Molly and Mona

By Molly McMann

Growing up, the most influential person in my life was my big sister, Mona. Because she was older -- and mostly because of her uber-strong personality -- Mona always decided what movie we would watch, told me how to dress, etc. Part of my tendency to go along with what she wanted was that she was always so freaking sure of everything. To this day, Mona always knows exactly what she wants while I tend to want multiple different things that conflict.

As soon as she hit puberty, Mona not only knew she was gay, but came out to our parents and everyone who would listen when she was only 13. I was eleven and sexual orientation had not even occurred to me yet, but I decided that lesbianism was a fabulous idea because I wouldn't have to marry an icky boy when I grew up.

Alas, when my own sexuality blossomed, I decided that boys weren't so icky -- at least not all of them -- yet I also had an appreciation for girls. My first kissing-fondling experiences were with a girl (Two words: Sleep Over).

For me, the gender of my significant other was just not that important. However, something else was important instead-- something about me that seemed to make me different from everyone else I knew; that made me different even from everyone in every TV show or popular culture representation I could find. It seemed that no one on the planet was like me, because the thing that I wanted was ... to be naked.

I was aware that there were such things as nudists, but nobody I knew was one. Nobody on TV was one. I found books and articles about them and navigated through porn links trying to find real nudists on the Internet. But even when I found them I didn't relate with them because I didn't want to see those other people naked -- certainly not the kids and old people. I just wanted to be nude myself and to do it among my regular clothed friends, not off at some camp.

Mona was the only one who knew my secret, and although she teased me about it she was also supportive -- and being the kind of person she is, she also made things happen. Mona always had lots of friends, but her closest pals were other jock lesbians from her sports teams, and it was around these girls that I first went socially nude.

As I have written elsewhere, I set things in motion on my own by allowing myself to be "caught" naked by Mona and her pals, but I assumed this would be a two-second experience -- little more than a flash that I could pretend was accidental. But once that started, Mona refused to let me go get dressed, and I ended up staying naked for a couple of hours in front of these other girls. She played it as if she were forcing me to do it, but actually she was bestowing on me a fabulous gift of this experience.

Being jocks, Mona's friends were comfortable with locker room nudity and treated my nakedness with casual acceptance mixed with just the right amount of winking smiles to tell me they were enjoying it. That afternoon I knew with certainty that THIS was what I wanted in life. I wasn't sure whether I wanted a boyfriend or a girlfriend, but I knew I wanted to be the only person naked in the room.

When I first went to college, I signed up to live in an all-girls dorm and was hoping that at least some other girls would be like me, but again I seemed to be the only one. Some girls seemed nonchalant about being naked, but didn't seem to care much either way. Most girls were (I thought) amazingly shy, even just around other girls, covering themselves with towels or robes every second except when getting in and out of the shower. But I didn't necessarily care whether anyone else went naked just so long as I could.

I eased my way into it -- being afraid of a negative reaction -- but began walking the hallways nude going to and from the bathroom. Each floor had its own kitchenette and common room, and soon I was going to those places naked, and no one minded. I got teased for it, which I loved, and very soon I was hooked. Before classes in the morning I would eat my cereal naked in the kitchenette, and in the evenings I would do my homework naked in the common room.

At first the other girls on my floor could barely believe my boldness, but pretty soon they became enablers to my addiction -- daring me to go to other floors or all the way down to the first floor lobby where the vending machines were -- and where I risked being seen by boys.

Boys weren't technically allowed beyond the lobby, and the RAs generally enforced that rule, but plenty of boyfriends were smuggled upstairs. I discovered I did not feel embarrassed in the slightest to be seen by them, and avoided them only if their girlfriends seemed uncomfortable.

Later in college, I lived in off-campus apartments where there were no RAs or rules to limit my choices, yet it wasn't really as good. My roommates were female, but we all had boyfriends. My boyfriend at that time could never decide how he felt about me going naked in front of other guys and we broke up when he tried to give me an ultimatum not to do that anymore.

But he wasn't the only problem. I had some other bad experiences around guys. Nobody ever tried to rape me or anything, but drunk college boys just aren't very good at respecting the boundaries of a naked girl. And a drunk naked girl really needs someone else looking out for her. So at some point I stopped doing that for a while -- but I longed for that special feeling that I had experienced most purely and most innocently among my sister's friends.

By the time I graduated, I was with a different boyfriend and we were pretty hot for each other so I was mostly just going nude around him. As it happened, the end of college came when we were at the high point in our romance and could not bear to be separated -- so Scott and I decided to move together to a city where we could both get jobs.

He wanted to move someplace cool like Seattle or Portland, but that was too far away for me. There was only one city I would consider because that was the city near which Mona now lived -- with her future wife, Libby.

Psychologists say that we seek mates who are similar in some way to our parents. But for me and Mona that formative influence seems to have been each other. Jack (the man I am with nowadays) is like Mona in that he is confident and unflappable, always knowing what to do in any situation. If there is ever a zombie apocalypse or some breakdown in society, these are two people you would want in your tribe.

Meanwhile, Mona had been so tickled by her kid sister's quirky obsession with nudity that it made an imprint on her and she always sought out girlfriends who were willing to hang out naked. Most of them only did it to please her, but Libby, the girl she eventually married, is a real nudist -- more so even than me. She's everything more so than me -- prettier, funnier, crazier and even more adorable. Than me! Hard to believe, isn't it?

By the time I was graduating from college, hard-charging Mona had already gotten a power job in the finance sector, made a bunch of money investing, and had purchased an old farm -- a little Eden of 100 acres of woods and prairie and apple orchards and pine trees where Libby could run naked all she wanted. Their property is an hour's drive or so from a fairly large Midwest city and that's the city I picked when Scott and I were deciding where to relocate after college.

I never regretting choosing that location, but I did soon regret choosing to move there with him. I liked Scott a lot. We had fun together, but ... I wasn't in love with him. Worse, I knew I was simply never going to fall in love with him, and I count among my collected sins allowing him to believe that I might.

For months we lived together in a sterile, lifeless apartment that I could not bring myself to decorate. I did not even unpack all of my boxes. He eventually guessed and I told him I wanted to break up. For a few more weeks we were pathetic platonic roommates -- because even though it was a crappy apartment I couldn't afford my own place yet. He told me he loved me and wanted things to work out. So I knew I had to move out because it just wasn't fair to him for me to stick around.

Fortunately, by this time I had begun making friends at work, and through one of those friends I found a new place to live with a bunch of roommates, and that is where this story actually begins ...