My Secrets Are Safer on Medium
Why I like to get naked with perfect strangers.
I have trust issues. But who doesn’t?
I still envy the gaggles of girls that giggle as they paint their toenails and gossip about their latest crush. In high school, I wasn’t one of them. I would leave sleepovers a grumpy mess, hibernating in my room, talking to no one for days upon days.
Yes, I’m an introvert. The weird, unconventionally conventional kind (because what introvert fits into a box?). I’m the kind that wants to tell it all on an online platform and then squirrel up in my apartment, binge-watching shows on Amazon Prime while eating a vegan rice bowl and sipping on sparkling water.
I can’t keep secrets, so don’t tell me yours.
I don’t like secrets and I don’t like holding onto heavy emotions or negative thoughts. So I dump them. On here. For you to read. Because why not?
I always feel lighter after I shed layers of my psyche. It’s kind of like stripping in front of a new lover. There is something sensual and exhilarating about baring the parts of myself that I hide from most of the world.
Once I bare my private bits to you, suddenly you’re a member of my secrets club. Once you’ve seen all of me, there’s nothing left to hide.
I personally hate hiding. It’s draining. There are more enjoyable things I’d love to be doing with my time than covering my ass and vagina and breasts with clothing your imaginative self is going to see right through anyway.
Stripping in front of my readers encourages them to do the same.
If I get naked, maybe you will too. Maybe my courage to bare it all will inspire yours. This world needs more nakedness — cellulite, wrinkles, flab and all.
What I learned from a nudist might help you too.
I once spent 7 hours talking to a 65-year-old nudist (I know, that’s a looooong-ass time to be talking to someone with no clothes on, right?). She had clothes on by the way — but her 70-year-old husband didn’t (yeah that was a little awkward for my 22-year-old self).
What did I learn my braless friend? (She and her husband had a pool in their basement where nakedness was mandatory).
When you spend all day talking to naked people, you stop sexualizing them. People with clothing on suddenly seem a lot more prude, and a lot more sensual. You want to just undress them with your imagination. You want them to stop hiding. You want them to bare it all, just like you.
What are we hiding anyway?
Pride? Vulnerability? Fear? Sadness? Grief? Loneliness? Lust? Longing?
Hiding everyday human emotions can feel restricting. Like clothing, it might look cute, but underneath those layers, our skin is getting chafed, our armpits are sweaty, our crotch can’t breathe.
Baring my secrets in my writing is like becoming a nudist.
It feels awkward at first. Even uncomfortable. Maybe a little embarrassing. And then, when readers comment that my words inspired them to get more naked with their feelings more often, I feel a sense of freedom. I suddenly enjoy the feeling of the skin I’m in baring itself to the world, scars and all.
Maybe that braless, saggy-breasted lady wasn’t just the neighborhood weirdo. Maybe us weirdos are the ones that will save the world, one naked ass word at a time.
