We were asked to write an article on exhibitionism since we've both had a lot of experience on the subject. The most important thing to remember about exposing yourself to others is to use commonsense. If you'll get hurt, or in deep trouble, then you probably shouldn't do it.

As a couple, we met while on a nude beach in Europe. The reason we were on that beach was because we both enjoyed showing off our bodies in public. That experience was our first as a couple, but definitely not our last go at exhibitionism.

Hi, this is Michael:

I will be the main narrator of this piece, but I'll have lots of help from Phoebe, as usual. She's my inspiration in most things I do. She's much sexier than me and has always been able to make me crazy even with the smallest things she does.

I still remember the first time I saw her on that beach on the Spanish Riviera. She was one of thousands of people laying nude on the beach. But there was something special about her that drew me to her. It wasn't that she was the hottest looking woman there. Although my Phoebe is a babe, but that wasn't it.

I think the most attractive thing about her on that beach in Spain was that she was so comfortable with her nudity, it almost looked like innocents when she walked or stopped to talk to people. She looked like she was anyone you might meet on the street, only she was stark naked.

Even folks like me who are comfortable with their body can't pull off what Phoebe does. She was one of the most popular females on that beach and to this day I still can't tell you why she picked me, all I can say is that I'm happy and honored that she did, and I try everyday to show her how I feel about her.

One last prequel note: Exhibitionism isn't for everyone. If you're reading this and you don't get it, then my suggestion is to close the file and move on to something else. If you're like me, you'll find something in the following text to get your interest and you'll be able to build on that.

Now, let's discuss exhibitionism:

The Definition of exhibitionism: Ex-hi-bit-ion-ism n. 1. a tendency to call attention to oneself or show off. 2. a) a tendency to expose parts of the body that are conventionally concealed. b) an instance of such exposure.

There are several levels of exhibitionism that we will outline in this article. We term them as; "Beginner" - "Intermediate" and "Advanced+ exhibitionism. As you might suppose, each level becomes more involved and has more associated risk attached to it, since in most countries exhibitionism is not a legal practice - outside of a few designated locations.

A prerequisite to being a true exhibitionist is that one must be driven to exhibit oneself to others in public. The act of exposure will give a "special high" that will become addictive. The true exhibitionist will seek out opportunities to show themselves to others whenever possible and in more and more inventive ways. The object, however, is to exhibit ones body without being tossed into jail.

Preparation is half the battle won. Always pick the right place, time and audience for your exhibitionism, and have the right equipment to make the experience a successful and enjoyable one. We will talk about "place" - "time" - "audience" and "materials required" for each level of exhibitionism that you may wish to try. But it is important to walk before you run.

Start at the beginning and slowly work your way up the latter. "First times only come once" and the second time is never quite as good. So take your time and experience each level, becoming more expert in pleasing yourself, your mate or partner, and even your audience. Because they will be your biggest critic and if they don't like what you do, or if they are offended by your actions, you could end up is a big pickle.

EXHIBITIONISM PHILOSOPHY

Your audience should enjoy the experience as much as you do. If they don't, then you did something wrong and should change your act. That is the key, learn from your mistakes and you'll have a nice long career as an exhibitionist.

THE RIGHT TIME: The most important thing to consider when practicing exhibitionism at any level, is to pick your audience carefully. As an extreme example; you wouldn't expose yourself in church. You'd never be able to show your face again in that church, because no matter how kinky the folks there might be, they won't want to see your body in a place of worship, and they would be offended.

Also your workplace can be a dangerous place to get your jollies. To mess around where you earn your sustenance is a foolish thing to risk, unless you know your audience well.

On the other hand if you're in a bar and the alcohol is flowing, and the friends you're with seem amenable, there are a million little opportunities to practice exhibitionism.

THE RIGHT PLACE: Always consider where you are. Where the exits are, how far your car is from you. Always have an exit plan just in case something goes wrong, like an undercover cop is in the crowd. Don't be foolish and take undue risks. As an example; if you expose yourself to a crowd of people, make sure you're far enough from the "closest person" so that you can get away without getting tackled.

THE RIGHT AUDIENCE: Be aware of the people around you especially if you're a female. There's nothing worse than a little innocent exhibitionism turning into a non-consensual gang-bang. The safest rule of thumb is to know your audience, or if that isn't possible, at least consider carefully who you're exposing yourself to and where your exits are.

It's not as important for guys, but women would be wise to have a partner near as added security. But partnerships even work well the other way around. A couple is more disarming than a single person of either sex. Couples are generally treated with interest when something unexpected happens in front of onlookers.

THE RIGHT MATERIALS: You'd think that nothing but a naked body and stranger's eyes would be necessary to perform exhibitionism, but you'd be wrong. If you could go around exposing yourself with total immunity, where would the fun be? So when out for a jaunt of exhibitionism, you'll need to consider what you're wearing and how you can best cover up or "disappear" if needed. This would include under some circumstances, a change of clothing, even a hat so you would look different than you did at the time you exposed yourself.

Also the clothing you wear can add much to the experience, especially at the earlier levels of exhibitionism. As an example; When Phoebe and I first began to really experiment with exhibitionism we started in college. She would sit in the quad wearing white tennis shorts and she'd be studying for several hours at a time and at the same time she's tease the guys around her by inadvertently flashing more flesh than normal.

This type of "unintentional exhibitionism" is a great way to start out. The only caution I will note here is that you can't do it all the time were people know you. If you do, you'll get the reputation of being either dumb or a slut (male version; dumb-ass, or a pig).

But to flash a little beaver or some nuts through the leg hole of your shorts once, even to a friend is exciting, especially when you planed it and they don't know it, but they stair all the same.

CAUTION: I'm not going deeply into cautions. Let it suffice to say that if you do things that are stupid, like exposing yourself to school children or offending the wrong people, well, then you're on your own. I suggest that your audience be the same general age or older than yourself, and that you select the situations carefully. If you follow these two suggestions you should have some arousing experiences.

WHERE TO START: Exhibitionism can be something as simple as not wearing underwear and opening the fly to your jeans while walking through the park. Even though no one will probably notice, you'll know and as a beginner it will be exciting. The breeze on your privates will definitely get the juices flowing.

THE THREE STAGES OF EXHIBITIONISM:

THE BEGINNER:

If you've thought about exposing yourself to others, or even if you have done so a few times under certain circumstances, I suggest that you stick with the following procedures and "think" carefully how to exhibit yourself safely and inoffensively. Some situations can be totally offensive to some people and knowing who and when and where is the key to having fun, not problems.

As a beginner exhibitionist you should stick with "what" - "who" and "where" you're comfortable with. There are a lot of ways to expose yourself without any risk at all, other than personal embarrassment. (And if that's a problem, then stop reading here and turn on the TV. I hear there's a good episode of Gilmore Girls on tonight.)

To become an exhibitionist you have to get used to being blatant about your sexuality. When starting out you will be nervous and a little frightened (which can be fun) that's why we suggest that you start with someone you know and trust.

If you're lucky like me, you'll have a significant other that you can do it with. The easiest way to get started is to expose yourself to your lover and visa versa. I suggest that you tell your lover that you've been fantasizing about being an exhibitionist and that you want to try it with your mate.

There are many simple ways to go about this type of exhibitionism. We've listed a bunch of things you can do to see if this is the kind of thing for you. All of the things listed in the beginner section should be safe to perform if you use common sense. They are listed in degrees of difficulty: (These suggestions can be performed with a spouse, trusted friend, for both heterosexual and homosexual couples. Or in most cases can be done in variations all by yourself.)

1. ONE-ON-ONE EXHIBITIONISM: One of the things that couples do anyway is to masturbate in front of each other. But most couples don't masturbate all the way. They don't beat-off or rub-off squirming around and moaning and groaning and putting on a show until their body jerks in passionate release, while their partner looks on.

Just the decision that you or your partner is going to masturbate until you cum, while the other watches closely, can add a lot to the orgasm.

2. VIDEO EXHIBITIONISM: Home movies. If you trust each other, doing the deed while the camera is rolling is a real pumper for the ol blood pressure. Phoebe did that to me once, she went out and bought a video camera and when I got home from work she told me that she wanted to "see" me fuck her. That was a moment in time that neither of us will ever forget. (the fact that she came up with that blew my mind at the time.)

Note from Phoebe: Don't be discouraged if when you view your home movie, you don't look all that sexy. We were both disappointed with the first time. The doing was lots of fun, but the video sucked.

What was fun was learning how to make a sexy porno video. Because we did. Practice makes perfect and we soon could roll out some pretty hot stuff. We still have the tapes and have pulled them out of the closet from time to time for our own entertainment as well as for a select few friends.

3. EXHIBITIONISM BY OMISSION: Stop wearing underwear all together. Just knowing that there is only one layer of fabric between you and the public's eye can be a secret turn-on. This can be enhanced in the summer months when you can "legally" walk around in shorts. Why not walk around in swim trunks, it's legal and you can't wear much less and still be clothed.

Guys have an advantage here because they can wear tight shorts or swim trunks and when they're hard it's obvious what's going on, and unless you throw a rock as someone, it's perfectly legal to have a hard-on that shows, as long as it's covered. (Yes, it takes some guts.)

As far as the girls are concerned it's obvious what part of her under garments to leave off. Yes, there's nothing sexier than a couple of nipples pushing against a thin t-shirt. Women can also be exhibitionists without ever worrying about getting in trouble for it. I can't think of any guy who would complain about a little nipple action.

4. SURROGATE EXHIBITIONISM: Simply put; take a picture of your "body parts" or "whole self" that can't be recognized as you personally -- and place the picture somewhere, where it will be found; while you watch.

I did this as a teenager. I took a Polaroid of my hard-on and stuck it in a car's window where it was impossible not to notice. I did it twice and both times were very satisfying.

What I'd do was hang around in the parking lot of a grocery store and wait until a car pulled up with several teenage girls in it. Then when they went into the store I'd walk over and stick the photo in between the rubber seal and the window so the driver couldn't miss it.

There's nothing like watching pretty young things your age (especially if you know them) come out of the store to find a picture of your hard meat stuck in their window. It's a turn on to watch their reaction from bored shopping mode to excited glee when they get an eyeful of your maleness, maybe in some cases, it's the first time in their life that they have seen a male member fully hard. (This is less likely nowadays with the prolific Internet.)

I would station myself not very far away and pretend boredom. I'd wear sunglasses and have a ringside seat to the whole thing. I could hear their remarks and watch up close their excitement. I never had a bad experience, I never offended my audience, and the masturbatory experience afterwards was magnificent. There's nothing like jerking off to the fresh vision of hot young women jumping up and down in glee and exchanging excited comments about one's manly refection. (Tip: handle photo carefully so there are no fingerprints.)

FYI, this whole scenario works just as well if not better the other way around. Many years later, I talked Phoebe into joining me in this type of exhibitionism. We were staying in a Southern Florida campground when we were on our extended honeymoon. I took a picture of her laying in the van (our travel home for 6-weeks) with her face turned away, but otherwise showing all of her obvious accoutrements.

Then we waited for a good opportunity to stick the Polaroid in the window of a car that had just disgorged 4 guys who were maybe 19 or 20. While Phoebe and I watched them come back to their car and notice the photo stuck in the crack of the window.

It was like watching a bomb going off. They whooped and hollered and danced around. I thought they would have a heart attack by the time they finally jumped into their car and sped away. It was almost amazing the effect that my honey's nakedness had on those guys. I think it was the fact that it was obviously an amateur shot of a real female, and of course a pretty one.

A Note from Phoebe: I will admit here and now that, that experience was a lot of fun. I don't think I really even needed to have a great body to have gotten that reaction from those boys. But the reaction was very faltering and exciting to see. We've done the same thing several more times and I've never been disappointed in their reactions.

We even did one of me to a group of girls and we did one of Michael and me screwing and tried that with girls, and that was the biggest hit of all.

The point I'd like to make is that this is a fairly tame form of exhibitionism, that is safe and if you pick your audience carefully it's a lot of fun for everyone. (One note of caution: Make sure that you don't get recognized while you're watching the show. I almost was spotted once by a group of guys that were ogling my picture and if Michael hadn't been with me and if we hadn't been able to look totally unaware, it could have been interesting.

5: CELL PHONE EXHIBITIONISM: Nowadays with all those cell phones that can take pictures and send them to other cell phones it makes the possibilities endless. I assure you that at the teenage level -- it is pretty much what is already going on.

Parents, if your teenager has a phone that takes pictures, you're encouraging an exhibitionist. It's totally common nowadays for kids to send pictures of their body parts to other kids. There are even people who collect these pictures and put names to body parts etc.

Phoebe and I have played around with this a little, but it's pretty tame for us. But we can appreciate the possibilities for the beginner.

6: BACKYARD EXHIBITIONISM: This was one of my very first experiences. When I was a kid I was out in the backyard feeling horny and pulled my pants down and began to play with myself. After all, kids will be kids, and when they're all by themselves, well, why not?

The only problem was that my next door neighbor's kid was peeking over the fence and I didn't know it until I was walking in his direction with a stiffy poking out before me and looked up to see his face wide-eyed looking back at me.

I was super embarrassed, but eventually (weeks later) I got him to join me and we even showed off ourselves to his sister and her friends. You see, he was as excited as I was when he caught me, and it didn't take much effort to get him to show me his dick fully hard and let me see mine again.

Once we got used to seeing each other we wanted to get more kids involved. That's when he thought about his sister. So we set it up that she would catch us sunning ourselves naked in my backyard. Since both of our parents worked and didn't get home until dark, we always had the place to ourselves in the afternoons.

The first time we did it, Jamie, (my friend) and I waited until we knew that his sister was home then we made enough noise that we knew she knew we were in my backyard. That's when we stripped naked and lay on towels, positioned feet first toward Jamie's house so if his sister looked she'd get an unobstructed birds-eye view at our manly parts.

We did that several times before we struck pay dirt. Looking back even though it took several times before his sister "caught" us, it was still intensely exciting to be laying next to Jamie naked to the world and each other, waiting to be discovered by a girl. (Back then neither of us really knew about masturbation, not having had an orgasm yet.)

When it finally happened it was mega exciting. I remember the moment when his sister Janey discovered us laying there naked in the sun. I heard an audible gasp from the other side of the fence. And when after a while I raised myself up onto my elbows to "get a drink" I could make out her shadow between the slats of the fence boards.

Being no more than 11 at the time there was no way that we were going to be able to control our boners. We were as hard as rocks as we lay there being watched by Jamie's sister. I was so excited that I could hardly breathe. I remember that afternoon like it was yesterday.

We did the same thing the very next day, and everyday for a week. And without fail Janey was there looking at us. The next week turned out to be even more exciting, because Janey invited her girlfriend to see. And then there were three shadows and then four.

That's when I decided impromptu to give them even a better show. At the time it seemed natural to touch Jamie, I didn't think anything of it when one day we were lying out in the yard naked with hard-ons while those female shadows were shifting around behind the fence, trying to get a better view.

I reached over and wrapped my fingers around Jamie's dick and began to jerk him off. I'd done that to myself before because it felt good, even though I didn't know exactly what it was all about, I knew that was something that was done.

The response I got from Jamie was a total surprise though. He sat up like a rocket and pushed my hand away and he yelled at me for touching him. He called me a couple of rude names and got up and pulled his shorts on and left.

I was really flustered by Jamie's reaction. To me it seemed like a fun thing to do. I knew that I wouldn't have minded if he'd jacked me off. As it turned out the girls hadn't minded the show because I ended up being friends with a couple of them over the next couple of years and even had sex with one of them when I was in the 7th grade. She told me that she'd seen Jamie and me sunning naked in my backyard back when we were kids and from that time on she had always wondered what it would be like to have sex with me.

This scenario works as well for female exhibitionists as it does for males, maybe even better because women don't tend to show obvious signs of arousal and can better disguise that they are innocently showing off.

Using your imagination, there are many other ways to "innocently" show yourself off to strangers and friends alike. As a beginner the key is to only use scenarios that you can deny culpability. If it is was an accident, then what can anyone say?

But once you've used up the excitement of the beginner's scenarios, it's time to get a little more daring.

It would be easy to continue a list of many, many more things that a beginner exhibitionist could do, but for brevity sake, we'll leave those up to your imagination and move on to the next level.

THE INTERMEDIATE EXHIBITIONIST:

With the experiences of multiple exhibitionism episodes you'll be more streetwise about what, when and who to practice your craft on. When you've had time to devise techniques that work for you it's time to move up in order of difficulty and excitement.

The intermediate exhibitionist should come to the game prepared. Two things are essential for success, one; a companion to help, and two; the proper clothing. For men, lose fitting baggy clothes are best, for women a skirt is their best friend.

Baggy pants can conceal slits in strategic places, while a skirt can be easily raised and lowered. Some examples of intermediate exhibitionism are:

A Phoebe note: Michael likes sweatpants best because they can be pulled down and back up faster than just about anything else, that works for the female too I suppose, although I'm a little old fashioned and still like skirts and showing my legs off.