COMING TO YOUR SENSES

 

Sensual. As in: related to the senses. 

We, as most animals, have five. Sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. 

The word sensual, despite being little more than a word to describe “input from the senses” has become a word we associate with a more rich, rewarding context. The flavor of the pasta sauce was sensual. She arrived in a sensual black dress. A sensual aroma filled the room. He listened to the sensual beat of the latin rhythms.

And she touched him, sensually.

The word sensual has become something enticing, erotic. It’s one of my favorite words. 

As I write this I am on vacation in a sensual part of the world. The tastes, aromas, weather and people can all readily be described as “sensual.” And appropriately so. And during this vacation I’ve had a chance to explore some things which have been ringing around just inside my skull, waiting for an opportunity to be discovered and considered.

For a few years I have been commenting here on nudity, and how mentally and physically it’s been affecting me. And on this trip, I think I found the connecting tissue between feeling like an imposter when I call - or don’t call - myself a nudist. More on that in a moment.

On this trip I’ve been undressed a lot of the time. Pretty much any time we’re in our room, in fact. My wife has been accepting and not really commenting upon it save her insistence I wear at the very least a shirt when I’m out on the balcony during daylight hours. (The travelers in the rooms to both sides of ours sit on their balconies in the evening, so I get it.) But at night, particularly late at night, I don’t bother with the shirt and have spent a few hours just luxuriating in the sultry breezes and sound of the surf down below.

After several early morning hours of insomnia in which I went out onto the balcony, last night was a change. A strong wind had blown up overnight, and as I stepped onto the balcony I felt little gusts as they blew across my body. The hair on my head. Across my shoulders and arms. Tickling my chest and stomach hair. Blowing around Lil Rambler and the boys. It was wonderfully sensual. I stood in the gusting wind, eyes closed, soaking in the senses being touched. The breeze was slightly chilled and humid. The aromas of the seas permeated the air. The hairs across my body were being aroused and teased. I turned around and let the wind caress my back and legs.

Last night was the crystallizing night on my thinking. I’m not a nudist. If anything, I’m a sensualist I simply love the sensuality of being nude and experiencing the sensory input that comes from being so. It’s not about sex, heaven knows there’s precious little of that available to me now. To me, the experience of nudity - mine or anyone else’s - derives from a sense of trust, of intimacy. And now, I understand, of a sensuality - enjoyment of the senses of being nude for the physical engagement of it.

Unlike nudists and naturists being naked isn’t a full-on lifestyle for me, it’s a niche physical and mental source of pleasure. And this may be a complete misread as to what people who pursue the nude lifestyle value, but I don’t want to go hang out for a week at a nude resort. I don’t want to sit in a hot tub with 37 friends and acquaintances. I don’t particularly have much interest in playing strip poker with anyone other than maybe a few close friends. And if I’m naked and others are clothed it’s not a group situation, it’s because I know and trust those people and am not simply flashing them. It’s not sexual, it’s sensual.

For me, the nudity is for the physical pleasure derived from the sensations of it, and for the intimacy it bestows with others. I’ve been naked in front of several groups of students for art classes, and while it was erotic in its own way, it wasn’t nearly as personally pleasurable as when my artist girlfriend and one of her friends were the only ones in the room. 

Let me explain.

There are two aspects of nudity for me: the sensual and the sexual. The sexual is self-explanatory. But for some people sex is a fast, intense and powerful drive to climax. It’s not sensual, it’s purely sexual. In a way, the difference is why I dislike most pro-porn: it’s all about gyrating hips, thrusting and poorly acted emoting.

But show me two (or more) people engaged in each other and it’s far more erotic. And sensual.

Have you ever noticed the difference between the brightly lit porn actors who are just fucking, versus more romantically lit scenes in post-porn films who are performing oral sex? Porn actors have this thing about ‘looking into each other’s eyes.” Other actors get the sensual eroticism and generally perform the way most real people have sex: eyes wide shut.

Think about it. The last time you performed oral sex - and if you’ve never done so you need to try - did you stare into your partners eyes or close your own? Chances are the latter.

Closing your eyes allows the other senses to take over. Allows them to evaluate the experience and creates multiple inputs for your own erotic brain. The feeling of your tongue on your partner’s genitals, the taste and (hopefully pleasant) aromas. These are sensory inputs lacking in straight coitus (or gay/lesbian coitus, just so nobody feels left out). By closing your eyes, whether giving or receiving, you will be able to focus on far more sensual and sensory input than with your eyes open. And it’s that sensory variety that makes for an erotic experience.

And, in its own way, that’s a relative short step from why I enjoy being naked as often as possible without being a de facto nudist. (Example. I'm writing this essay fully clothed.) 

Unlike nudists and naturists - and I understand this is a vast overgeneralization - for me it’s not about being naked simply for the sake of being naked, it’s because of the physical sensations brought on by that nudity, both the erotic and the merely sensual, which I derive from the sensory input - particularly from my skin.

The skin, it is said, is the largest organ of the body. It covers nearly the entirety of it, with nine "perforations" for men and ten for women. (Women had the all-important uterine access point as well as a separate unitary tract. Men consolidate the ejaculation and urinary paths. The penis obviously morphs to accommodate each action.)

By far, our skin possesses the greatest degree of sensual input points of any other sense in the body. Healthy human bodies can feel everything from the light brush of a breeze through the tiny little hairs on our arms, to deep strokes from a particularly robust massage. Our fingertips are adept at the slightest sensation, and can produce movements designed to entice and pleasure other areas of the body. 

For me, nudity is about the sensuality of touch. Whether it’s the feeling of a sheet in the bed as you turn over in your sleep, the rush of water across your body in a shower, a bath, the pool or hot tub, the sensation of earth as you lay out under the sun drying off, or the soft caress of a lover as they work their way across the landscape of your body - or you theirs.

A friend recently texted me. She had recently moved to a house with a private backyard pool, and was relaxing in her yard with a glass of wine. After years of listening to me extol the virtues of laying out nude in my yard she decided to try for herself, and quickly let me know she now understood what I enjoy about it. It’s not sexual, it’s sensual. The soft breeze as it blows across your body. The dryness that comes with not wearing a wet bathing suit. The casual relaxation when uninhibited by the trappings of tight clothing.

It’s a sensual thing. 

In The Realm of the Senses