The Double Exposure
A forty‑eight‑year‑old Black nudist explains what it means to be both invisible and hypervisible at the same time when your naked body is treated as a fetish, a threat, and a test.
Moderator’s note: Desiree emailed this after Ryan’s comment on Alex’s post. She said, “If I don’t write it, I will scream.” Sam says: This is the post we have been waiting for. Sam
The Double Exposure
By Desiree_33
I am forty-eight years old. I am Black. I am thick. I have been a nudist for fifteen years. I say this because those three facts do not coexist peacefully in the American imagination.
You want me when you want me. You want me in your porn searches, your “exotic” fantasies, your stories about the one wild night you never actually had. You want me as a fetish, a curiosity, a checkmark. But you do not want me next to you on a towel. You do not want me in your line of sight when you are trying to have a “normal” naked day.
I have been to nude beaches where white men walked straight up to me and said, “I’ve never been with a Black woman before,” like my naked body was a sample tray at a grocery store. I have been to resorts where I was the only Black person in a sea of pink skin, and the stares were not about nudity. They were about placement. They were asking what I was doing there, how I got in, whether I belonged.
I have been invisible and hypervisible at the exact same time.
Invisible because the staff at the front desk looked past me to my white ex-husband to confirm our reservation. Invisible because when I raised a concern about a man following me to the parking lot, the manager said, “He probably just wanted to talk.” Hypervisible because every white man who thinks he is entitled to “try something new” sees me as a menu item. Hypervisible because my body is never just a body. It is a statement. It is a protest. It is a fetish waiting to be claimed.
Here is what white nudists do not understand. When you say “we are all just bodies here,” you are speaking from a body that has never been legislated. Your nakedness is neutral. Mine is loaded. My nakedness carries the history of Sarah Baartman, of auction blocks, of medical experiments, of every white hand that ever grabbed Black flesh and called it property. I do not get to just be naked. I have to be naked while calculating whether the man staring is curious or dangerous. Whether the woman clutching her towel is scared of me or disgusted by me. Whether the police will be called if I answer back too loudly.
And then you come to this blog and say “not everything is about race.” You say “I don’t see color.” You say “why can’t we just be positive?”
Because I am not allowed to just be positive. My positivity is earned at a cost your body never pays.
Last month at a resort in Florida, a man in his fifties followed me from the pool to the snack bar to the restroom path. Not the restroom. The path. He stood at the fork where the trees start, and he watched me. I walked faster. He did not move. I found a staff member and described him. White shirt, khaki shorts, wedding ring. The staff member said, “Are you sure he was following you? Some people just wander.”
Some people just wander. I have been wandering for forty-eight years. I know the difference between wandering and hunting.
I am writing this because I am tired of being the only one who names it. I am tired of watching Jen get harassed, and Jody get ignored, and then hearing that our anger is the problem. The problem is not our anger. The problem is what keeps happening to us.
If you are white and reading this, I am not asking for your guilt. Guilt is cheap and easy. I am asking for your sight. Actually look at who is sitting next to you. Notice who is missing from the group photo. Notice who gets the “wandering” excuse and who gets the security escort.
My name is Desiree. I am forty-eight. I am Black, and I am thick, and I am nude right now in my own home, which is the only place I have ever truly felt safe. I deserve more than this. We all do.
Comments
Jody: Desiree, I am so sorry. I thought I understood invisibility. I didn't. I only understood my own. Thank you for showing me the rest.
Jen: I wrote about being fetishized as Asian. I thought that was the whole story. It isn't. What you carry is a weight I will never know. But I see you. I am listening.
Marcus_W: I am a Black man in this space and I have never spoken about it. Desiree, you just spoke for me too. The "wandering" excuse, the "probably just wanted to talk" dismissal. I know it in my bones.
Clara_44: I am crying. I am white and I am fat and I have my own invisibility, but I have never once feared that my body would be read as a threat or a fetish just because of my skin. I am taking up space in your comments and I hope I am not making this about me. I just want you to know I am here and I am learning.
Ryan_30: Here we go again. Another post making nudism about identity politics. You people cannot just enjoy anything. You have to turn every space into a battlefield. Maybe that man was just walking to the snack bar. Maybe he was just wandering. But because you have been conditioned to see racism everywhere, you saw a predator. This is exhausting.
Desiree_33: @Ryan_30 "Conditioned." You think I imagined forty-eight years of hands and eyes and slurs? You think I need conditioning to recognize a man blocking a path? You are not exhausting. You are just wrong. And you have been wrong on every single thread.
BeachBum_Mike: @Desiree_33 I don't see color at nude beaches. Never have. We're all just people under the sun. If you are seeing racism everywhere, maybe that's your lens, not reality.
Desiree_33: @BeachBum_Mike If you don't see color, then you don't see me. That is the point. You see beige people. Everyone else is a blur you get to ignore.
Heather_38: I really wish we could focus on what unites us instead of what divides us. Nudism is supposed to be about freedom and equality. All this anger just pushes people away who might otherwise be allies.
Desiree_33: @Heather_38 My anger is not the reason you are not an ally. Your comfort is.
Nate_29: @Ryan_30 @BeachBum_Mike You two are the reason this post had to be written. Every time. Every single time a woman of color speaks here, you show up to tell her she is imagining things. You are not skeptics. You are symptoms.
YoungNFree22: @Nate_29 I am a white guy and I used to think like Mike. "I don't see color." Then I shut up and listened. Desiree, thank you for your patience. I know you shouldn't have to educate us. But I am learning.
Aisha_B: I said I was staying home. I am still staying home. Because if Desiree with fifteen years in this lifestyle still gets followed to the restroom path, what chance do I have?
Rosa_68: @Aisha_B Come anyway. We need you. We need your body and your voice and your presence. The predators want us scattered and scared. Fuck them. Fuck all of them.
Sam_Moderator: Ryan_30, you are banned. BeachBum_Mike, you are on your final warning. Heather_38, if you "wish we could focus on positivity" one more time while a Black woman is describing being stalked, you will join him. I have let this go on too long because I thought open dialogue meant letting poison sit at the table. It doesn't. Desiree, I am sorry. I should have done this three posts ago. Everyone else: this thread stays open. The trolls do not.
Nigel_58: Bloody hell. You lot do know how to have a row. But @Desiree_33, you are right. Even I can see that, and I am a miserable old postman who lives on an island.
New entries in the Naked Voices thread go up every Tuesday and Friday. Read along in order to follow the whole conversation.
