BREAST STORIES

Bare Breasts Are Happy Breasts

If you love your boobs, set them free

It’s fun to be nude at the YMCA. You know that tune, right? Maybe your grandfather told you about his naked YMCA days. Maybe it was your gym teacher, sweet old Mr. Schlong, who imprinted his skimpy nylon dolphin shorts onto your innocent brain.

Back in my day, my peepaw told me, we had to swim neck-ed at the Y. Anyone who jumped in wearing a pair of tight whities was rewarded with an instant wedgy.

I don’t know what perv came up with naked swimming, but I think it’s brilliant. I say, if you haven’t skinny-dipped, you haven’t swam naked.

Back in my day, swimming at the YMCA was relatively PG. Anything was sexy to adolescent boys, but we, girl swimmers, didn’t feel sexy in our swimwear. Our team suits were blended steel wool and cotton that began under our chins and concluded right above our knees. I had no idea what any of the other girls' bodies looked like underneath because we changed in the bathroom stalls.

There was none of this high-leg, low-back shit swim team girls wear today. I’d head out for pizza right after swim team. I put a belt around my swimsuit’s waist and it moonlighted as a jumper — such a time saver. I didn’t have to shower, go home or change. For a jumper, it was risqué, but for a swimsuit, it was a nun’s habit.

An old high school friend, who I swam with, called me the other day. “You won’t believe where I am right now,” she said. “I’m getting my daughter waxed for her swim meet. Remember our suits?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Potato sacks.”

“Not anymore,” she said. “These girls gotta wax everything or they’re sporting hair shorts.”

I heard the first time I heard the words hair shorts used in a sentence. This was before hair shorts roamed free in the general population of shit people said. I heard it from my friend who has 40 lbs of hair on her head, which means she has about five pounds in the bush.

She had to cancel our dinner plans because she’d finally gotten an appointment with a coveted waxer at the The Burning Bush. I gotta deal with these hair shorts, she said, before I go to Hawaii.

She was dating someone new and they were taking his private plane to hula-ville for an impromptu vacay. The flying boyfriend usually dated 20-somethings and she claimed he’d never seen the hairy bushes of yesteryear. She was pushing 40, so she’d worn hair shorts for decades before they needed to be addressed.

Waxing only cost $75 bucks and she’d get her own flight attendant. If my waxy amiga played her pubes right, she could skip TSA screenings for rest of her life.

My gynecologist says she remembers the day she had six patients come in who’d all donned fully waxed vaginas. She said, Originally, I only saw a waxed vagina once a week and I always thought ‘that’s so sad.’ Suddenly everyone was waxed. I felt like a pediatrician for grown women. Where had all the pubes gone?

Let me get back to my fascination for naked gyms, which have no affiliation to Naked Wines. Though I am curious about naked gyms, I am not totally surprised that they’re a thing. I’m a member of a few exercise Facebook groups and women are always posting their before and after bikini photos.

It was only a matter of time until we were running down the streets naked showing each other our well-cultivated abs and recalibrated breasts. Exhibitionism is trending.

Posting yourself in a bikini online used to be rare, reserved for the ex-prom queens who married derivatives traders. Now, it was soccer moms, CEOs, bankers, kindergarten teachers, dog walkers, coders, and judges. The eagle had landed.

The bikini selfie was the gateway drug to the naked gym. We really wanted people to see us naked. We have worked hard on our abs, arms, and tummies. Why keep it to ourselves?

I’ve never been tempted to post a bikini selfie online — a before or after. In my day, internet nudity was something that happened to you — like a sex tape. It was something you paid a lawyer to take down.

I want to join a naked gym, but I decided to try it at home first. To see if it logistically worked. Would my breasts get in the way? Would I mind my boobs scraping the rug during push-ups? Would I hurt myself? Would downward dog get me a boob punch in the eye? Would planks be more difficult to maintain?

Naked working out definitely needed a home test before taking this body public. I know what you’re thinking. Your poor children. Nobody wants to see their naked mom touching her toes. Be assured. That’s why people send children to school.

Now you’re worrying about my home exercise equipment. Blech, you’re probably thinking. Is anyone truly clean down there in the nethers? Don’t worry so much. I have calendula baby wipes from when my son was young. You’re probably thinking wipes don’t last forever.

I’ve thought about that. If the wipes are dried out, I have Absolut Vodka from when I was making my own COVID hand sanitizer. If someone drank all that, I’ll put one of those rock-hard YMCA terry cloth tiny towels on the equipment seats. I have thought of everything.

Full disclosure — in my first naked home test, I started topless and on my exercise bike. I felt like my bike pants were gorilla glued to my body. I wasn’t ready.

I hung my bra to the handles in case the mailman broke in or my son came home sick from school. I felt oddly self-conscious. My bike faces the front door.

At first, my toplessness was glaring to me. So much bouncing. Do I like it or not like it? I wondered. It was kind of relaxing, pendulum-esque. My boobs were hypnotizing me. Would I get so sleepy, I’d fall off my bike?

When I started sweating, I became more aware of my nipples. They were like fingers pointing, go this way, no go that way. They looked happy. I said, hello nipples, but they ignored me because they were having the time of their life.

What surprised me the most was it didn’t take long to forget about my breasts. I felt the sweat rolling down my back. I thought backs are vast. I noticed a pinch in my knee. Ouch. I concentrated on my breathing. By the time I was done riding to nowhere, I was ready for the next step.

I laughed at myself. I’d only been brave enough to take off my top. I was playing strip poker with myself. Next time, I’d go bareback. Why not? I was struck by how much I had compartmentalized my body. Naked was definitely a journey I needed to take. I was repressed as hell. I needed naked gyms. Did I mention the naked gyms aren’t co-ed?

I can’t wait to horrify my grandkids one day by saying over dinner, Meemaw used to go to spin classes in the nude.

I hope by then, humans will have evolved and my grandkids will say, People wore clothes to work out? Gross!

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