He looked like Mao Tse-Tung on steroids. Jet-black hair and a stern Asiatic visage topped thickly muscled arms and shoulders. It was a classic socialist realist painting of a stolid Soviet-era championship swimmer. He did not look very happy as he peered down from his vantage point on the wall high above the diving boards.
Perhaps he disapproved of the crowd of bathers cavorting in the pool below.
There they were – frolicking in all their natural glory, swimsuits definitely optional.
A friend had called with an intriguing new way to spend a Sunday afternoon in Kyiv. He had been coyly recruited to join the ranks of a local 'naturalist' ('nudist' for those with a more forthright vocabulary) society over the summer on the beach at Hydropark. Would he care to prolong the pleasure of bathing naturally during the cold and gloomy season? It can be arranged …
A discreet rendezvous led to visits to pools where like-minded enthusiasts could relax in the buff. It was all very vague – even furtive – but my friend was soon in the swim of things. The group met twice a week – on Sundays and Tuesdays – in various locations around town. Sundays were better, as the pool was heated. Tuesdays were for the stoic, or perhaps masochistic.
It was a glorious autumn day as we took the tram across the bridge into the most exotic reaches of the Left Bank. A short walk from the stop led us to a decaying concrete structure housing a public pool. The front doors were locked but the cognoscenti knew what to do. One had to go round the back and enter through a service entrance. We plunged into a dimly lit boiler room – the perfect setting for some NKVD execution chamber. Pipes hissed and gurgled as we twisted and turned our way through narrow catwalks and concrete paths. It was a strange and symbolic trek from the world of convention to that of a very specific sub-culture.
First, the locker room. Every guy sooner or later learns how to deal with stripping down at the gym. Boys will be boys and you grow up horsing around or being horsed around, snapping towels or being snapped. Victimizer or victim, you adjust to the pecking order of masculinity and most importantly you pretend to absolutely never notice the sexual organs of your compatriots. After all, we're all guys and we all adjust. As David Bowie sings, boys always work it out.
Bringing the other sex into the picture disrupts this subtle process of socialization. Even more traumatic than the other sex in the locker room is another generation. Younger I can deal with. Older – well that's another story. Call me old fashioned but I find it unnerving to change in front of an older woman. After all, it's like getting naked before your mother's friends. Acceptable when you're 4, impossible when you're 34.
There she was – a woman of a certain age in all her frizzy dyed blonde glory, adjusting her bra straps over her ample bosom and rummaging through her handbag.
A portrait of fleshy folds, cheap perfume, and smeared makeup. I was already unnerved – and she was leaving. When you first meet naturalists, there is no escaping what I call the 'darty-eyed syndrome.' Darty eyes are a common phenomenon in Ukraine. You see them at Borispol when Ukrainian citizens are smuggling something in or out, or encounter them with militia officers or bureaucrats trying to shake you down. With naturalists, the darty eyes betray their sexual curiosity. The ideology of nudism has always stressed the de-sexualized nature of its fun in the sun. After all it is often a family affair and no sexual undercurrent is allowed.
However, this is theory. In practice, however, I found all my new naturalist friends very quickly but unmistakably flicking their eyes down there when I was introduced to them. I guess the new boy on the block had to be checked out.
They were a friendly bunch. A sprightly old gent – who turned out to be a World War II veteran – chatted me up about the wonders of U.S.-supplied Spam canned meat at the front when he discovered I was an American. An unexpectedly attractive group of young men and women were playing an informal game of volleyball in the shallow end of the pool. This provided the participants many opportunities to stretch and lift. A fat bearded man with an astoundingly large appendage was holding court with a group of friends in the corner by the diving platforms.
Techno music blasted from a boom box as the two dozen or so nudists splashed in the water and created a generally festive atmosphere. I must report that some of the women did not go all the way – so to speak – in the disrobing department. All were bare-breasted, but a few gals kept on the bottom part of their swimsuits. I pondered the ideological implications of partial nudity. Was this modesty an affront to the maximalists?
The real chumminess was to be found in the sauna. The room was jammed tightly with people of all ages trying to build up a sweat. Bodies heaved and sighed as new arrivals clambered and climbed to squeeze onto the benches. I bravely plunged in an attempt to find standing room and was immediately pinned against the wall by perky breasts and muscular buttocks. It was alarmingly arousing and I tried to conjure up images to deflate my imminent excitement. I thought of wheat fields. I thought of grandmothers. And suddenly I spotted a granny, sitting on the end – all crinkly smiles.
I had to get out. It was all too Rite of Spring for my taste. I conjured up images of frenzied sexual fury followed by a human sacrifice to the ancient Slavic sun god.
Declining to become a possible hors d'oeuvre to a pagan deity, I retreated to the wood-panelled lounge. Two young women who could have been members of the Spice Girls (one of them actually had the blonde-haired horns) chatted me up with giggly girlish glee. A number of athletic young men cast vulpine glances in our direction. Occasionally a couple of the men gave each other massages on the lounge chairs.
A cackling middle-aged woman seemed willing to massage anyone who came within grabbing distance.
It was time to leave. Somehow naturalism in the late autumn does not hold the same appeal as during the warm summer months. The building was poorly insulated and I was cold and clammy. Rather than stripping I wanted to wrap myself up in politically incorrect furs and go into hibernation. Sometimes a good hot cup of tea is more alluring than any sexual organ on display.
My new naturalist friends eagerly pressed me to pay a return visit. Would I return? Perhaps. If I was hard-up for a date. After all, with this crowd it's all up front – and you'll never be surprised when you unwrap the package. But that is precisely the problem with nudism. Nothing is left to the imagination.
(Peter Bejger is the director of public relations for Burson-Marsteller Ukraine.)
