Bare Facts Show Seniors Are Shedding Their Clothes Along With Cares

Turner Stokes is an energetic 61-year-old electronics engineer from Leesburg, Va., who wears a big white mustache.

On weekends, that is all he wears.

Stokes, former president of the American Sunbathing Assn., is one of the nation’s leading nudists.

“I don’t even own a bathing suit,” he says.

Stokes, who operates the National Capital Sun Club, reveals that more and more senior citizens are doffing their bathing suits at nudist clubs and beaches around the country.

“The kids are grown up, and the parents are looking for other interests,” says Stokes at a non-naked lunch in a suburban shopping center. He contends that the 30,000 members of the association “are inclined to be middle and upper age” and that some clubs, such as Cypress Cove Nudist Resort in Florida, look like a naked “retirement community.”

In fact, Patrick Gaffney, proprietor of a nudist campground in Virginia, two hours southwest of Washington, estimates that as many as half the nudists in the country may be over 50 years old.

“They have the time and money,” claims Gaffney.

One recent sunny afternoon, a reporter shucked his clothes and sat down with two naked grandparents, “Bob” and “Sally” at Gaffney’s campground. Gaffney doesn’t want to give away the location of his sunbathers’ paradise in an apple orchard, fearing the rustic nature of the place could be stripped away in a stampede of applicants--and gawkers.

Bob, a professional with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and Sally, a gourmet cook, are perfectly happy to sunbathe without the benefit of clothes, but do not want their real names used for fear some of the unconverted might not understand.

While young families splashed around in the pond or walked on the nature trails, they attempted to straighten out a newsman who might have misconceptions about the nudist movement.

“People tend to think that if you take your clothes off you engage in some kind of group sex,” observed Sally. “I wish it were true.”

If the reporter had not brought up the topic of nudism, the subject might not even have been mentioned.

“Why talk about it?” Bob shrugged. “We’re doing it.”

Bob and Sally first shed their swimsuits at a remote North Carolina beach 11 or 12 years ago. Bob recalls that Sally took off her top at Nags Head one day with the warning that if she saw anybody walking down the beach she would put it back on in a hurry.

Now, years later, they are completely at home in a naked crowd that often includes their 30-year-old daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. Bob says Sally “first felt very awkward in front of our son-in-law. But that feeling goes away.”

It doesn’t bother them anymore if some non-nudists venture into their midst at the various ocean beaches they visit. Bob and Sally enjoy the varied reactions of the fully clothed who stumble on their unadorned sunbathing.

“Some smile. Some look straight ahead, and some join us,” Bob says.

Meanwhile, Stokes has been participating in nudist activities for a decade--he got a late start because his ex-wife didn’t like the idea. But he has since married an ardent nudist.

He can barely restrain his concern about the uptightness of some of his fellow nudists.

“Some nudists are their own worst enemy,” he says. In other words, although nudists regularly bare all at nudist clubs and beaches around the country, many still feel they have something to hide.

Here’s the state of nudism, according to Stokes:

- There are still people who think that nudists shouldn’t touch each other. Too many naturists think that if you don’t have clothes on you shouldn’t touch anybody. Some “old-timers” say Stokes can’t kiss his wife in public if they are both naked.

- Some nudist clubs actually have a “dress code” for dances. The men have to wear tops and the women must don pants because some club members believe it is immodest to dance skin to skin without any clothes on.

- In fact, too many nudists are afraid to go public. But Stokes, who works for E-Systems, a defense contractor, has a security clearance in that sensitive line of work, and he says there is “no problem.”

“People are paranoid,” he claims.

As for non-nudists, Stokes is even more put out. “So many people consider themselves experts with very definite opinions, and they have never even met a nudist,” he contends.

Anyone wishing to meet a nudist, or become a nudist, may obtain information by writing to the American Sunbathing Assn., 1703 N. Main St., Kissimmee, Fla. 32743, or by phoning (407) 933-2064.