We Were Born Naked and Will Return to the Ground that Way

Maggie Maloney

Recently, I was finishing up at the gym, gathering my backpack from the locker room with my head in the clouds, when I turned the corner and came to a full stop. I saw a flash of glowing bronze as somebody nude nonchalantly gazed over herself in the mirror before swiftly turning my direction to change into fresh clothes. The two seconds were fast and slow at the same time as she walked towards her locker, curvy hips and beautifully bronzed skin waltzing away without a care in the world.

Nudity never fails to draw my attention. This doesn’t make me unique, as most people react to someone else being nude in their presence. What confuses me are the people that don’t have that reaction.

“Growing up, I would frequently walk around the house naked,” a friend once said, which sounds foreign to me. I grew up in a household where we were always clothed. All the time. No sports bras without shirts on and no lazing around after a shower with your towel on. There was an unspoken rule that everyone would be dressed for the day within minutes of waking and expected to be tied, buttoned, laced, or zippered up.

 Once I started college and lived in the dorms, my roommates would tease me for acting weird about nudity. I did everything I could to avoid it. Diverting my eyes while they casually changed in front of me. Turning away as they toweled off, completely untroubled. And when I’d have to change my clothes around my roommates, I’d swiftly maneuver to hide it all.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that it’s not as much the discomfort with other bodies as it is my own. This discovery was further solidified in an offhand remark I once made to my therapist, “A negative relationship with my body is the longest relationship I’ve ever had.” I never accepted my belly rolls, nor my blinding pale skin, nor my dark body hair that crawls up my arms and legs to announce themselves to the world. I was convinced people stared at me under a microscope, diligently looking for flaws. I noticed a correlation between feelings of embarrassment about my body and slight anxiety whenever someone was naked in my presence.

When I started to date, I aired my body grievances to a friend, wondering if potential partners would fixate on my flaws. I complained to her, “What if he notices my gut? Won’t he say anything?”

Her blunt observation on the state of young straight men: “Honestly, he’s probably just excited about boobs.”

Nonetheless, during my first two years of college, I’d taken to exercise tapes and waxing salons to cover these perceived flaws. Even if I looked different, nothing changed within me. I’d still scroll on social media and see flat stomach after flat stomach, like a group of friends on the beach or a track star dripping perfectly uniform beads of sweat after a run. These were the bodies I thought were deemed socially acceptable. Mine was never enough.

But when I was 20, I studied abroad in Europe, a continent where nude beaches are standard and American prudishness is comical. One weekend, I attended an overnight frisbee tournament with my team. After a long day of sprinting and throwing, we were finally able to hit the showers. I was looking forward to a nice refresher until I realized that there were no shower stalls; it was a dimly lit and stale shower room. Mostly everyone walked past me, clothes off with loofahs and soaps in hand. While the European girls were unfazed, the only other American and I stared at each other as we questioned what to do. We went back and forth over the discomfort of the situation. At one point, we even questioned if our sweaty bodies needed showers after all. Suddenly, my fellow American stopped pondering and gave in. “I’m dripping in sweat!” she said, as she valiantly ripped off her clothes to join the unassuming teammates who were laughing in the shower about the freezing cold water.

 So, I hesitantly peeled off my jersey, shorts, and socks. I took my place below a shower head and felt the cool water on me. With this, I stood up a bit taller and relaxed a bit more. Though I took the quickest shower of my life, in those powerful 30 seconds, I started to uncover an exhilarating reality: no one was paying attention to me, and I certainly wasn’t paying attention to them.

From an American locker room to a European one, the “shock” of nudity is my journey to finding comfort within my own body. I have come to understand, at different vistas and pit stops along the way, that I’m a body. Everyone is, and we either emerged through a birth canal or an incision to inhabit a small space in this world. Clothing and sizing don’t really matter when we’re gone. While I work my mind through hang-ups on my body, I try to focus on the fact that it’s just my naked body, from which I was born, and to which I will return.