessa's older brother wasn't home. Then, the water felt new in a different way: soft but electric. Every formerly hidden patch of skin on my torso, every little crease and dimple, hummed as I swam.
Here I should note that I am a person primed for semi-public nudity. I cannot explain it other than to say whatever gene creates a sense of self-consciousness around letting other people see your boobs, I just did not get it. Honestly, my entire family missed out. I wrote a chapter titled "Naked Family" in my first book, about how my parents treated nudity as a normal, natural, transitional state. There wasn't a manifesto. We weren't getting the mail naked. But we did change clothes in front of each other without squealing or hiding behind the closet door. Did I grow up with a less fragile body image than that of the average teenage girl? Maybe. I do know that the communal dressing room of a 1990s Loehmann's department store was my Eden: efficient and pleasantly platonic.
So, it doesn't take much cajoling to get me to skinny-dip. I've done it in daylight and in the dark. I've run into the ocean naked with friends after a boozy wedding. I've quietly slipped out of a bikini after jumping into a lake. I've lain topless on a rock off the coast of Cinque Terre in Italy before dipping into the sea like a rich lizard. I've done it at my thinnest and heaviest. I've been a college student and a middle-aged mother.
When I was younger, I'll admit that part of the fun was the naughtiness of the whole thing. Now, though, I love skinny-dipping for other reasons. There is the actual, sensual pleasure; it's a bath, but heightened. Acknowledging that, yes, I just told you skinny-dipping isn't sexual, it does feel good. Cool, wild water running over your naked body feels incredible. On my older body, though, it is also healing. If you've ever been pregnant and floated face down in a swimming pool, you understand. Water lightens your burdens. It lifts the heaviness of everything sagging and dragging you down. Beneath the surface, my tired boobs and puckered stomach shimmer and wave, beautifully.
What woman doesn't need a few moments for her body to be fully, gloriously hers and only hers?
A few years ago, I went on a trip with three girlfriends to Jamaica to celebrate one woman's 45th birthday. These friends are dear to me, but we live in different cities and, at the time, hadn't all been together in the same place in over a decade. We happened to have a small, private pool outside our room, and one night, we decided (I probably decided) that we should skinny-dip. Each of us waded into the pool until we were fully submerged. One by one, we pulled off tops and bottoms and set them aside. None of us were looking at each other's bodies or comparing rear ends. We kept talking. Eventually, we mindlessly lay back and stretched our arms above our heads, nipples poking out into the chilly night air. Then we'd push off from the side and slice through the water, letting it rush over our stomachs and down our legs. I thought about how much we were all carrying. We had seven children between us. Jobs. Difficult family members. And then I thought how free I felt, how clean and buoyed and unburdened for a night, being naked in that pool.
I get that not everyone wants to go full Monty outside of their own bathrooms. My own children seem to have inherited their mother's comfort with nudity and frank body talk, but I've never suggested we go skinny dipping as a family. First, that would be the fastest way for them to think it was lame. Second, part of the fun is the mild danger, another aspect that's lost if I'm around. And going with friends has always been my favorite, anyway. It's the chance to look at each other as you peel down a strap and telegraph whatever's under that bathing suit is okay by me. At every age, we need friends to whom we can say, mid-shimmy, "Just so you know, I'm hairy in some weird places," and they say, "Yep, me too." Or: "If you look at me, I'll kill you," and they close their eyes.
If you can only imagine being alone in the water, that's great, too. Play REM's “Nightswimming” and feel no shame. What woman doesn't need a few moments for her body to be fully, gloriously hers and only hers? It's why bathrooms have locks.
When Vanessa and I were in college, our mothers casually mentioned one day that they, too, skinny-dipped a couple of times with a group of friends in Vanessa's family's pool. In the moment, I was a little shocked. Moms! Really? So many droopy parts. (Another reason I'm not rushing to indoctrinate my kids.) Now, I think: Amen, sisters. We have so few cheap thrills in life. This one's easy. Strip, swim, float, be free.
Elizabeth Passarella is a magazine writer and the author of the essay collections Good Apple and It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway, which came out in May. Her writing has appeared in Real Simple, Vogue, The New York Times, and Southern Living, among other publications. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and three children.