AFTER SCHOOL

After school, we'd go over to her place. She had a pool. That spring the weather was nice and we'd sit and hang out. Talk, or not talk. We were friends, but I always wanted to be more.

Sometimes she'd go to the pool house and change into her suit--or just slip off her bra, to relax. She didn't seem to notice if she was showing more of her body than she realized. I noticed, of course.

LAYING IN THE GRASS

Outside on a sunny day, naked, the sun warm on skin and grass cool. Such sensations, such a great experience.

HER GIFT

She said she wanted to give me a special gift. She said she'd wrapped it up with a little bow.

FORCED

It's not clear who's dominating who, but doesn't it look fun either way?

Higher Education

What she really learned in college.

FLASHING IN THE AIRPORT

SUSAN, THE SEVENTH DAY

When I first moved to town for grad school, I didn't know anyone, and didn't have a place to live. Having been to college, I wasn't going to live in the dorms again. But being a very small college town, apartments off campus were in high demand. Prices were higher than most large cities. After a week of frustrating searching, I found one potential place. It was an old victorian house that had been divided into a downstairs and upstairs apartment. There were two dudes that lived on the first floor. Susan lived upstairs, which was two tiny attic rooms with sloping ceilings, a tiny bathroom, and a walk-in closet that had been retro fitted to make a kitchen. The rent was ridiculously high for such a small space, but it was my only lead after a week of dead-ends.

Susan had been sharing the apartment with another girl, who apparently decided to up and leave. Susan was stuck with her name on the lease, and rent coming due. As a student, she couldn't afford the bills on her own.

So, you'd think it'd work out perfectly. But Susan had grown up in a fundamental religious family, and she really didn't want to live with a guy roommate. I, in turn, didn't really want to live with a fundamentalist. But, what are you going to do? We both needed what the other one had to offer. So, with some mixed feelings of compromise on both sides, I moved in.

Susan was a nice girl. Very warm and friendly. She wasn't preachy at all about her religion, though she invited me to her church, and a couple times I went out of curiosity and politeness. But I was never a church type, and the people seemed way too friendly and kind of creeped me out. But Susan and I got along fine. She'd often cook veggie lasagna and share it with me. She'd have wine with diner and tell me she didn't drink, or at least, grew up in a family that didn't drink and her church didn't condone it.

College was all about breaking away from her family, but she wasn't the girl who went to the other extreme. It seemed like she actually wanted to get through college unchanged, and hanging onto her religious ways, because they mattered to her, because they'd defined her, and given her a sense of self and purpose in the world. She didn't want to loose that. But then, she liked wine with lasagna. Was it really so sinful? Could she have wine and keep her core values? She talked about this to me a lot.

We really didn't have a living room to hang out in together, so to share a meal meant sitting in one of our rooms. Anyone who has ever spent time with someone in very close quarters knows that proximity can create attraction. When I first moved in, there was absolutely no spark between Susan and I. She seemed nice, but sort of plain. She saw me as a necessary compromise in her rule not to live with any guy before marriage. But when you hang out with someone, and eat with them, and just see them every day, they can start getting more and more attractive.

How do these things happen? In September we're total strangers, by November, we're on her bed making out. She liked kissing, she liked my hands moving into her shirt, siding over her jeans, tugging at her belt, pushing down into her panties. She liked petting a lot. She'd get really wet and worked up, and then break it off suddenly. She absolutely wasn't going to have sex before marriage she'd say. And then we'd be kissing again, and then her shirt was on the floor.

Then she'd break it off, and say, "No, really, I can't go any further, I already have gone way too far." And she'd feel really, deeply, sincerely bad. And then she'd kiss me more, and get worked up, and let me take off her pants.

She was, I discovered, unshaven. This was not that long ago, and pretty much every girlfriend I'd had kept her bush trimmed short, almost to a stubble, and shaved on the lips. Susan didn't. Growing up in the small fundamentalist community, I guess she was more isolated from the more modern trends. Regardless, I found it different, and therefore, rather arousing. It seemed like natural, untouched territory. Wilderness, ready to explore.

As the week passed, we went further and further. After a while, it was not uncommon for Susan to end up totally naked by the time she stopped us.

One day, during our usual stop/start/stop/start make out sessions, I snapped a photo of her. She's standing, and smiling half amused, and half annoyed. She pretended to want to stop, but lay back on the bed and opened her legs, offering a view to my camera. I could tell she was very nervous and uncomfortable. Internally,her sexuality was fighting to be let free. I encouraged her by telling her how good she looked in the lens. She rolled over on her knees and gave me a view of her body from behind. She wanted to be proud of her body, she wanted to be seen as sexy. She wanted to feel sexy, and not ashamed.

My forth and final photo of her, she's standing again, and this time the smile is more easy and relaxed. She had pushed herself to the edge of her comfort zone, and broken through.

RIVER NAP

Curled up, the rocks warmed by the sun, radiating heat on bare skin. The sound of the river in your ears. Birds chirping. It's easy to fall asleep, resting in a gentle nap, feeling completely connected to nature.

SPLISH-SPLASH

She was taking a bath and feeling a little bored so she grabbed her camera. Holding it at arm's length, she snapped a self-shot, sticking out her tongue, being silly. She kind of liked how her skin glistened when wet and how her breasts looked. It was sort of naughty, and so she decided to try a sexy shot, getting her full frontal, using the self timer. She set the camera on the back of the toilet. As the counter flashed, she didn't know what to do with her hands, so she touched herself. It felt great and she was getting turned on. She wanted to try a shot from the back, but with the angle of the camera on the toliet, she needed to sort of squat and balance as she continued to touch herself. The shot sort of cut off her head, but gave a perfect view of her ass. She liked that one, as it seemed the most explicit and sexual. All three shots were funny, but she knew if she emailed them to her boyfriend, he'd like the last one. He was always in love with her ass, touching it, slapping it, fingering it when they had sex. She always liked her ass, but her pervious boyfriends had been more fixated on her boobs. Her new boyfriend loved her butt, and she knew when she sent him the images that he'd beat off to them. It was only fair, thinking about it made her so turned on, that she rubbed herself to orgasm still in the tub.

SAUNA AND SNOW

He was cleaning out the basement when he found a box of random things he'd saved over the years. With each move, there was always some stray thing that he didn't know what to do with, but he didn't want to keep. That was decades ago, after college, and those first jobs in different states. Now he'd been in the same town almost 20 years. He'd totally forgotten about the box. Most of the stuff, old birthday cards from friends he'd lost track of, maps of trips taken long ago, a few foreign coins, and just junk--a few pens, a couple batteries that probably didn't even work, and most amazing to him of all, a roll of Kodak black and white film.

Instantly he recognized it from his college days, the hours he'd spend in the darkroom. It'd been, what, 25 years since he'd stepped into a darkroom? But in his hands, he held a roll of film, exposed but undeveloped. There was a chance it was too old to process--but then again, it'd been stored in a relatively cool, dark place.

To his great joy, the roll was still good. On it were nearly two dozen images of his friends back in college. Several shots of buildings that would be boring to anyone else, but sent floods of memories back to him. The dorm block where he lived, the library. He had several shots of the photo club, he best friends. The last one was of a weekend trip they'd taken to the mountains. It all returned to him, the meals of beans someone burned, and they had to eat. The sauna cabin they all went into, built up a fire and enjoyed. The image was of that, the group, standing outside, nude,cooling off in a dare to jump in the snow before rushing back into the heat. His good friend was the tall guy. He didn't really get along with the other guy. And he had a crush on Jennifer, but couldn't remember the one of the girl's names. But he remembered the stench of burned beans in the cabin kitchen, and the how lovely the snow was, and how easy it was to be young, and naked, on a college weekend trip.

It was all long before the digital age, before people clicked off 100s of shots for a single experience. He only had one image of that weekend, but it was enough. He was glad he'd kept the box, and glad for stray pieces.

THE WOMEN OF THE DEEP BLUE SEA

The women in the office all dared each other to do the city's famous annual naked bike ride. Peer pressure, and blue paint, helped steady their resolve.

They picked a theme: Little Mermaid, Under the Sea. They were giddy, but terrified when they put on the body paint in the morning, but after the ride, they were truly jubilant. Although they would normally consider themselves self-confident, strong, and adventurous women, getting naked and riding through their town in nothing but blue paint and tennis shoes was pushing all of their personal comfort zones.

When it was all done, they celebrated their victory together, not the accomplishment of the ride, but of riding past their inhibitions, their fears, and the inner voice that said, "stay in the comfortable and familiar, be safe, be good, do what you're told, don't break rules." For some, their were deeper voices, darker ones that had told them for years: "you're not pretty enough, you're body is bad, you should be ashamed, cover yourself." Being naked was a physical act, but the reward was an emotion: joy, and pride, and strength. On that day, all the negative inner-voices were silenced, replaced with a single affirmation: we did it.

BEFORE SHE WAS FAMOUS


From an early age, Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone Fortin was involved in artistic activities in her school and took courses in piano and ballet. She received a dance scholarship from the University of Michigan, but dropped out at the end of her sophomore year. In 1977, with $35 in her pocket, she moved to New York to pursue dance.

After more than a year in New York, she had turned 20 and was still struggling to "make it." She scraped by on odd jobs, like at a Dunkin' Donuts, while auditioning. She saw an add in the paper from a photographer seeking a nude model. The young dancer had a good body, she knew: 34c-23-33. She had posed for art classes before to get by. Did she know that this photographer, Lee Frielander, was a key figure in the small world of Modern photography? A decade before, curator John Szarkowski included some of Frielander's work in the "New Documents" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art along with Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus. Frielander was now offering $25 to hire a model for a nude photo session. The young dancer accepted.

The next year, in 1980, she formed a band with her former boyfriend and her demo was brought to the attention of Sire Records. In 1982 Madonna signed for the first time with the group Warner and released her first album, self-titled, "Madonna." The album became a hit, rising to number 8 on the billboard 100. Her follow up album, Like A Virgin, became her first number one, which gained success at the international level.

In 1985, she expanded her career to Hollywood, with a teen-hit, "Desperately Seeking Susan" in which she played Susan, a woman who looked, talked, and acted exactly like Madonna. In July of 1985, the black and white photos she'd posed for six years earlier were published in Playboy. Not to be out-done, Penthouse had acquired black and white nudes by Bill Stone, and published them in the September 1985 issue. Madonna, then one of the biggest stars of the moment, was outraged and attempted to block them from being released.

Now, she has been a sexy symbol for almost thirty years. Arguably, she has helped shape pop music, and defined through her various reinventions what it means to be a pop-star. Now past the age of 50, she may no longer be a leading sex symbol, and what, by the way, is with the fake British accent? But whether it was her music videos, movies, or her infamous book, "Sex," anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s has some memory of Madonna the pop-star that shaped our collective sexual psyche.

We'd like to remember her before all that--before the glamour and fame, the costumes and the spectacle, when she was just a girl from Michigan with a dream of being a dancer, when she was a starving, struggling artist, working the shifts at Dunkin' Doughnuts, when she had a shitty apartment with tattered thrift-store furniture, when she didn't need to change her natural beauty in anyway, not even by shaving, because her trim legs, slender hips, and firm breasts, were absolutely perfect as they were.

MORE MADONNA

From the post: "Before She was famous"

Black and white images taken of a young Madonna in New York, before her fame as a pop singer, when she was a struggling dancer in the late '70s.

THE ISLAND OF LOVE

Surely Captain Samuel Wallis of H.M.S. Dolphin could hardly believe his eyes that day in 1767 when an army of Polynesians paddled more than 500 canoes across the lagoon at Matavai Bay, many of them loaded with pigs, chickens, coconuts, fruit, and topless young women "who played a great many droll and wanton tricks" on his scurvy-ridden crew. Secretly sent by King George III to find terra australis incognita (the mysterious southern continent that theorists said was necessary to keep the earth in balance) Wallis had instead discovered Tahiti.

The next year, the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville was similarly greeted when he arrived at Hitiaa. Bougainville noted that one young woman "carelessly dropped the cloth which covered her and appeared to the eyes of all beholders much as Venus showed herself to the Phrygian shepherd - having indeed the form of that goddess." With visions of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, Bougainville promptly named his discovery New Cythere in honor of her hometown. It has ever since been known as The Island of Love.

Oh-la-la

Here's to a time when sexy sex was supposed to happen only on the honeymoon. Here's to all those hot honeymoons past, and all to come, even if they don't quite carry the same pent-up sexual energy. In some ways, we have come far, learned much, and going back is not an option. But we can take from the past the best, leave behind what is outmoded, and select to modern and individual taste. Here's to that perfectly anxious energy that comes from longing on the verge of having.

SWEET CHEEKS

I love it when she wears stockings.

WHO'S IDEA

I have no idea who's idea it was, but my roommate Steve casually mentioned to me one day that he and his girlfriend had decided that they wanted to try out a 3-way. Were were just sitting there watching TV, having a beer, and that's what he said, just as plain as telling me he and his girlfriend decided to order pizza.

I didn't really know what to say, so I didn't, although I was instantly jealous of the bastard. His girlfriend, Julia, was totally smoking hot. We lived in student housing--not the dorms, but more like student apartments--and we had a weight room at the complex. No one really used it (I never saw anyone in there), but Julia made it her own workout place and would come over to use our shower, whether Steve was there or not, dressed in her skin-tight gym shorts, a jogging bra that cupped her perfect breasts, and her arms and legs and shoulders glowing with sweat. I didn't mind, but it was some form of mental torture to be studying at my desk in my small room, when inches through the cheap apartment wall, Julia stood naked in our shower, soaping and rinsing herself off. I swear, I am not a pervy kind of guy--I mean I have plently of porn on the internet, and have had girlfriends on and off through college. But seriously--it was not freaking fair to be so close to her and so impossibly cut off. So many fantasy scenarios played through my mind. Like maybe I'd walk in on her and pretend I'd forgotten she was in there...or maybe I'd have to fake like I was going to puke...or maybe I was "drunk" and fell into the bathroom... obviously they were totally stupid, and so I never did. I thought about drilling a hole in my bedroom wall, or figuring out how to mount a hidden camera.... I was that desperate--but not that immoral. Julia was actually pretty cool, and I liked having her come over.

What really got me is when she'd sleep over. As I lay awake trying to sleep, I'd hear the familiar tap of the bed against Steve's bedroom wall, the creeking of springs, and the slapping of flesh. They had athletic sex. Julia was not quiet. I didn't need a hidden mic to hear their love making--it was loud and clear through the thin walls. Julia would squeal and moan and then shriek when she came. Steve liked to talk dirty. I pretty much new exactly where he was about to cum on her body. And of course I tried not to picture it, and the harder I tried, the more vivid the image in my mind.

So I was jealous. Jealous that a dude like Steve (nice guy but nothing special) could nail such a cute and sweat nympho nearly every night. As if that wasn't fair, now they were going to bring in a third partner. Oh gheez, I thought. Freakin great. Not only will I have one hot chick coming over to use the shower, I'll have two. Maybe they'll take showers together. If so, I was definitely going to look into those hidden cameras.

"So, uh, you ever done a 3-way before," Steve asked. My mind had been reeling, and Steve had been waiting for me to respond in some way to his announcement.

"Uh, no," I said.

"Would you?" asked Steve.

"Well, duh," I said. Of course I had thought about it. What guy hasn't? What the hell. Not only would I have to listen to Steve and Julia humping in the room next to me, but now I'd have to listen to their menage-a-trios. How the hell could I do that without going insane?

"That's cool," Steve said. "I knew you'd be cool. Julia's coming over pretty soon."

"Thanks for the warming," I said.

He laughed. "Yeah," he said, "She said you'd be cool about it."

I then realized we had been having two totally different conversations. Steve wasn't telling me, he was asking. Being in my own head and own fantasies, I'd assumed that they'd want another hot chick in bed, but those fuckers were so kinky, they didn't want another chick, they wanted a dude to join in. Maybe because I was pretty chill to get along with, or maybe Steve didn't see me as a threat, or maybe Julia actually thought I was attractive...who knows.

I didn't know who's idea it was, but I didn't care. All I knew was that that things in the apartment were about to change, and I'd never have to worry about peep holes or hidden cameras, or making up excuses to crash into the bathroom again.

THE GIVING SPIRIT

It's always fun to get, but some say it is better to give than to receive. And some know that it is the most fun to give and to get at the same time.

THREE WET FINGERS

If one is good, and two are better, then three must be best.

VIVA LA FRANCE

We always knew that Amanda and James were the type of couple everyone looks at. They were both the types that came from the best gene pool, went to great schools, and always drew people around them at cocktail parties with their warm smiles and easy laughs. When you stood by them, they always made eye contact with you, with a gleam in their eye, like they shared a secret with you, and even if they were talking to someone else, you had the sense that they'd rather be talking just to you. It was reinforced by a light touch on the arm, just as the group broke into laughter, as if to say, that joke was just for you. James was not a big guy, but built trim and tall enough. He had a sharp angular features, broad shoulders that filled out a suit. Amanda was petite, like a little bird. She had tiny breasts that barely filled out a cocktail dress. In fact, whenever she'd dip forward, her dress would swoop. Eyes would dart down, hoping for a glance of pale cleavage, but it was always elusive. Odd as it sounds, it became a point of conversation among the other women behind her back. They'd say, "Oh she's so perfect, and her diamond necklace was so pretty tonight, but she certainly didn't fill out that dress!" But it was only being catty. Whether they admitted it or not, everyone wanted to be just like Amanda and James. They were so enchanting, that we immediately accepted their invitation to go to the south of France.

We couldn't wait to kick back on the famous French beaches, and had to admit, we were excited to be going with James and Amanda. They would instantly raise our profile as travelers, and they seemed to know all the hidden, charming places to go. They had gone each year since their honeymoon, and were going to show us how to vacation like the French. We had no idea how true that would be until the first day at the beach, when Amanda stripped down to her bikini, and then continued by stripping off her top. There were the tiny, but perky breasts so many had talked about, conjectured about, and longed to see. They were small, but in the French sunlight, seemed perfect. Her nipples were dark and erect. If we harbored secret crushes on her before, it was now absolutely official.

REAR WINDOW

While travelling on business, I looked out my hotel window and spotted a couple in a window of a hotel across the street. They were locked in embrace, and I watched as his hands unclasped her bra and tugged down her pants. I probably shouldn't have stayed and watched, but I couldn't take my eyes off of them. And I wondered if they didn't actually want to be watched. Surely they knew that as they pressed against the window in broad daylight that someone could have spotted them from one of the hundreds of windows. Maybe that was part of the thrill for them. It was certainly part of the thrill for me, glad to play the role of voyeur to their exhibitionism.

IT TAKES TWO

We were all drinking around the beach bon fire. He kept going on and on about how the only way to really learn to tango was to do it naked. Elizabeth knew tango and she disagreed. "Have you ever tried?" he challenged. She laughed him off, but he insisted. "You can't dismiss it if you've never even tried!" We were all feeling the warmth of the fire and the wine. And soon everyone was egging on Elizabeth to try. We were all friends, and Elizabeth seemed to be laughing as much as anyone--it wasn't mean peer pressure, just silly. In fact, we could tell, she just needed a little prompting. And she did.

"Ok," she said, "show me what you got."

Elizabeth and Gary put on the best naked tango dance we'd ever seen, and probably ever will.

LOST TOURIST?

Nudity can be funny when taken out of context.

OUR ROOM

Our room in the old bungalow had a mirror on the closet door. How I miss that mirror.

APARTMENT BY HERSELF

When she moved into an apartment by herself, she soon took up the habit of puttering around in the buff. After living with roommates for so many years, it was thrilling to just do whatever, whenever she wanted. The feel of her nakedness was a turn on, and places normally public, like the kitchen or living room aroused in her erotic urges. No more would she have to satisfy herself locked in her room, under her heavy quilts. She could stop and pause anywhere she wanted.

NUTRITIOUS AND DELICIOUS

Did you know that semen contains more than 30 elements, including vitamin B12, fructose, citric acid, nitrogen, and various salts. And there are just 5 calories in a teaspoon.

BLACK SWEATER