Chapter 2

A week after the initial discussion of 'Transformations, ' an expanded group assembled at the Magnuson mansion for another fine meal. The new guests included Elise and Dex Madison, Kirstin and Gary Blum, Sandie Kasten, Sandie's son Eric, and Morgan Shaughnessy.

The newcomers had all been briefed on Shannon and Kathy's stories, and the plans for Transformations. The original group had heard only sketchy accounts of the newcomers' stories.

Gerald initiated the proceedings this time. "Thank you all for joining me again. Thank you especially to our new friends. And I don't use that term lightly, believe me."

"In my life, I have been privileged to meet many remarkable people who have made tremendous impacts on their fellow humans. Sometimes, these people go about their work so quietly, they are almost invisible, except to those whose lives they impact. Elise, you are one of those invisible saints."

"Since our first meeting, I have spent a good deal of time with Elise and Dex. I have visited the shelters and talked to the employees and the women they help. I am ashamed of how little I knew of the problems they dealt with. I am also committed to changing that. Well, tonight, we are here to talk about Transformations, so I'll let Frank take it from here."

"At our first meeting," Frank started, "I said we would defer discussion of the nudity issue. Well, tonight we will address it head on. All of you here have something substantive to contribute on the issue. Our new guests know about immersion therapy and the importance of the subjects being naked. I'd like Julia to start off with a discussion of the psychological basis for that."

"Is this going to be another Frank and Julia show," Julia asked. As she had hoped, the resulting laughter lightened the mood immediately. "Well, for a subject with such strong prurient interest, there is surprisingly little research data available. There are no double-blind, publication-quality studies that I know of. There are, however, some very credible analyses based on individual subjects or small groups. The Foundation has already spent many thousands of consulting dollars on expensive experts on the subject. I will give you some of my conclusions based on these sources and my own observations."

"One subject on which there is analytical data is the effect of nakedness on honesty. A person normally clothed is far more likely to lie or prevaricate than is a naked person. The corollary to this is a cornerstone of my approach. Clothing aids a person in denying or ignoring reality. Without facing reality, there is no possibility of real, lasting change. I see you nodding your head, Shannon. Care to comment?"

"I sure do," replied Shannon. "I knew how awful I looked, but with clothes on and by avoiding mirrors, I could go for periods of time without thinking about it. In other words, I could pretend I was OK. At Greg's, with no clothes and lots of mirrors, I could never pretend I was OK. It kept my problem right in front of me all the time."

"So, you would say being naked was important to your turnaround?"

"Absolutely critical. For me, the ability to pretend was the ability to ignore the problem and put off action."

"Shannon leads right into my next point." Julia nodded toward Shannon as she continued. "One function of clothing is to support pretense. Padded shoulders or bras, slimming colors, elevator shoes, and girdles are all obvious examples of what I mean. Gang colors or Goth outfits are less obvious examples, but they serve the same purpose. Clothes allow us to project to the world an image that we want. Naked, we can only project what is really there."

"Another function of clothes is as a barrier. They help keep others from getting too close, and they keep us from letting too much of ourselves show to others. Some other fairly good studies show that naked people are more willing to share personal details, thoughts, and feelings than when they are clothed. Similarly, they are more willing to listen to the thoughts and concerns of other when they are naked. Appearing naked before someone is a way of pleading for acceptance. It is also a way of saying 'I accept you."

The entire group was quiet for a while, apparently mulling over what Julia had said so far. When she continued, she changed the tone. "So far, I may have given the impression that nudity is the key to the perfect society. There certainly are negative aspects, as well. Probably the biggest negative is the use of enforced nakedness as a form of humiliation or punishment. We humans seem to have a natural aversion to exposing our genitals. When forced to do so involuntarily, it becomes a form of abuse. Dex, I think you have an interesting story on the two sides of nakedness."

"Yes, Julia, I do, and I learned a lot from it, painfully. One day when I was fourteen, I came home from school and my father dragged me to their bedroom. There, my mother was tied spread-eagled and naked on the bed with her crotch shaved. She was gagged, but I could see the terror in her eyes, and I lost it. Somehow, I struggled enough to get my father to leave, then freed my mother."

"After we both went through some shock reaction, she was still naked and I tried to cover her with a blanket. She would not let me, and instead, made sure I saw every bit of her. She declared that she wanted to be naked with me whenever possible from then on. My appreciation of her naked body was important to her. It was one of the few positives in her life, and helped alleviate my father's ridicule."

Kirstin Blum jumped into the conversation at this point. "I can verify what Dex said from the other side. During a bad time in our marriage, I was badly overweight and Gary, uh, belittled my looks a lot."

"Let me interrupt, Darling," Gary broke in. "You tend to downplay how terribly I treated you, and I want to set the record straight. I heard that in planning Transformations, you are considering an 'asshole' program. Well, I fit the profile exactly. I did things to my wonderful wife that I still can't believe, and that will keep me awake nights forever."

"Yeah, but you're a recovered asshole," Kirstin said to him with a hug.

"Not recovered, recoverING," Gary corrected her. "Just like alcohol, it's something I will always have to fight. And I will fight it, dammit!"

"Anyway," Kirstin continued, when I took the kids and fled, we ended up at Dex's house. The very first night, Morgan hauled all of us women naked into the hot tub. It was relaxed and natural and it felt good. When we came out, we were just wrapped in towels, and Morgan got us in a little kick line in front of Dex and Eric. Until bedtime, I wore nothing but that towel. It was embarrassing, but it felt sexy and that was something I hadn't felt for a long time."

"First thing the next morning, I met Eric by the workout room. He wanted to work out, but didn't want to with Jessica there - I'll tell about Jessica later. I asked Eric if he'd join me in the hot tub, then suggested we skinny-dip. He told me later that he realized it was important to me, so we did. Our hot tub session got pretty intimate, and it gave me a huge morale boost."

"So, Kirstin," Julia asked, "for you, getting naked was a plea for acceptance and approval?"

"It sure was! I guess I did a lot of pleading, 'cuz I became pretty much an exhibitionist. And you know, folks must have gotten pretty tired of seeing this fat slob bouncing around naked, but no one said a thing. It was wonderful."

To everyone's surprise, the stately Gerald broke up the crowd with, "Kirstin, dear, please feel free to indulge your exhibitionist urges at my house."

"Sandie," Julia said after the laughter died out, "I understand you have a similar story about acceptance of your body."

"Well, I never had the nerve to go nudist like Kirstin, but you're right. It was very important to me at that awful time in my life. We arrived at Dex's in the afternoon, and I was a mess. Eric held me and comforted me until I finally slept. That night at bedtime, I had Eric sit and watch as I undressed. I purposely took a long time getting by nightie from the suitcase and putting it on. Soon, I wore nothing in our room. Having my loving son look at my body with love and excitement - it was like a medicine I had to have."

"Acceptance, again," murmured Julia softly. Then she addressed Eric. "Eric, you accepted Kirstin's body without any negative comments, and even some compliments. She thought she looked terrible, didn't you think so?"

"Hey, just look at Kirstin!" Eric said. "Excuse me, Kirstin, but you're a babe. I could tell that, even with the extra weight. Besides, until the day before, I had never been face to face with a naked woman. It was a thrill no matter how much she weighed." Chuckles from the group greeted his self-deprecating remark.

"Well, when she asked you to skinny-dip, did you jump at the chance?"

"No way! I got, uh, aroused just at the question. I was terrified to think she would see me like that. No female had ever seen me naked, and I wasn't at all proud of my body."

"Not proud? You look good to me."

"I've, uh, had a growth spurt and worked out a lot since then."

"So, if you were terrified, why did you go with Kirstin?"

"The day before, Dex had a long talk with me. He told me some things to do to help Mom. He mostly said to do anything she needed, even if was tough for me. Well, when Mom undressed for me, she looked real scared. I could tell it wasn't because she was scared of me seeing her. It was because she feared I wouldn't like what I saw. Well, she looked great and she could tell that I thought so. I saw this look of relief on her face, and it made me feel good."

"When Kirstin wanted to go in the hot tub, I saw that same look of fear. I just knew I had to do it for her."

"But you hardly knew her."

"I guess. But I watched her the night before. I could tell she was fun and a pretty strong person. She's hard not to like, you know. And it felt so good to feel like I'd helped Mom, I wanted that feeling again. I felt sort of, I don't know, protective of all the women. I watched Dex and thought that was the way a real man treated women." No one said a thing after that comment.

"So, your hot tub session wasn't the end of your morning, was it?"

"God, no. Kirstin got me to go back downstairs naked with her. We were laughing away when we met Morgan and Jessica at the bottom. Jessica is about my age, and she was mad at the world over what happened to her. I thought she hated me."

"Let me tell you about Jessica," Morgan interrupted. "This is another negative use of nudity - exhibitionism. Oh, not like you, Kirstin!" Both women giggled at that.

"Jessica's father exposed himself to her regularly. In fact, toward the end, he went around the house bottomless much of the time. At night, he would come into her room erect and try to get her to undress. When Carol, Jessica's mother, would try to stop him, she would be beaten or raped."

"Carol stayed on after Jessica left. When Jessica came to Dex's, she was totally beaten down and negative on all men. When we all ran into each other that morning, I had to hold her to keep her from running away. Eric, sorry for the interruption. Go ahead."

"OK. Thanks for explaining, Morgan. By the way, for those of you who don't know, Morgan is a genius. She's not a psychiatrist like Dr. Waxman, but she always got these spur of the moment ideas, and they all worked great. I didn't think I would live through it at the time, though." Eric shook his head as he said that.

"Morgan whispered in my ear that Jessica really needed it and begged me to stay. So, we just stood there having this conversation like there was nothing unusual. Then Morgan started asking Jessica about her father's penis - how it compared with mine. I had just started to relax a little when she said that. Jessica mumbled something about her Dad's was never soft and hanging like that. I thought I was embarrassed before, but Morgan reached down and got me hard and I wanted to fall through the floor."

"Why didn't you just get out of there?"

"Morgan begged me again to stay. She told me again that Jessica needed it. I lived with the abuse, too, you know. I could imagine what she must have gone through. I figured showing my hardon was nothing compared to what had happened to her. I figured Morgan was probably crazy, but she's pretty persuasive."