Can you judge a man,
By the way he wears his hair?
Can you read his mind,
By the clothes that he wears?
Can you see a bad man,
By the pattern on his tie?
– from You’re a Better Man Than I (by B. Hugg/M. Hugg), recorded by The Yardbirds

Sometimes revelations come as an afterthought, as one did for me this past weekend. I was chatting with a friend from the Ottawa Naturists group, who was visiting me for a couple of days. I was talking about my public nudism debut at a swim put on by his organization last May — which I wrote about here (and in my other blog) in a post called Nudism/Naturism: One of the Crowd. I had mentioned then that I had felt a little uncomfortable while I waited in the reception area as I watched some of the Naturists arrive — all men, at first.

What I didn’t mentioned in that post, and what only occurred to me this weekend as I talked about the event with my guest, is that part of the reason I was feeling uncomfortable is because all of these guys were dressed in, basically, jeans and sloppy shirts. OK, to put it a little more bluntly: they were kinda scruffy looking. None of them appeared to be dressed for dinner in a fancy restaurant followed by a night at the opera.

But then, as I explained to my guest, when I saw those men in the pool without any clothes on, all of my apprehension about them disappeared. They didn’t look scruffy anymore, and they were all perfect gentlemen when they spoke with me. And afterward, when they got dressed again, they didn’t look scruffy at all.

We all were — and all are — truly equal beneath our clothes, and I am a bit ashamed of myself now for that initial apprehension at the event in May. Because I was singing that old Yardbirds song (link is to YouTube video) back in the 1960s and ’70s. I believed it then . . . I still do now.

And as my guest explained, people tend to dress very casually when they are going to an event at which they will be removing all their clothes.

Makes perfect sense, eh?

Smiles . . .

Jillian