Study Session #17: Clothing Optional?

On this week's episode, Christine calls in LIVE from Hedonism II resort in Jamaica and talks about clothing-optional resorts and the freeing nature of "letting it all hang loose." 

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Transcript

Shannon:
This is Study Sessions, a bi-weekly mini-sode brought to you by Sex Ed Debunked, where we cover topics given to us by you, our listeners.

Christine:
And sometimes topics that we think you might just be interested to learn a little something about.

Shannon:
Like, for example...

Christine:
Like today. So today I'm coming to you all live from my vacation at Hedonism 2, which is a clothing optional resort in the Grille, Jamaica, that we've mentioned on some other podcasts, but we thought maybe it would be an interesting opportunity to discuss the question or the comment that I hear most often. What do you think that might be, Shannon?

Shannon:
So are you naked the whole time?

Christine:
Yes, that's one question. And the answer to that is, well, first of all, it's clothing optional. So you can have your clothes on the whole time if you want. But other than that, you are supposed to cover, as they say here, your naughty bits at meal time. But other

Shannon:
Gross.

Christine:
than that, but other than that, you can be as optional as you want to be. In particular here, one of the things that's really fun is the opportunity really to dress really, really sexy if you want to. So they have a lot of theme nights with costumes and you can wear clothes and outfits that you might feel a little shy about, you know, in your real life, so to speak. And here you can kind of be, you know, your most sexy, most erotic self and just kind of feel free.

Shannon:
So is this your first time at hedonism or are you a regular?

Christine:
I wouldn't say regular, but it's not my first time. But I can speak to my first experience here. And that is one of the other comments that I get from people is a variation of, isn't it weird to be naked in public? Or isn't it weird to be naked around strangers? I got that question

Shannon:
Mm-hmm.

Christine:
from...

Shannon:
So when was your first time going to hedonism?

Christine:
The first time we went was about six years ago. And of course, as everyone knows, your dad is a travel writer. And we actually went because he was writing about it.

Shannon:
Mm-hmm.

Christine:
So our first experience wasn't, I wouldn't say it was involuntary, but it was more out of curiosity, not out of a real like, oh gosh, I really wanna go here. And we were curious too. We had the same questions, like, do we have to get naked? Will it be weird? And I will be honest with you, it took it, and I'm being honest with the listeners too, because here I am doing like a podcast about sexuality, took me a couple of days, took me a couple of days to get from the clothing optional to being topless. And here, if you wanna go to the nude beach, you have to be nude.

Shannon:
Heh.

Christine:
So the whole resort is clothing optional, except they really want to create a space. where the nude side of the beach that everyone's nude because that is part of what leads to the comfort level of everybody being in the same place. And this so um so I did talk to some other vacationers here and wanted to ask them the same question I always hear. Um

Shannon:
Right.

Christine:
isn't it weird to be naked in public?

Shannon:
So, yeah, so let's get into that, but also just, you know, you've gone a couple of times now. You started going six years ago, now it's six years later. What's the sort of, I wanna say demographic makeup, but what I really mean by that is, you know, is it singles, is it couples, is it married couples? Like, you know, give me an idea of the mix of the people that go to hedonism.

Christine:
Well, so hedonism is just one example of a clothing optional resort. For hedonism, I would say it covers all ages and pretty much, I wouldn't say all demographics in terms of social class because it's not inexpensive to come here,

Shannon:
Sure.

Christine:
but in terms of race, ethnicity, sexuality, yes, it's diverse. Though I would say it's not very gender diverse. You don't see that quite as much here. quite as much trans, but you do see definitely bisexual lesbian activity,

Shannon:
So it's a fairly

Christine:
things like

Shannon:
cisgendered

Christine:
that.

Shannon:
environment, but sexual orientation diverse.

Christine:
I would agree with that. That's a good assessment. I would also say who's there on a given week depends. And one of the things this resort does, which is helpful, is they tell you what groups are going there on a given week. So before you decide to go on a trip like this, you can have a sense of, like for example, I wouldn't go during Young Swingers Week. As much as I like to have very high sex positivity

Shannon:
As much

Christine:
and

Shannon:
as

Christine:
body

Shannon:
I love

Christine:
uncertainty.

Shannon:
the youth and as much as I love the swing,

Christine:
But

Shannon:
it's

Christine:
I'm

Shannon:
not

Christine:
not

Shannon:
my

Christine:
30

Shannon:
week. There we go.

Christine:
anymore. I'm just not there anymore. But on the flip side of things, the group that we're with this year and is a group that we met a couple years ago is actually predominantly black. So we're the minorities, which is kind of an interesting space to be in. I'm learning a lot about hip hop music. I'm learning a lot about blues music and music that I don't usually listen to. And... It's pretty great actually to be in an environment

Shannon:
Look at you

Christine:
where

Shannon:
getting

Christine:
you

Shannon:
all

Christine:
know

Shannon:
cultured

Christine:
that.

Shannon:
and stuff.

Christine:
I'm trying Shannon, I'm trying.

Shannon:
trying. So

Christine:
Actually...

Shannon:
you asked a bunch of people about their experience. What kind of questions did you ask people?

Christine:
So I asked them the question that I usually get asked, like, hey, so if somebody asked you why you're here, isn't it weird to be naked in front of strangers? So here's the responses I got. And I'm going to tell you, they were pretty darn consistent.

Shannon:
Mm.

Christine:
So one of them was, everyone here is in the same space. So without clothes, we actually get to be our most authentic selves. This one person was really profound. Letting go of clothes lets you go, like lets you let go of so much else too.

Shannon:
Mm.

Christine:
So the consistent thread was, it can be hard at first, but once you do it, within five to 10 minutes, you forgot you're naked.

Shannon:
Yeah,

Christine:
So that's

Shannon:
well it

Christine:
pretty cool.

Shannon:
reminds me of when we did the episode with Lucas from Mr. Sister and we talked about, you know, how awkward it can be the first time going into an erotica shop or a sex shop or an adult entertainment store. And at first you're like, oh my God, this is so weird. I can't believe I'm here. But then you realize, well, everyone, everyone else is here too.

Christine:
Exactly.

Shannon:
So you kind of have that experience of, well, I guess I don't need to feel that weird about it because everyone else is doing the same damn thing.

Christine:
Exactly. And every single person I talked to here said, it's freeing. That's the word I heard over and over and over again. You know, we have an episode coming up next week talking about reclaiming your body and your body positivity. And we didn't talk about this option, but this is an option. Obviously, you don't have to travel to Jamaica. But there are clothing optional, there's actually a clothing optional campground right in Connecticut, just so you know, and a couple of places

Shannon:
Gosh, I

Christine:
in

Shannon:
sure

Christine:
Maine.

Shannon:
was wondering. It's for the protein. Oh.

Christine:
I'm just saying, it's a way to kind of just experience a different kind of freedom.

Shannon:
And I mean, there are, of course, cultural taboos around nudity, right? I mean, nudity itself is not sexual. Like, I know that the, of course,

Christine:
Exactly.

Shannon:
hedonism encompasses a lot more things. The resort is very sex positive. But it reminds me of a few years ago, I went to a children's film festival. And one of the films that they showed at the festival was It was a short film, it was like five minutes long, and the first four minutes and 20 seconds were this young girl who was trying to put a towel over herself and try to change out of her clothes and into her bathing suit, but she's at a beach, so she's trying to cover it and it's super

Christine:
Right.

Shannon:
awkward, and she can't do it, and it's gross, and it's like, oh God, I don't know what to do with my body. And then the last 10, 15 seconds of the movie just pans over to an older couple who just gets nude and runs into the water.

Christine:
I can't even get a

Shannon:
You know, the

Christine:
good

Shannon:
idea

Christine:
idea.

Shannon:
of it of course is that like you get older and a lot of your inhibitions go away and you get more comfortable with your body. But we were, this was at a children's film festival and the person that ran the festival got so many complaints. Oh my gosh, I can't believe

Christine:
Yeah,

Shannon:
you showed

Christine:
well...

Shannon:
nudity. I can't believe all that. And it was the least sexual thing in the world. It was to late 70 something elderly folks, not sexual objects, not there

Christine:
Yeah.

Shannon:
to be items of desire, they were just running into the ocean. So

Christine:
Exactly. Yep.

Shannon:
it's

Christine:
Remember

Shannon:
good to remember

Christine:
the tree.

Shannon:
that nudity itself is not actually problematic. It's okay, it's how we come into the world, it's how we'll go back to it.

Christine:
Well, and that leads to another comment I got from someone else that I spoke with saying, here we are at a beach. It's hot. It's

Shannon:
Mm-hmm.

Christine:
sunny. Why should we be putting on clothes? Why?

Shannon:
Why are we adorning ourselves in clothing when we're sweating our balls off?

Christine:
Exactly. Like, if you put the flip side on it, isn't our culture a little wack telling us that we have to put clothes on to go out to lay

Shannon:
to go

Christine:
in the

Shannon:
be in

Christine:
sun

Shannon:
water?

Christine:
on

Shannon:
Yeah,

Christine:
a beach?

Shannon:
I don't put clothes on when I shower, I don't put clothes on when I take a bath, why am I doing it to get in the ocean?

Christine:
Exactly.

Shannon:
It's a fair point.

Christine:
But to get back to your other point that you know clothing optional resorts like this there are many clothing optional resorts that are just naturist and nudist and has had absolutely no sexual component to them at

Shannon:
Bye bye.

Christine:
all. And here at Hito it does have both but it's very clear that it's very optional you don't have to feel like oh I can't go here because I'm not a swinger or I'm not in the lifestyle. you can just be you and there's no judgment with that either.

Shannon:
So what

Christine:
So

Shannon:
I

Christine:
that's

Shannon:
was gonna

Christine:
another thread.

Shannon:
ask was, what I was gonna ask is, you know, obviously because it is Hito and there are, you know, both options, there's the option to just participate and be nude or there is like, you know, up in that game, right, to be more

Christine:
Ha

Shannon:
involved

Christine:
ha ha!

Shannon:
in the swing or lifestyle, whatever. So I'm curious how at a resort like that, how did they sort of enforce that, I guess for lack of a better term, like what's the sort of social agreement when you go to a place like Hito?

Christine:
Very similar to what we've talked about in other episodes about the kink culture, highly, highly consensual. In fact, the group that I'm with, they had a, quote, Hito 101 little session this afternoon to make sure that everyone knew that. So knew that consent is always required. Just because you're at Hito, doesn't mean you're consenting to any

Shannon:
Sure.

Christine:
type of sexual activity. Interestingly,

Shannon:
Right.

Christine:
there's one group here. that has colored wristbands, and each color represents what you're open to.

Shannon:
Interesting. Yeah. But I would guess that part of what is sort of an equalizer is that you're not there to be ogled. Everyone is nude, right? I mean, that's sort of the thing. Yeah, it's funny. When I was in Greece like a month ago, we went to a beach at night. We were like, let's go skinny dipping, that's great. And you're skinny dipping, right? So it's just for fun. It's not a sexual thing. It's like none of us are bathing until we're just running into the ocean. And the next day at dinner, somebody brought up a comment. They were like, you know, something about my boobs. And I was like, oh, I don't, yeah, I don't know. And she's like, well, you've seen them. And I was like, what? And then I realized what she was referring to is that we had all gone skinny dipping. And I'm like, well, I didn't like see them. Like that's not what I was there for. I wasn't there to like look at you. But it sounds like that's a lot of like what that experiences at Hito and other similar resorts is like, we're not there to look at you. We're just there to have an experience. Sure, yeah. But on the other hand, you're not looking at people and going, ugh, why are they not wearing clothes? Like everyone's not wearing clothes. Welcome to the party. Plus, plus my god, it makes it so much easier to pack. Like, just underwear, that's it. Occasionally, not even the whole time. Just enough to cover your unmentionables at dinner is what I'm hearing. haha Sure. Is dad going as 10 or like, what are we working with here? You can also go as Barbie, it's 2023. You know, if time could get a wig. So. So in your experience, what is it about, not just like a nudist resort, but a place like keto that is appealing to you, that makes you wanna go back? Well, you know, we're here. Yeah. Yeah, you know, Facebook warrior, got it. Hmm. It is lovely. I love that. I think probably a question that would pop up in our listeners minds almost immediately is, holy shit, you went there with your husband? How did that, you know, you went the first time obviously for dad's work, but then what was the conversation like of, you know, like let's go there again for fun on our own dime. Mm-hmm. Amazing. Aw, I love that. Mm-hmm. It's about empowerment and the typewriter and the self, yeah. We'll feel comfortable. Mm-hmm. Well, I would love, I would love if you would suggest if it's not already in the works, it seems like that workshop could also just be people, a workshop for people, for the people that love them. It sounds like there's some opportunity to branch out and go beyond the binary a little bit. Sure, yeah. Well, it sounds like it's the kind of place that's very open and despite the fact that it does seem like it's a lot of cis folk, obviously, if you're talking about different orientations and different relationship structures, it seems like any workshop that's about people and the people that love them and vice versa would be a really powerful experience. Sure, yeah. It all ties in. I was gonna say, when are we gonna get the sex debunked tryptahedron? You stay on your side of the resort, I'll see you on mine. God, don't cross my side of the room. God. No, but I think. opening study session. Before we wrap up, and I think this is great, it's a great episode, it's important, you know, I think a lot of people think that it's so out of bounds and so wild, but to you it's kind of like, yeah, you have to take the leap, but once you do, everyone's just there to like enjoy themselves without the superficiality of materialism, so great. But was there anything else before we wrapped up? Any other comments or, you know, responses you got from any folks that you talked to that you would want to share? Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah, pretty great. Well, on that note, tune into our episode next week, all of our listeners, where we talked to Tara Galeano, author of Reconnecting with My Body, where we talk about body positivity, body image, and reconnecting yourself and your sexuality, because it is very much related to this topic today. We'll get a little bit more into the academic research, and we'll talk to Tara about her experience coaching with sexual empowerment coaching. And yeah, if y'all have any questions, comments, concerns, shoot them over our way to sexadbunked.gmail.com or send us a message at any of the socials at sexadbunked. And in the meantime, mom, enjoy the rest of your trip. I'm letting on. Bye.