The naturist rule we don't talk about.

Theres a peculiar rule in naturism that nobody actually writes down, but everybody somehow knows: nudity is not sexual. And, broadly speaking, I agree. I've spent enough of my life naked around other people to know that a bare arse is just a bare arse, a penis is just a penis, breasts are just breasts, and after about ten minutes at a naturist place you genuinely stop noticing most of it. Im sex-positive. I have virtually no embarrassment talking about sex, bodies, erections, masturbation, orgasms or any of the other things were apparently supposed to discuss only after lowering our voices and checking nobodys listening. But when I talk about naturism, I usually put on my non-sexual hat. Except, obviously, I dont, because Im a naturist. And hats look ridiculous when youre naked. The problem with the neat little phrase naturism isnt sexual is that while the philosophy might cooperate, occasionally the human body doesnt get the memo. Even after over thirty years of enjoying a life without clothes, I discovered this rather dramatically in a communal shower at a naturist site I visited. Nothing glamorous: a tiled shower room with perhaps half a dozen shower heads lined up along the wall, each ridiculously close to the next. Maybe eighteen inches apart. I was in there alone, happily showering and minding my own business when another man walked in. Six showers. One occupied. Five completely empty. So naturally, he chose the one directly beside me. Of course he did. There could have been a polite one-shower buffer between us. Two, even. He could practically have had his own postcode. But no. Right next door. Before anyone starts expecting me to write one of my erotic stories, he wasnt some sculpted Adonis arriving through a cloud of steam in slow motion. He was just a bloke, probably around my age. Normal body, normal face, completely ordinary-looking man having a completely ordinary shower. Except for one thing. His penis. And Im sorry, but there are moments in life when pretending you havent noticed something becomes considerably more ridiculous than admitting that you have. This thing was enormous. Not erect. Just hanging there. Seven inches? Eight? I genuinely dont know. I didnt exactly take a tape measure into the showers. But it was so far outside the usual dimensions of the naked men Id seen over the years that my brain immediately went, What the fuck is THAT? And here comes another thing naturists arent supposed to admit: we look. Of course we look. Not necessarily because we fancy somebody. Not because were judging them. Not because were secretly cruising every changing room and shower block. Because were human. If someone walks past with a spectacular tattoo, you look. If somebody has fluorescent green hair, you look. If somebody has three nipples, youre probably going to look. And if a man steps into the shower beside you apparently carrying the sort of penis normally transported under an abnormal-load warning sign, you look. I tried not to. I really did. Theres also a very particular art to trying to look at somebodys penis without looking at somebodys penis. Your eyes suddenly become fascinated by everything else in the room. Interesting grout. Lovely soap dispenser. I wonder who manufactured that drain. Then he put shampoo in his hair, closed his eyes and tipped his head back under the water. And my brain betrayed me. Now. I looked. Properly. Jesus Christ. I had never seen anything quite like it. And this is the important bit: I wasnt sexually attracted to him. I didnt want him. I wasnt fantasising about having sex with him. I wasnt considering cheating on my partner. There wasnt even some simmering chemistry between us. Wed barely acknowledged each other. It was closer to fascination. Curiosity. That primitive part of the brain that simply says, Bloody hell, have another look at that. Unfortunately, nobody had explained this distinction to my penis. Because while I was conducting this apparently fascinating anthropological study, something was beginning to happen downstairs. At first, nothing dramatic. Just movement. Now, men know. There is a moment when you realise your penis has begun making decisions independently of senior management. And sometimes you can intervene. You change position. You think about something profoundly unsexy. Tax returns. Motorway service stations. Your parents. Piers Morgan. Anything. So I turned slightly away and mentally told it to stop. Nothing. Seriously. Stop it. Still growing. I tried concentrating very hard on washing myself, which somehow made matters worse because now I was intensely aware of the exact part of my anatomy I was desperately attempting to ignore. Then, beside me, the other bloke started washing himself. Including his penis. Again, entirely normally. This wasnt a performance. He wasnt teasing me. He was washing his body in a shower because that is generally what people do in showers. But apparently the combination of water, movement, proximity and seeing this extraordinary piece of human anatomy being handled was more stimulation than my subconscious nervous system was prepared to shrug off. And his started to swell slightly too. Not an erection. Just enough to make an already impressive situation even more impressive. My penis essentially went, Right. Thats it. Im taking over from here. There is a point in an erection where negotiations have ended. If youve got a penis, you probably know exactly what I mean. Theres the maybe stage, then the oh shit stage, and finally the stage where it doesnt matter whether you start reciting the Highway Code backwards while imagining Margaret Thatcher doing your VAT return. Its happening. I turned completely away. Full mast. In a communal naturist shower. Wonderful. The irony was magnificent. Here was me, longtime advocate for normalising nudity, explaining endlessly that nakedness isnt inherently sexual, with an erection you could probably have used to hang a towel on. I was suddenly intensely conscious of everything. Where do I put my hands? If I cover it, does that make it more obvious? If I dont cover it, am I effectively presenting it? Do I face the wall? Does facing the wall make me look like Ive been arrested? Could I just stay under this shower until Thursday? Thankfully, my neighbour finished washing, stepped out and went to dry himself somewhere beyond my line of sight. I have absolutely no idea whether hed noticed my... let's call it my predicament. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he didnt. Perhaps hed seen it happen a hundred times and couldnt have cared less. Once hed gone, my body eventually remembered that I was supposedly in charge. But the experience stayed with me because it exposed something slightly uncomfortable about the way we sometimes talk about naturism. We can be so desperate to distance naturism from sex that we occasionally start pretending naturists arent sexual beings. Those arent the same thing. A naturist beach isnt an orgy. A communal shower isnt a sex club. Being naked beside somebody isnt an invitation. Looking at somebody isnt consent to touch them. Finding somebody attractive doesnt mean you intend to do anything about it. And an erection does not automatically mean, I want to have sex with this person. Sometimes it means exactly that. Sometimes it means youve just woken up. Sometimes your bladder is full. Sometimes something rubbed against you. Sometimes a thought appeared from nowhere. Sometimes you see something visually stimulating. Sometimes another human body simply presses one of those ancient little neurological buttons weve spent several thousand years pretending civilisation removed. And sometimes your penis gets hard because, well penis. Thats the bit I think we should be more comfortable admitting. Naturism doesnt remove sexuality from the human body. It changes the context in which we interpret nudity. Those are very different things. If I sit naked beside somebody at a naturist resort, that nudity isnt…