Spontaneous Surprise!

Beach trip!

Preface:

Not the promised posting but then, there are times when even the best prepared arrangements somehow go awry – especially when good friends decide to surprise a couple anticipating a major accomplishment in their lives! This happened to Aaron, my spouse, and I last weekend! Unfortunately, this generous and kind gesture also impacted this site, ReNude Pride: Guys Without Boxers! Fortunately, we were able to remain both bare and boxer-free!

My BBF (best bare friend) Jay and his partner, Raheem, flew into our Arlington condominium (expected) and surprised us with a 4-day reservation for the four of us at a suite near the Sandy Hook Beach in New Jersey as a surprise for Aaron and myself and our approaching anniversary. Aaron had been advised to take off work and – of course – I am on summer holiday from university!

Sandy Hook is close to New York City where we had dinner on Monday evening. Aaron and I had planned to treat Jay and Raheem to dinner while they were visiting us. Only the location changed as we were no longer in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area!

Sandy Hook is a very popular site with its very own unofficial SGL beach area that is notoriously clothing optional! Needless to elaborate, the four of us are very dedicated bare practitioners!

Approaching incoming waves!

Unplanned:

This unplanned trip was enjoyed by the four of us. The weather was typical summer offerings and provided us with opportunities to explore and revisit a place that held memories of previous summer antics. The unfortunate aspect is the projected posting entry for earlier this week that I had announced but didn’t have the freedom nor the time to complete in order to meet the deadline.

I apologize for the confusion and inconvenience this may have caused and accept the responsibility. However, this is the holiday season for me and this trip not only gave me a time to spend time with Aaron but my BBF and his “man” (Raheem) and all the sand, surf and sun!

I can now with all honesty openly admit that I am a completely recharged, rejuvenated and authentically renewed (renude) man who has some of his depleted energy restored. This is something that I urge everyone to explore as our summer season is regrettably approaching conclusion! Make every sunray worthwhile!

Sand, surf and sunshine!

The Bare/Dare Series:

The announced Bare/Dare Series that was projected for this past Monday, 21 July, remains in draft format and will be published here this upcoming Monday. The series is proposed to contain three separate post entries and as of now, that plan remains intact. I just need to take a concentrated look at what is available when Jay and Raheem depart early tomorrow (Saturday) morning.

Once again, I am sorry for any confusion that I may have caused anyone. Sometimes flexibility is a difficult task to successfully complete!

Naked hugs!

Roger Poladopoulos/ReNude Pride: Guys Without Boxers!

Author’s Note: The next post entry here is planned for Monday, July 28, 2025, and the proposed topic is: “The Bare/Dare Series!”

Word-Play Post!

A Vintage Image!

Alternate Title: ReNude Bare Meet!

A word-play is the use of wording (words) to convey a mixed meaning or unusual idea.

Jay and Roger meet!

Translated Title: Renewed Nude Encounter!

Headline: On this historic date, 3 January, 2009, Jay and Roger first met…

The amicable bonding, camaraderie, companionship, friendship, and trust that was initiated through chance, destiny, fate, spontaneity and “being at the right place at the right time” happened at a gay bar, downtown Washington, D.C., USA, when on this afternoon a SGL nudist oriented social club held a naked cocktail hour social…

Abbreviated version: Today marks the day of the start of our friendship…that began in an atmosphere of excitement and hope! Barack Obama had just been elected as the next president after eight long, boring, dull years of the reign of George II (Bush)! A new year had just arrived and the energetic uplifting of spirits flowed throughout the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area and beyond!

To our knowledge and recollection, Jay and I had never seen one another before this day. This meeting occurred on an unseasonably warm Saturday afternoon in January. In a region not noted for unusually warm temperatures during this month. The event was a monthly social nudity “cocktail hour” that rarely attracted the large attendance as it achieved on that particular day. The balmy weather may have impacted the crowd, as the majority arrived wearing T-shirts and shorts before stripping naked!

Naked truth!

When I arrived at the bar, I registered and paid my admission fee. The line waiting to enter the ground floor changing room was long, so I decided to use the changing room on the second floor. After stripping and storing my street clothes, I descended the stairs into the bar area. It was packed with wall-to-wall bare men! I noticed one vacant table-for-two in the far corner and that became my goal!

The crowd was elbow-to-elbow (frequently accidental penis-to buttocks)! The friendliest and largest good-natured crowd I’d ever seen at a “naked cocktail” event. Once I’d finally arrived in the corner area, the table-for-two I’d seen from the stairs was occupied by Jay – solo. I wrote him a note explaining my being Deaf and asked if he was sitting alone. He welcomed me to join him and we exchanged first names.

We passed notes back and forth while becoming acquainted. After about an hour, Jay let me know that he took 3 years of American Sign Language (ASL) at university to satisfy his foreign language requirement but his skills were awkward and underused. I encouraged him to renew his experience and soon we were communicating totally manually. His fluency returned quickly and what he couldn’t recall we employed fingerspelling.

The more than three hours that we spent together revealed to us both a substantial “shared interest” in numerous topics, authors, sports, entertainment, etc. Of particular was our similar adaptation and familiarity with nudity in our lives and awareness of our same gender attraction. Before we even finished our bottles of water, the “naked cocktail” happy hour was ending and clothed patrons were arriving. Before we departed to our changing areas, we exchanged email addresses and messaging contacts and vowed to keep connected.

Bare friendship!

Surprisingly, we both commenced sharing emails that same Saturday evening. Our communication continued several emails per day throughout the following week. We approached the topic of meeting again the next Saturday but were uncertain as to exactly what that day entailed as we each had a previous engagement to attend. Not one that we were comfortable bringing another new friend to include.

The following Saturday arrived with weather the exact opposite – actually, extreme opposite – of the day that we met. It was blustering winds and the outside temperatures hovered at freezing even in the full sun. I ventured to a local bookstore before my early afternoon encounter with friends. While browsing in the aisles of books, several times I passed a man who was vaguely familiar. Each passing we made eye contact but I was unable to identify him. I found a title that interested me and lined up to make my purchase.

In an exchange of emails that evening, one week after we met, Jay mentioned that he was in a bookshop in Arlington and as he was leaving he saw me in line buying a book! All bundled in coats, scarves, gloves and hats, neither of us recognized the other! We’d only interacted together while bare, never while wearing clothes! Now, had we visited the booksellers in our respective nakedness…?

Bare support!

Jay nor I had ever had this “identity-crisis” happen before despite our years of nudity experiences. Nor could we relate to others who shared similar circumstances. Jay remarked that we needed to create and to edit a naked book of world records along the lines of Guinness!

Later, I did inquire how Jay identified me buying a book. He responded that I had removed my knit cap and that he recognized my shaved head! Once we begin to remove our coverings (concealment), familiarity returns! Nude does indeed work as an identification essential!

Naked truth!

The proverbial words of wisdom: “clothes make the man” obviously failed in this instance between Jay and myself. Clothes determined only chaos and confusion! Left to our body and clothes freedom preference, I’m quite certain we would not have suffered any confusion regarding having previously met – although the frigid outdoor temperatures would have caused discomfort!

Both Jay and I agree this incident – which helped build our friendship – offers proof that nude is both better and simpler! As ardent bare practitioners, we know the message above extols both reality and honest truth!

Naked hugs!

Roger Poladopoulos/ReNude Pride

Author’s Note: The next post entry here is planned for Monday, January 6, 2025, and the proposed topic is: “9!”

BFFs + Meet = Enable!

Bare practitioners planning together!

Prologue:

The recent blunder that I caused over my substitution of the proposed Bare: Modesty? post entry here for last Friday, January 12, 2024, created feeling of depression and vulnerability for me. A planned reunion with my BBFs (best bare friends) this past weekend offered me not only relief from my reaction but also realization that I can proceed with my projected revisiting of this undertaking in confidence. This posting is an appreciation gesture to Aaron, my spouse; to Jay, my BBF; and to Raheem, Jay’s partner.

Background:

In order to commemorate the fifteenth (15th) year of our BBF (bare best friends) relationship; Jay, my BBF, and I planned a two-night weekend celebration in an unfamiliar destination. Click the most recent posting for the update: BBFs to view. By the end of October, 2023, Aaron, my spouse, and Raheem, Jay’s partner, had joined the proposed occasion and we congregated in Canada this past weekend. Today’s post entry is the unplanned and hastily considered product of our BBFs summit!

It is winter here in the Northern Hemisphere; Canada is north of the border between Canada and the United States. The weather in the city is much colder than anything I am accustomed to experiencing! Being BBFs in a public hotel – as well as bare practitioners – we retreated to Jay and Raheem’s suite so that we could shed off our burdensome clothes, get comfortable and to relax and become social.

Raheem initiated the conversation by wondering how many people who read ReNude Pride were actually bare practitioners. That subject remained almost the exclusive focus for the two days and two nights that we spent in the hotel (due to the weather extremes outside). Fortunately, we were able to stay conveniently in our nakedness and to have all but two meals delivered to our suite!

We quickly developed a goal and purpose for this posting entry. The theme is: “Now that 2024 is here, explore it as a Bare Year!” The purpose is to encourage those who are uncertain of their personal level of comfort with nakedness to consider, explore and examine their feelings and reactions through suggested exercises to monitor their discovery and reality. The comments option/section is available for all to use as a communication tool to share with others.

ReNude Pride, as a blog, will publish periodically articles that will assist all of us in contemplating our thoughts and responses to predicaments and situations that we may encounter. This also includes examining different points of view on a wide variety to topics that possibly may help us reach a conclusion to certain issues that we may or may not face.

Hopefully the providing of exploratory methods or pathways for consideration, contemplation and determination can help with the achievement of a level of comfort with nakedness that will enable the pursuit of this aim or goal. Once this qualifying has been attained, implemented and understood, then progression to the next or another subsequent phase or stage becomes a possible development.

In the “Background” introduction of this submission, I gave the link to the BBFs publication here along with Raheem’s unofficial but affectionate designation as our “textile convert.” His dynamism – energetic leadership – in assuming the “moderator” role in our weekend gathering’s spontaneous discussion was rewarding to witness! It afforded an enthusiastic infusion and inspiration as we (Aaron, Jay and myself) participated in his “conversation coordination” as his subordinate audience.

In sign language, “I love you” is conveyed to Aaron, Jay and Raheem!

When this BBF reunion was initiated, Jay and I were the only two involved. Our partner (Raheem for Jay) and my spouse, Aaron, were aware of our planning. However, at that time, we were considering only a one night adventure of two friends who accidently met one another in a chance circumstance fifteen years ago. The logic for this was based on the fact that neither Aaron nor Raheem were a part of our lives when we first met. Now, the four of us are more than simply friends. Our status is now at the level of bare friends who are additionally bare practitioners! An entirely exclusive, remarkable and unique distinction.

The exclusivity of our relationship as BBFs, of course, involves our nakedness. We are what and who we are: bare. What we see in one another and share together is honesty. There are no clothes available to hide us. No disguise is necessary or needed. We are two bare same gender loving couples who offer friendship and respect. As individual couples, we have sexual intimacy but as friends we do not. For many, this reality is unbelievable. Often, reality itself is nothing more than: unbelievable!

Our exclusivity also involves our uniqueness. The unbelievability of our situation surprisingly eradicates yet another stereotype. Gay and naked frequently invokes mental images of an orgy. This is common mythology for the multitudes; regardless of their clothing status or their sexual identity. The four of us destroy that misconception!

Naked hugs!

Roger Poladopoulos/ReNude Pride

Author’s Note: The next post entry here is planned for Monday, January 22, 2024, and the proposed topic is: “Resolutions Reminder!”

BBF’s!

Best Bare Friends!

January 3, 2009: a Saturday. Mr. Obama still retained the official designation of “president-elect” for about another two weeks. Jay (my soon-to-be BBF) and I arrived separately at the Naked Happy Hour (nude cocktails) event in downtown Washington, D.C. We stripped off all our clothes in the second floor men’s room with over 100 other guys. We proceeded downstairs (clothes free) to the bar area and that’s where we met. We’ve been BBFs (bare best friends) ever since then; exactly fifteen (15) years ago today!

This day was more than a full year before Aaron and I met one another. As a matter of fact, Jay was very encouraging to Aaron and myself and was the singular “honourary” best man for both Aaron and myself on August 15, 2015, the day that we got married. Fortunately, over the years, Aaron and Jay have also become BBfs together!

For the past four years, Jay’s bromantic partner is Raheem. Ever since we’ve met him, Raheem has been an integral component of our now BBF foursome. He fits as an appropriate “odd man” as he’s the only one of us who “wore” clothes until he met up with Jay! His unofficial designation (in jest) is as our “token textile convert!”

Despite our often laughing at Raheem’s “novelty” nudity status, we’ve welcomed him into our clothes free world. Amazing, he does have an enthusiasm for social nakedness and enjoys our outings among others as well as among ourselves. Jay often has a “new” Raheem tale of “naked energy” to share with us. It is rewarding to be with another who is enthralled with body and clothes freedom.

Over the 15 years of our “best bare friendship,” Jay and I have both considered not only the timing of our meeting one another but also the chronological implications. It was very early into a new calendar year, the actual third day of January, 2009. The day held promise and excitement. To start with, it was a very moderate day temperature-wise, I wore shorts and sandals to the planned “naked cocktail” event. An unusual occurrence for January of any year in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The unseasonably warm outdoor temperatures contributed to the exceptional crowd gathered for the bare “happy hour” gathering!

The crowd was one of the reasons that Jay and I met. I was looking over the attendance for a place to sit. Jay was seated at a “table-for-two” and had no one in the opposite chair. I approached him and…voila, we met! We shared the same table for a couple of hours, exchanging notes with one another and Jay practicing his American Sign Language (ASL). Before parting as the naked cocktails event ended and “textile cocktails” (clothed cocktails) began, we shared email addresses and agreed to keep in touch with one another.

We sent emails throughout the week following our meeting and were both very excited about Obama’s upcoming inauguration and the commencement of both change and hope for all of us living in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. We discussed meeting for a lunch during one of the upcoming weekends but were unsure of the throngs of people anticipated before the swearing in of the new president. One of the suggested dates was to wait until after the president’s event and people returned home.

We didn’t have to delay our next encounter together. The following Saturday, nor January 10, 2009, we surprised one another (again) by eventually realizing that we were both shopping inside a bookstore in Arlington, Virginia. The confusion was based on the fact that neither one of us recognized the other because we were wearing clothes. We only knew one another through being naked – not under the disguise of garments!

Unfortunately, we didn’t recall one another until we were leaving the booksellers. It did provide us both with laughter as we realized this would probably be the contact incident that would permanently seal our friendship!

“Sorry! I didn’t recognize you wearing clothes!”

Naked friendships cause less confusion than one might think!

Naked hugs!

Roger Poladopoulos/ReNude Pride

Author’s Note: The next post entry here is planned for Friday, January 5, 2024, and the proposed topic is: “Footnote!”

Bare Friends!

Gravatar: Jay and Roger!

Prologue:

My regular publishing schedule for ReNude Pride is Monday and Friday. Since my back-to-back publication here for “Bottoms-Up! End of December, 2022!” and “Nude New Year, 2023!” I decided to post entry this today, January 3, rather than yesterday.

Background:

January 3, 2009, the day that I first met Jay, who has become a fast and loyal friend of mine! Barack Obama had just been elected as “president-to-be” in November, 2008. This country was desperate for and seriously needed a change in direction, a change in leadership and the promise of hope – and a chance of a future!

On this date, Mr. Obama was just a few brief weeks away from officially assuming his presidency. Everywhere in the Washington, D.C. area, there was an atmosphere of excitement, of fulfillment and a sense of hope, joy and promise. Of kindness and respect. Of decency, honesty and renewal. Those “weapons of mass destruction” were proven false, nonexistent and evaporated into complete fabrication.

Truth!

Jay:

This was the tone of the atmosphere that existed the day we first met and began our friendship. At that time, there was a local bar (tavern) in downtown Washington, D.C., that on two Saturday afternoons every month (the first and the third) was rented to a local gay men’s social nudity club for “naked happy hour” from 1:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. (also referred to as “naked cocktails”). There exists a very “seedy and sleazy” inference on the choice of “cocktail!” Great minds, descend into the gutter and get to work!

The crowd at the social nude event on that day was wall-to-wall. Before the first hour had passed the doors were locked and the only admittance was only if someone on the inside left. The District of Columbia Fire Marshall had posted an officer at the entrance to physically monitor the situation and the compliance.

Jay was already seated at a table for two, alone, when I saw him from across the lobby. There was an empty chair beside him. I headed in that direction through the mob. When we made eye-contact, I pointed to the chair with a questioning expression on my face. Jay smiled, pulled out the chair and patted the seat with his hands. I nodded, pointed to my right ear and shook my head in a negative manner, conveying to him that I am Deaf. He laughed and using his hands made the fingerspelling for “okay.” We had just given birth to a friendship!

We were both completely naked when we met. We had stripped out of our clothes in different restrooms when we arrived at the bar.

Good advice!

From Then Until Now:

From this date in 2009 onward, Jay and I have forged together a friendship that we both treasure and trust, even after he moved away from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region. He witnessed first-hand the beginning of my live-in relationship with my spouse, Aaron, in 2010 and our marriage, five years later. I have watched the growth of his relationship with his partner, Raheem. Last year, he and Raheem were guest authors here on ReNude Pride on a post entry entitled “BRAT!”

Avatar for my friend, Rohan, The Nubian-Ikigai!

This past year, On September 8, 2022, I received a comment here from The Nubian-Ikigai regarding the posted announcement of Her Late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Canada, Jamaica and the Head of the Commonwealth. That comment led to email correspondence between Rohan, the Nubian-Ikigai and myself that continues today.

My friendship with Rohan resulted in an interview with him published this past November, 2022, and then with Rohan appearing as a guest author here on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2022! He is now publishing his own blog here and I invite all of you to join me in following his site:

Crossing the Styx

Bare practitioners do indeed make a beneficial and rewarding brotherhood of friends! Discard all your clothes and discover who you can meet today!

Read his lips…

“Thank you, Jay, Raheem and Rohan, the Nubian-Ikigai!”

Thank you Jay, Raheem and Rohan, the Nudian-Ikigai, for the exceptional and the extraordinary gift of friendship without the baggage of clothing!

Naked hugs!

Roger Poladopoulos/ReNude Pride

Author’s Note: The next post entry for here is planned for Friday, January 6, 2023, and the proposed topic is: “Reciprocity!”