Naked CouchSurfing

[Daft]

You’re Not a Stranger When You Leave




DANIEL RUF and Patrick Palme, budget-minded students from Hanover, Germany, drove across the United States this spring without paying for nearly any of their accommodations. During the trip, they stayed overnight in 20 cities with people they met through CouchSurfing, a social networking Web site whose members make their homes available to travelers free of charge.

But after sending dozens of requests to New Yorkers, the only response they got was from Robert Redmond, a 48-year-old retired New York City parks department employee, whose online profile shows him crawling naked into a kayak on the Delaware River.

Mr. Redmond, it turned out, was a member of the site’s Clothing Optional group and has been a nudist since the age of 23, when he first skinny-dipped in Lake Michigan. For the last year, he has been hosting travelers in his three-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, most of the time wearing nothing but a Swiss Army watch and a weathered pair of Tevas.

“I’ll always slip on some shorts if my guests are uncomfortable,” he said recently, as he served bagels and lox to Mr. Ruf and Mr. Palme, who were fully clothed but appeared perfectly at ease with Mr. Redmond, who was not.

“It’s Bob’s home,” said Mr. Palme, 20. “He can do whatever he wants.”

Mr. Ruf, 21, added: “We’re just happy to have a place to stay.”

As membership in CouchSurfing’s seven-year-old global community has soared to more than 2.8 million from around 4,000 in 2004, so has the number of its online groups, through which members share their interests. There are now more than 36,000, including straightforward categories like “Piano Players” and “Libertarians” and more existential ones like “What Am I Doing With My Life?”

Those looking for a nudist-friendly environment have a variety of groups from which to choose — not just Clothing Optional, but also Naked at Home, Freedom for Nudity, Nudist Lifestyle and nakedveganpotsmokingcyclists, among others. By designating their homes as nudist-friendly spaces, members of these groups provide travelers with temporary havens from the tyranny of fabric and public nudity laws. More important, perhaps, from the hosts’ viewpoint, they are taking the intimacy of couch surfing to an extreme, bringing the unguarded ethos of the nudist camp into their homes.

More than 1,100 people belong to the Clothing Optional group, which is exactly what it sounds like: people who may or may not choose to be naked, but are open to the option. The group’s goal is not to cater exclusively to nudists but, in the words of the CouchSurfing mission statement, to “create inspiring experiences.” For Clothing Optional hosts and couch surfers, that means that being open-minded is as important as being naked.

Yves Bournival, a 56-year-old nudist and retired video editor in Vancouver, Canada, has hosted travelers for more than 10 years through organizations like the Hospitality Club, a precursor of CouchSurfing founded in 2000. Since joining CouchSurfing in 2009, Mr. Bournival said that nearly all of his guests, nudist or not, had taken off their clothes soon after arriving at his apartment.

“When they see how comfortable I am in the nude,” he wrote in an e-mail, “my guess is they trust me and want to experience it as well.”

But while most of Mr. Bournival’s guests are reluctant to follow his lead outside his home (at one of Vancouver’s naked yoga classes, say), those who stay with Darius Zubrickas, an interior designer in San Francisco, sometimes prefer to be naked in more communal settings.

“We had a German couple and a British couple who didn’t hang out naked in the apartment,” Mr. Zubrickas said, speaking naked over Skype. “But they came with me to the nude beaches and got naked there.”

Mr. Zubrickas, 43, has hosted some 50 couch surfers in the studio apartment he shares with his partner of 18 years. (“He wasn’t a nudist when we met,” Mr. Zubrickas said. “But he is now.”) In his profile, Mr. Zubrickas writes: “This is a nudist home,” and to avoid misunderstandings, he reminds couch surfers who ask to stay with him to read the profile in its entirety.



Stephanie Muise, 37, a social worker in Toronto, recalled the incredulous stare she got from a German couch surfer when, halfway into his stay, he found her working on her laptop unclothed. “I asked if he had read my profile, and he said ‘yes,’ but he thought I was joking about the nudity stuff,” Ms. Muise said.

Her profile photograph, she noted, shows her naked underwater. “I was like, ‘Why would I joke about something like that?’ ”

As a woman, Ms. Muise is in the minority of Clothing Optional hosts.

“Women have to be more conscientious about safety,” she said, noting a 2009 incident in which a British man was accused of raping a woman he met through the CouchSurfing site. “You don’t hear about guys getting sexually assaulted on CouchSurfing.”

While her male counterparts often greet guests in the nude, she usually wears a sarong until she feels comfortable enough to be naked in the presence of her couch surfers. And several of her male guests — both nudists and “textilists,” her word for people who wear clothes — have misinterpreted her decision to go naked in her apartment. (A one-bedroom in a 16-story co-op, it has two couches, an army cot and a queen-size air mattress that, last New Year’s Eve, slept four weary couch surfers.)

“People often think it’s a sexual thing,” Ms. Muise said. “In truth, it’s a lifestyle thing. Society is confining me when I have to wear clothes to work. So when I come home, I take off my shoes, feed my cats and get naked, because that’s how I’m most comfortable.”

For some, that is a difficult concept to grasp. As Barbara Hadley, 56, head of public relations for the International Naturist Federation, put it: “When you think about non-nudists, they disrobe only for the doctor, the bath and sex. So if you’re not at the doctor or taking a bath, then obviously. ...”

Ms. Muise, who identifies as a “naturist,” or one who practices nudity in nature, says she believes the word nudist has “taken on a negative sexual connotation.” Unlike many Clothing Optional hosts, she does not disclose her sexual orientation in her profile. “CouchSurfing is not a dating site,” she said, “so why should it matter whether I’m gay or straight?”

Indeed, all new members must agree not to use the site for dating purposes. “Inevitably, some people may end up dating as a result of meeting through the Web site,” said Daniel Hoffer, one of CouchSurfing’s founders. “But that’s not the mission of the organization.”

Mr. Hoffer had not heard of the Clothing Optional group, but “there are so many wacky groups on CouchSurfing, it doesn’t surprise me that it exists,” he said. “It’s fully within our social mission to enable and support groups that cause members to challenge assumptions and learn about other ways of living.”

Amelia Borntrager, 44, a Clothing Optional host and manager for a landscaping company living in Chandler, Ariz., said she has had some of the best conversations of her life with naked couch surfers.

“When you slip off all your clothes, it’s such a raw moment,” she said. “There’s something about that natural state of being that makes you want to reveal yourself emotionally.” Male surfers, in particular, tend to make excellent eye contact, she said, for fear of letting their gaze wander.

Ms. Borntrager has two roommates who share her three-bedroom house — friends who aren’t fazed by naked couch surfers, because Ms. Borntrager has converted them to nudism. But what about non-nudist roommates of Clothing Optional hosts? How do they feel about sharing their homes with a rotating cast of naked people?

Javier Sanchez, 29, has occupied a small bedroom in Mr. Redmond’s 110th Street apartment since April. In Mr. Sanchez’s last living situation, his roommate was really uptight and “wouldn’t let anybody stay over,” he said. “So obviously, living with Bob has been a big change.”

For the better?

“Oh, definitely,” he said. “Before they met him, my friends were like, ‘You’re living with a nudist?’ But now they’re like, ‘You have the coolest roommate!’ They all want to come back and hang out with him.”


NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/garden/nudists-open-their-homes-to-budget-minded-travelers.html?_r=1

[kristin]

Sounds like a collegy thing to do....I dont have any friends whove done this and I'm pretty sure I'm too chicken!  lol

[prodigal_son]

What a great article. A number of my friends have done couchsurfing, both having guests and being a guest in anothers home, as far as I know not nudist! I've been thinking of travelling the US so this could be a cheap way to do it!

[london26]

im a member of couch surfing, great way to meet people, only had clothed stays thou hah

[luca]

do you have experience in couch surfing generally ?

[london26]

yep had a couple of people stay with me, was pretty good, all pretty nice and not to much of a problem to have stay

[mikeisnude]

This sounds like a great idea.  You save money sure but just the ability to meet other nudists would be amazing.  Just for the record if anyone comes thru central IL they are more then welcome to the couch here 

[AmericanSwede]

I am on couchsurfing and host all the time. Mine is a nudist home, and that is explained in my profile, so all my surfers know they have to give it a try. Most of them end up loving it and wondering why they had not done it sooner!

If anyone is coming to West Hollywood and wants to surf a nudist home, message me.

[Mettis]

Great article 
I know this hosting site I have good memories...

[Kemubu]

I've hosted several surfers in the nude. Sometimes they've been nude also, sometimes not.

[matthew2002]

I really need to get more, the internet changing rapidly, for better or worse

[lock7235]

i hope to go backpacking some time this year or next, so i will be definetly looking into this

[Kemubu]

Well, if any of you have your way through Sweden Gothenburg, you know where to crash :)