Live Nude Bathers

"Whatever, I just don't get why you wouldn't want to be naked with me in public. I mean, I thought you were straight... it's okay if you're not..."

It's about a year ago during Spring Break and I'm annoyed, lying on the sand at South Beach with an ex and thinking about how much I don't want to be there. It's the kind of day that tourists think they love but true Floridians know is just shy of torture. Cloudless and blazing hot, I'm sweating five steps out of my car's air conditioning, and by the time I get to the shore and spread out my towel, going into the water seems pointless because my skin couldn't possibly be wetter than it already is.

"Amy, how does not wanting to go to the nude beach make me gay? Ninety percent of the people who go there are old gay men."

He's got a point.

"That's fine," in a tone that suggests it clearly is not. "You just don't want to go with a girl. I'll make K go with me. South Beach is topless, right?"

Taking the Brazilian women next to me wearing only thong bathing suit bottoms as an answer, I speedily untie my bikini top and lie back down on my towel, haughtily agreeing with myself that I've just proved an important point.

Declining his offer to help me put on more sunscreen, he shrugs, comments that he's "always wanted to be that guy at the beach with 'topless girl' " and decides to go skim boarding. I snicker openly when he promptly falls on his ass.

I dig into the gritty sand with my toes and force myself not to cross my arms over my chest. I didn't really want to go to the nude beach, I was just in a bad mood and wanted to argue. Now though, it feels like a challenge. And you can't say no to a dare.

But Spring Break is almost over, and K flatly refuses to accompany me. I'm not getting naked alone, so the idea is shelved for a while.

I can't exactly remember how it came up again, but given that ultimately it was two of my sorority sisters who decided they wanted to go to a nude beach with me, it seems likely that it involved a drinking game.

"Never have I ever..." I can hear my friend KT semi-slurring, pausing to think of something she hasn't yet done and take a sip of her rum and coke. "Never have I ever been to a nude beach."

A pause. No one is drinking, claiming to have done it.

"Duuuude, I would so be all over that shit," my friend, nicknamed Fish, puts in. "It'd be... nice." Smirking, clearly envisioning something akin to a porno set.

"Yeah, what's the word?" I tease, eyeing her.

"Classy," we finish together. (It's kind of our catch phrase. Case in point: we were recently at a Burberry outlet, and spying a novacheck thong bikini, Fish pointed out to me that although owning a Burberry bikini would be classy, everyone seeing her ass would cancel that out. So you're saying your ass has no class? I ask. "Exactly.")

"No, we seriously should go," KT says. "It would be sweet."

I don't want to be outdone.

"We should so do it over Spring Break. Haulover Beach is pretty near my house."

It's fine as a drunken idea, or something to joke about, but during Spring Break this past week, as Fish and I tentatively walk onto the sand and are greeted by the sight of a 70-year-old and 250-pound man disrobing, it dawns on me that although I expected this in theory, I never quite realized what it would mean. Until now.

"You have to stop laughing," I elbow Fish, and her giggling segues into coughing. She finally takes a deep breath and we walk south on the sand to find a less crowded spot.

Carefully spreading out my towel, I keep my eyes down as I take off my black beach dress and lie on my stomach, still wearing my bright yellow bikini. Reaching around to undo my top, I feel strangely nonchalant. When I slide off my bikini bottom, I feel even less conspicuous and finally look up.

The first thing I see is Fish, totally naked and reading my little sister's copy of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." I find the juxtaposition between completely unsexy Harry Potter and the dozens of naked people around hysterical. Fish rolls her eyes at me and as I look around I consider that actually, most of these people aren't so sexy either.

The vast majority are men in their 60's and older. Their hairy beer guts dwarf defeated-looking penises.

I'm just for decoration now, the freckly penis perched atop what can only be described as thunder thighs laments.

Nearby, a man with a large trident tattoo on his back arranges his beach chair and sits down facing my direction, revealing a huge metal genital piercing. It's at least ten times as thick as a belly button piercing and I wonder how it would be possible for him to have sex with anyone. There's no way it wouldn't get ripped out. I cringe as he blithely starts talking to his friend, who has what looks like a thick silver bracelet around the base of his penis, about fetish parties.

"Yeah, I was out with my video camera looking for some action, but there wasn't that much going on. It's 'cause the party was in Boca, which is, you know, just so Boca. Everyone's all, 'I don't want my kids exposed to that shit!' Fuckers."

Fish nudges me and I look to see a wiry bald man slathering sunscreen on himself while doing what looks like a series of yoga poses.

"Creepy; people are not supposed to be that flexible," I whisper.

"No, not him. Him."

To my left is a tall black man wearing nothing but an ipod, jogging determinedly down the beach. Slapping audibly between his legs is the biggest penis I have ever seen. It has to be at least eight inches, flaccid.

"It's just like, too much," Fish urgently intones. "I'd be like, what am I supposed to do with that shit?"

We've been out for around half an hour, so I decide it's time to flip over. Ha ha, ha ha, I can see you naked, I'm thinking. Two fully clothed guys in their early 20's walk by, and I distinctly hear the word 'titty.' Only then does it occur to me: oh my god, all of these people can see me naked. Their membership in an, if not exclusive, than at least previously consciously selected, group of people startles me. I've never felt insecure about my body in a sexual situation. I figure, if I'm naked in front of a guy, he was obviously attracted to me, so I have nothing to worry about. These people, though, didn't buy me drinks or flatter and cajole; they just happen to be walking by.

After several moments of vowing to live at the gym, I relax and acknowledge that actually, Fish and I are some of the most attractive people there. But I also have to acknowledge that no one really cares. Other than a few stares and two guys asking us for the time, people are keeping to themselves. It's a gorgeous day and I'm on Spring Break: what could be better? I feel more comfortable than I do at other beaches, where girls in designer bikinis loudly gossip while preening for the benefit of preppy guys in board shorts and boring tribal armband tattoos. There's a sort of hush at Haulover Beach that's intoxicatingly relaxing.

The cliche 'it's like seeing him naked,' comes to mind, but it seems untrue. The older couple walking in the surf holding hands; the 30-ish woman sitting in a lawn chair reading a Danielle Steele novel; the deeply tanned surfer hosing himself off and grinning. I've seen all of these people naked, but what do I really know about them?

Several hours later, Fish and I trek back to my car.

"I'm wearing way too much clothing right now," she shakes her head.

"For real." I climb into my car and turn on the air conditioning. "So, what do you wanna do now?"

"Wanna hit the mall? They have some really cute dresses at Banana."

"Totally."