I love the unencumbered energy of a shirtless crowd of gays. A grid of torsos on Grindr will never compete with rubbing shoulders with shirtless men in real life. Nudity might often be a means to penetration, but it’s also a tool for connection for me.
I used to think my love of shirtless crowds was only a nightlife thing. My first circuit party was Battle Hymn, and I remember realizing every guy abruptly had their shirt off, so I joined them. I felt like I had entered another world, dancing in a massive warehouse with a disco ball spinning above a mosh pit of gay men, moving to the same beat. Society’s chains around our ankles broke for the evening. We stayed within the same four walls, but my sexuality accelerated at full speed.
Of course, it was easy to attribute this to the strobe lights, music, the liberation that comes with a space designated for queerness, and the fact much of the party had taken drugs and were drinking. I didn’t consider the sanctity of the skin-to-skin contact of hundreds of gays besides that it was simply hot.
Mutual male attraction is powerful, and the party always stops when I lock eyes with someone. But lust is fleeting in an ever-changing crowd of strangers; the music resumes, and the trance continues. I made circuit parties a part of my social life for the sex appeal as much as the community. Our bare torsos help create an animalistic uniformity, enabling us to lose inhibitions.
It would be dishonest to classify the liberation I felt as all-encompassing for every queer person. Circuit parties tend to idealize a particular fit body type, and there have been plenty of think pieces by gay men who feel ostracized by the fun.
However, as I stepped beyond this scene to explore other diverse nude-oriented social spheres, such as jockstrap-themed club parties or free-for-all of leather bars, I found the same feeling of safety, both within myself and others.
People need to feel comfortable – not horny – to get undressed. Although naked people are murdered all the time in horror movies, and as grungy and lawless as gay bars can feel, gay men wouldn’t take off their clothes and dance unless they weren’t in the safest spaces available to them in existence. (Cruising at parks is another type of thrill.)
I contacted acclaimed sexual wellness & intimacy coach Court Vox to see if this feeling could be universal. After all, nude beaches lure millions to experience freedom sans cloth. He said it depends.
“Communal nakedness can help us feel better about bodies because it allows us to experience other people’s naked bodies, perfections, and imperfections, specifically in relation to ours. If the container is set in such a way, what is possible is a letting go of shame, fear, and inadequacy to the point where folks forget they are naked.”
In other words, communal nudity is best when visibility and diversity come into play, which my circuit parties often lacked, but places like the Eagle do a better job of celebrating. Additionally, real life humbles expectations, whereas Instagram glorifies unrealistic body standards through lighting, angles, and FaceTune while facing humanity in numbers puts imperfection on a pedestal.
“When speaking about public nudity or semi-public spaces, we have to consider the environment or the setting, along with the implied or static agreements or rules,” said Vox regarding the feeling of safety. “When issues arise around consent or unwelcome energies, it’s usually because of confusion around the rules.”
And it’s easy to hypersexualize gayness; Vox even corrected me when I expressed gay men are more than hypersexual beings because not everyone identifies as such, to begin with. He said that’s a stereotype perpetuated by the media, porn stars, and often our community.
Sexual liberation means that humanity is not deduced to gender or sexuality, and I believe removing our clothes in group settings is not unlike taking off the armor of insecurity and metropolitan jadedness. For instance, I’ve witnessed men debate the nuances of Hillary Clinton’s career, covering themselves with nothing but a vodka soda.
I feel a deep sense of connection whenever I meet another queer person in a heterosexual setting and an immediate sense of camaraderie. We’re in this together. Communal nakedness takes this sense of community to the next level and makes it tribal, in my opinion. We’re all beautiful creatures of God (or Joan Rivers, depending on your beliefs) socializing to the rhythm of the night.
Vox said queer interactions are unique because socio-political norms do not have to be considered in the same ways, allowing for more varied forms of connection and expression.
“To speak about the queer lens in which we see each other is to simultaneously reference the male gaze, which women are subjected to daily. The only difference is we are just as much the focus of the male gaze as we ARE the male gaze. It’s a two-way mirror.”
Ironically, this came head-on when I went to a gay rooftop party in Barcelona that had a few liberated women sprinkled topless with tutus. Surrounded by gay men, they felt safe to throw caution to the wind. This mentality wasn’t just compartmentalized to beaches or gayness, but going against the expectations of the patriarchy manifested beyond activism to living your best life.
In queer spaces, gay men sit at both ends of objectification, so there’s no one else to blame for the culture beyond ourselves. Likewise, for the freedoms. Perhaps I don’t need a room of gays to lose their shirts to enjoy myself. But I love how happy everyone looks when we all do.
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