Ever Wondered How American Nudist Resorts Deal With Erections?

America currently boasts more than 200 nudist resorts nationwide — a collection of beaches, camps and hideaways that allow people to shed their clothes and reconnect with nature the way people did before clothing. But despite such resorts existing in America since the 1930s, Vice writer Mark Hay points out the so-called “naturist” community has long had a hard time figuring out what to do whenever someone gets an erection at an otherwise non-sexual nude resort.

According to Hay, most American nudist groups allege that erections rarely ever happen, thanks to a combination of nerves and the non-erotic nature of gatherings. Most feature non-sexual activities like swimming, sing-alongs and barbecues.

(Here’s where we should note that Hay only took heterosexual and mixed-gender nudist resorts into consideration, rather than those for gay and bi men, which tend to be more sexually charged.)

Because most people interpret erections as “a sign of unwanted sexual attention or the result of sexualized gawking that could make others feel uncomfortable,” Hay says, the usual etiquette is to simply cover the erection with the hand towel that nudists use for sitting upon.

But here’s the problem: If nudism is all about accepting your body and reconnecting with nature, then shamefully hiding the body’s natural arousal seems contradictory to the very spirit of naturism and is decidedly inconvenient for erect men, especially since erections can occur reflexively due to stress or hormonal fluctuations — that is, without sexual arousal or intent.

Brian Hoffman, author of the 2015 book Naked: A Cultural History of American Nudism, told Hay that even back in the 1930s, when nudist resorts were first forming, they felt divided about how to handle erections.

Eager to recruit others into their fun-loving and clothes-free ways, these resorts longed to maintain an air of wholesomeness, respectability and non-eroticism. Thus, most nudist resorts and philosophers decided (in Hay’s words) that “walking around with an erection ought to be no big deal, so long as no one is a total creep about it.”

But, Hoffman said, World War II soldiers abroad often used nudist lifestyle magazines as pornography, and when they returned home from the war and began checking into nudist resorts as lone individuals, resort owners and fellow naturists felt somewhat alarmed at the possibility of sex, adultery, homosexuality and pedophilia on their grounds, especially at a time in American history when such things were viewed as a threat to the wholesome (i.e., married and heterosexual) way of American life.

As a result, some nudist resorts banned single men outright, or men whose constant erections remained largely visible, or any physical displays of affection — like hugging and hand-holding — and erotic clothing, like lingerie.

The 1960s counterculture movement then pushed back on these rules as outdated, hypocritical and overly conservative. Nevertheless, Hay writes:

Fears about pedophilic gazes, unwanted sexual advances, or triggering memories of assault and other negative experiences of aggressive male sexual norms are all still relevant and legitimate — especially in communities where everyone might not know one another. And for spaces that might not be able to take the fiscal or PR hit of a scandal, minimizing the risk of any unwanted or unfortunate erotic exchange, misread or otherwise, is just plain prudent.

Have you been to nudist resorts before? Have you ever had a strange or uncomfortable situation at any nudist resorts? Let us know.

Featured image at top by Seyi Ariyo / Unsplash

This story was originally published on May 3, 2017. It has since been updated.