Topless vs Nude

[garbo]

I visited a Las Vegas mega resort this weekend. They have four pools, of which one is a "European" topless pool. My wife and I visited the Euro pool and was surprised to see that it was full and... almost exclusively female! We had the opportunity to chat with a small group of girls from Texas. My wife asked, if the pool permitted total nudity would they be nude? The reaction was quite strong and interesting. I resounding NO. I explained that we were nudists and was mainly curious. One of the girls said.. how disgusting! I was floored. So, it is ok to be topless but disgusting to be nude... does that make any sense?They said yes, there is a HUGE difference between topless and nude. Go figure?

[Kamau]

Well, I have to say I agree with their assessment. Not that I can speak for the female population - but I feel a big difference between working shirtless and being nude. Of course, for me the latter is not disgusting. Too bad you did not ask for an assessment on topped but bottomless [which for me is different from both shirtfree and nude].

[natureboy1776]

I understand the intention of the question, but did you consider that under those circumstances, that was like a swinger approaching someone at a nudist resort? There is a big difference between topfree and nude. Breasts are not sex organs so topfree is not nudity.

[FireProf]

We only live about 4 hours from Vegas but don't visit often. In fact, we've not been to Vegas in about 10 years and it was 12-14 years before that! We'd heard about the European Pool Decks but have actually been waiting for a clothing optional B&B to open so we could stay there, instead of a hotel. For us, going to a European pool deck at one of these hotels would be more frustrating for me and my wife. If she's going to be topless, she'd prefer being bottomless as well and I'm not going to a pool deck where the women are topless and I have to have swim trunks on. Just prefer to live and recreate as we do, normally.


I've had similar conversations on our nude beach with many clothed people, young and older. As I/we walk by them, I will stop and introduce myself and ask them if I may ask them a couple of questions about their visit to the beach. I've actually only had one younger couple say "no" and get up and walk away. The others said, "yes/sure," and most times they stood up so they weren't looking up at me and having a hard time keeping eye contact. I asked them if there were aware that "this is a clothing optional beach but most refer to it as a nude beach because 90% of those visiting this beach are naked." I ask if they are interested in trying it or are they just here to spend the day at the beach and how they feel about nude beaches in general. Most of them say they know it's a nude beach, it's fine with them but not something they are willing to do ... yet. Some say they are checking it out and making sure that there wasn't a lot of sex going on before the moved closer toward the nude people to get nude themselves. A few have had negative comments and those are the ones I press further about "why they would come to a known nude beach, sit for hours and watch nude people walk back and forth, sit close to them and then profess to be disgusted, bothered or uncomfortable around them? Why not just pack up and go further south on the same beach or ... go to any of the many awesome beaches in the same area?"

Once confronted, most will agree that what they are doing doesn't make sense and they agree with my side of the argument. A few have actually picked up there towels and bags and followed me over to "our side". They've sat close by my wife and I and a few of those have actually come and sat and asked many questions about nudism, social nudism and where else we go. Two couples actually visited our club but not sure if they joined. But I've talked to dozens of young people on Black's Beach, many from the adjacent UC campus. Most of those students seem to be open minded enough to either enjoy the nude beach, in the nude or are fine with it and think it's "cool to have that opportunity if one wants to do it." I've found that most of the females that go to the UC and visit Black's usually go topless.

[nudeM]

I have actually witnessed the same thing FireProf, at Pirate's Cove, some time ago. I tried to strike up a conversation with several people and they did not seem to be interested in talking. I just realized that most, at that time, were not interested in social chat. They felt more comfortable to be with themselves and not be bothered. I did manage to find someone who I chatted with for quite some time. But that was the only time.

[Agde]

...They said yes, there is a HUGE difference between topless and nude. Go figure?

Well, a step at a time. It is a start to take a radically nuanced gender-neutral view of the link between chests and "private parts" involved in sex, or more precisely for the public norm to be that an uncovered chest of either gender is in no way to be interpreted as an invitation to intimacy. The new rule is to get over any discomfort in seeing somebody else's chest, whether beautiful or "disgusting." Getting used to two less triangles of fabric sounds to me like good practice for subsequently getting used to removing the last triangle.

Meantime, I quite like the "new norm" Pool Decks being blamed on us Europeans! Please feel free to blame us for all progress toward public acceptance of normalized fabric-freedom.

As for starting conversations, we routinely start conversations with (new or clothed) people at our beach, but we usually preface it that we are members of the naturist group that helps manage the beach and just like to find out what things we might improve so that everyone is happy and comfortable...