What Is It Actually Like to Go to a Nudist Resort?
Apparently, a lot of you want to know what happens at a nudist resort. I know this because one of the most-watched episodes of The Open Bedroom Doors Show right now is my conversation about the nudist lifestyle. And considering The Open Bedroom Doors Show was named the 2026 AASECT Podcast of the Year, I have interviewed people about a lot of different topics involving sex, relationships, intimacy, bodies, and human behavior. Yet this particular episode keeps making waves, which tells me something: people are curious.
Who actually goes to a nudist resort?
What do they do there?
Is everybody walking around checking everybody else out?
Is it sexual?
What happens if somebody gets an erection?
And perhaps the biggest question of all: what does it actually feel like to take your clothes off in front of a bunch of strangers?
After interviewing Addy and Eddie about their experiences at the 40 Acre Club, a nudist recreation facility near St. Louis, and continuing the conversation beyond the show, I realized the reality is simultaneously much more interesting (and much more ordinary) than people might imagine.
What Do People Actually Do at a Nudist Resort?
Let's start with the part that makes me laugh: they play pickleball. They hike, swim, skinny dip. They hang out in the rec hall, have potluck dinners, talk to their friends. In other words, they're doing a whole bunch of incredibly normal things. They're just doing them in the buff.
That's one of the biggest misconceptions worth clearing up:
Recreational nudity isn't necessarily about sex.
At a place like the one Addy and Eddie described, nudity is treated as exactly that: recreational nudity. The point isn't to create a sexual environment. It's to have the freedom to exist without clothes while doing many of the same things people would do at another campground or recreational community. Honestly, if you imagined some giant naked orgy in the woods, you may be disappointed to discover someone is probably asking who brought the potato salad.
Who Actually Goes to a Nudist Resort?
This might be the most interesting question of all because there doesn't seem to be one particular "type" of person who enjoys this lifestyle. Maybe it's the person who has hated underwear their entire life because it feels constricting, or the person who walks through their front door after work and immediately rips off their bra while internally yelling, "FREEDOM!" Maybe they've always been naked around their own house. Maybe they were that kid who somehow managed to lose their clothes five minutes after their parents put them on.
For some people, being without clothes simply feels more comfortable.
But then there are people whose stories are completely different. Maybe it's someone who recently got divorced after spending years in a relationship where their partner would never have considered going somewhere like this. Suddenly, they're single, they're exploring who they are, and they're realizing, "Wait. I can actually choose this for myself now." Maybe it's somebody's grandma, or a young couple. Maybe it's someone who has spent decades struggling with their body.
The point is that when you picture "a nudist," whatever stereotype popped into your head probably doesn't capture the variety of people who actually participate in recreational nudity.
Addy and Eddie even talked on my show about bringing their baby into this environment. Their perspective was beautifully simple: their child entered the world naked, and within this particular community, they're allowing him to experience the human body as something natural rather than automatically something shameful.
That's what surprised me most about learning who is actually there.
There isn't one nudist body.
There are just bodies.
What If You Don't Like Your Body?
This is where my sex therapist brain gets especially interested. In my book From Fck No to Fck Yes Sex!, I talk extensively about body neutrality. We live in a culture that constantly tells us what bodies are supposed to look like. We're shown curated bodies, posed bodies, filtered bodies, young bodies, thin bodies, muscular bodies, and bodies strategically dressed to emphasize certain features and disguise others. We become so accustomed to seeing a narrow selection of human bodies that it's easy to start believing those are what bodies are supposed to look like.
Now imagine walking into a place where suddenly you see bodies as they actually exist. There are different sizes, shapes, ages, skin colors, abilities, scars, amounts of hair, bodies that have had babies, bodies that have aged, and bodies that don't look anything like the ones we're accustomed to seeing presented as "ideal."
Nobody needs to dress to impress.
There isn't a designer handbag communicating status.
Nobody has the expensive suit.
Nobody is wondering whether they're underdressed for the restaurant, because nobody is dressed.
For some people, that appears to be part of the appeal. Instead of needing to arrive at "I LOVE MY BODY!" (which can feel impossible when you've spent years criticizing it) you get an opportunity to experience something quieter: "This is my body. That's your body. Bodies come in a ridiculous number of varieties. Maybe none of this needs to be quite as big of a deal as I've been taught it is."
That's body neutrality.
(Learn more about body neutrality: https://www.openbedroomdoors.com/books)
But Isn't Everyone Looking at Everyone Else?
This is one of those questions where our imagination may be much more dramatic than the reality.
According to what Addy and Eddie described, something interesting can happen after you've been naked for a little while: you forget you're naked.
At first, of course, taking your clothes off can feel terrifying. You're standing there thinking, "Oh my God. I'm naked. These people can see me. I CAN SEE THEM." But then you start talking. Maybe you get in the pool, or somebody asks whether you want to play pickleball, or you're figuring out what's for dinner.
Then ten minutes pass. Twenty minutes pass. Eventually, your brain can basically go, "Oh. Okay. I guess we're doing this now." The nudity stops being the event. You're just a person hanging out with other people, and the thing that felt enormous twenty minutes ago begins fading into the background.
In fact, some people report becoming so comfortable without clothes that putting them back on feels strange. Eventually, of course, you have to leave. You can't wander naked into the restaurant on the way home, and Monday morning rolls around and HR would probably prefer pants. Back into the clothes you go. After spending enough time without them, apparently that can become the weird part.
What Happens If Someone Gets an Erection?
Yep, we're answering it, because you were thinking it.
One of the things Addy and Eddie explained is that these communities generally draw a firm distinction between nudity and sexual behavior. An involuntary physical response can happen because human bodies sometimes do things without asking our permission.
The response they described is wonderfully undramatic: cover yourself with a towel, give your body a minute, and when it passes, continue with your day. Nobody needs to call the National Guard.
What matters is behavior. There is a significant difference between having a human body that occasionally does human-body things and behaving sexually toward another person. That distinction is important because one of the misconceptions about recreational nudity is that nakedness automatically means sexuality.
It doesn't.
Do Women Feel Safe at Nudist Resorts?
This was another part of my conversation with Addy and Eddie that I found especially interesting.
Eddie talked about how seriously their community takes protecting the people who use the space, particularly women. A nudist community has an enormous incentive to maintain boundaries because the entire experience depends upon people feeling safe enough to be physically vulnerable without that vulnerability being treated as sexual availability.
According to their description of their community, inappropriate behavior isn't simply shrugged off. Members pay attention to what's happening around them and take concerns seriously.
That matters because naked does not mean sexually available.
It doesn't mean someone consented to being touched.
It doesn't mean someone consented to sexual comments.
It doesn't mean someone wants to have sex.
It means they're naked. That's it.
Why Would Someone Want to Be a Nudist?
After this conversation, I actually think this may be the wrong question.
The better question might be: What does someone get from recreational nudity that they aren't getting somewhere else?
For one person, it's physical comfort. For another, it's freedom. For someone else, it's finally making peace with a body they've spent their entire life criticizing. For another person, it's getting older and deciding they don't particularly care anymore whether somebody thinks their stomach, breasts, penis, butt, wrinkles, scars, or thighs meet some imaginary standard.
For someone newly single, recreational nudity might represent autonomy and the freedom to finally explore something that interested them for years. For a couple, it might simply be something they enjoy doing together. For another person, being around a wider variety of bodies might help dismantle some of the expectations they've spent their life carrying around about what a body is supposed to look like. And for someone else? Maybe they just really hate pants.
There doesn't have to be one profound psychological explanation for why someone enjoys being naked any more than there has to be one profound explanation for why somebody enjoys camping.
So, What Is It Actually Like to Go to a Nudist Resort?
Based on what Addy and Eddie shared with me, it sounds surprisingly similar to going to any other recreational campground. You arrive, meet people, swim, hike, play, eat, talk, and spend time together. At some point, you take your clothes off. And then, perhaps most surprisingly, you forget you ever took them off.
That's what I find fascinating about this entire conversation. We live in a culture where nudity can carry an enormous amount of meaning. We spend billions of dollars changing bodies, covering bodies, displaying bodies, dressing bodies, and worrying about whether our bodies are good enough. We connect naked bodies with:
sex,
shame,
desirability,
morality,
vulnerability, and
judgment.
Then there are communities of people essentially saying, "It's just a naked body."
Maybe that's why so many people are watching this episode of The Open Bedroom Doors Show. Sure, some of it is curiosity. We humans are nosy. Tell us there's a campground full of naked people and we're probably going to have questions.
But underneath that curiosity may be something deeper:
What would it feel like to be completely visible and discover that nobody particularly cares?
No perfect outfit. No perfect body. No sucking in your stomach. No trying to prove anything.
Just you, your body, a bunch of other imperfect human bodies. And apparently, a pickleball court.
Want to learn more?
Visit the Forty Acre Club website: https://share.google/CHarD7QOihOjEDqhp
