I saw that there was a naked tour of the State Library of Victoria (SLV) when the Melbourne Writers’ Festival programme was first released and thought it would be an interesting evening and likely a good story. The more I thought about it, the more I considered going. I’m never going to skydive or bungee jump (although I have paraglided and it was absolutely terrifying), so maybe this was a good excuse to push myself out of my comfort zone.
In the last few years my body shape has changed, and I am struggling to get used to this ‘new’ me. There are lumps and bumps and handfuls in places that there never was before, and consequently I have become ashamed of this vessel that I barely recognise: this beautiful body of mine that allows me to move and feel and love. Although rationally I know I’m being ridiculous, feeling okay about my body is still a work in progress, and being naked, or even near-naked, in front of other people is no longer an easy feat.
Momentarily ignoring this, I decided to commit. I texted some of my literary friends to tell them about the event and jokingly (for who would be serious?!) invited them to come. I should have known better. Before I had put my phone down, my ‘friend’, Asha, opted in and booked us tickets. In a later conversation with Asha’s partner, Andrew, he laughed at my naivety, for apparently Asha never wears clothes. I was dumb to call her bluff.
What was worse than being naked on my own for two hours? Naked with a friend. I was not ready for this.
Despite booking weeks in advance and hoping that perhaps we would forget, the evening eventually came. I had been worried about whether earrings and makeup were appropriate for a nude tour, but that was the least of my problems: Asha and I were off to the State Library to get nude, naked, starkers, bare, in the nud.
We met about 45 minutes beforehand at The Moat for a much-needed glass of dutch courage. Asha had a G&T while I inhaled a margarita. We were both nursing slight hangovers and ideas of backing out, but we’d already come so far, right? And, I mean, it was going to be over in a couple of hours, so, like, we may as well. We drank our drinks, oscillating between ominous silence and nervous chatter.
Soon enough, the time was nigh, and we scurried around to door four of the SLV on La Trobe Street. A volunteer greeted us at the door with a knowing smile and a ‘you’re here for the Naturist’s Library tour?’ I could see her undressing me with her eyes. We were led upstairs and shown to the meeting room and the bathrooms. It was recommended that we go to the toilet beforehand otherwise it would slow us down during the tour. Both Asha and I made a beeline there, avoiding eye contact with our fellow tourists.
Despite contemplating it, I couldn’t lock myself in the disabled toilet forever, so after a lecture I titled: Don’t Be a Wimp Jessica and Just Be a Normal Adult and Get On With It, I entered the meeting room with my head up and my eyes unfocused, the sweat literally dripping off my forehead.
We waited a few moments for others to show, sitting in a heavy silence with a few awkward jokes being made and far-too-loud nervous laughter in response. Asha and I sat next to each other commentating under our breaths in panicked bursts. Once everyone (bar two no-shows) arrived, our guide, visual artist Stuart Ringholt, stood up, introduced himself and said that he would provide a short run-down of the evening, but first, we should all get naked.
Then he took off his jumper.
This was it. This was the moment that I had been dreading. I had lamented to several friends beforehand in nervous confession that my most dreaded part of the evening would be the undressing. It is hard to undress in a sexy or considered manner unless you have clothes built for the purpose. Taking off socks cannot be done elegantly, nor can the removal of undies: you’re either showing everyone your butt or using your feet to slide them down while toppling over. It was not something I wanted to do in front of other people. Yet here I was.
Asha and I responded to the undress command differently. I turned around and, in a panic, took off all my clothes as quickly as I could and shoved them all into my bag: it was a tornado of clothes and sweat. Asha took her clothes off in a measured fashion, layer by layer, folded them, and carefully put them away. We were both in a stage of deep denial.
I turned around (for I had opted to show the room my butt as I bent over to remove my undies), sat down and felt the layer of sweat over my body become sticky as the air touched my skin – all my skin. I crossed my legs and my arms defensively while trying to look natural. I was the first to be ready (read: nude), and snuck peeks at my fellow tourists around the circle, without really trying to look at them. Watching people undress is to deny them their already diminished modesty. Once we were all seated, naked, Stuart explained the tour and the rules: no touching and no photos. It was afterhours, so there shouldn’t be any clothed people walking around, but there were security cameras and guards watching them. Nothing could be done about that, but the tapes would be erased within the month. He introduced us to our chaperone of sorts, Bec, a SLV staff member who was fully dressed and held the keys and swipecards to the forbidden areas of the library that we’d be visiting. She awkwardly waved – somehow she was embarrassed – and finally, we were off!
There were about 16 in our group, split fairly evenly between men and women. Our ages ranged from about mid-20s to late-60s. We headed off to our first stop – the catacombs – where we fossicked through the catalogue cards, kept for posterity but not much else. To get there, we had to go into our first (of many!) lifts for the evening. Only half or so of us could fit, so 8 of us squeezed in, nervously laughing and commenting on the heat that our bodies were emitting. The laughter increased when we realised that there was a mirror on the top of the lift. My god, SLV. Thanks for the warning. That sure was one way to start the tour.
As we walked from the lift to the catacombs we chattered nervously, sneaking glances at each other’s bits. Stuart had mentioned that we should take note of the change in temperature on our skin as we moved from room to room and Asha whispered to me how sweaty she was. ‘My God, me too!’, I gasped, relieved that I wasn’t the only one working up a fever. While walking around, I made an effort to not cross my arms: I didn’t come here to hide. But when you have no pockets, it’s surprisingly hard to do anything else with them.
We entered the catacombs with giddiness – naughty school children being somewhere that they shouldn’t – and fawned over the catalogue cards with joy (we may have all been nude, but we were book lovers, after all). Some were handwritten from the early 1800s and the cursive was itself, a work of art. We learned a little here about the history of the library and spent time looking around. Within ten or so minutes, we had mostly forgotten out nudity and were just yelling out our discoveries to each other.
It was hard to find anything on purpose: cards were sorted alphabetically by author, topic or title, but the Fs for authors were in amongst the Costumes: Military, which were in amongst books staring with N. I suddenly thought of my great uncle (my grandpa’s brother) Donald Thomson, who was an anthropologist and journalist and had written several books on the aboriginals of Arnhem Land. It took a good five minutes of searching before I found him! Well, his catalogue cards. My joy was quickly met by embarrassment though – I was naked and looking at his cards. That was a bit… well… uncomfortable. Although he died long before I was born, I dreaded to think what he’d say.
Next, we moved onto the Elephant Lift (no mirror on the roof of this one, thank goodness!) which was named because it was built to fit an elephant! Many years ago, the SLV and Melbourne Museum shared the building and the lift was purpose built to move the taxidermised animals, the largest being the elephant. All 18 of us (inclusive of Stuart and Bec) fitted in without too much touching, although I ended up in the middle and being surrounded by naked people was, well, quite frankly, strange. I had to be careful with my arms so as to not inadvertently touch someone’s bits. We took a quick ride in the lift, with our chaperone giggling lest we come across some unsuspecting staff roaming the building. Thankfully – more for them than us – we didn’t.
Next, it was on to the old pendulum, of which the pendulum part was missing (thought to be nicked by the Melbourne Museum when they moved north to their current site in Carlton), but we stood at the bottom of the staircase for some time, talking a little about Stuart’s work (he was a visual artist and had started naked tours in art museums as he believed that the colour of clothes changed your impression of artworks) and why we had come on the tour. This was the first time that I had the opportunity to properly see people, yet strangely it was their faces that I was more interested in. A couple of interesting points though: I probably looked a little more at the women, as I’ve seen plenty of naked men in my life (yolo!) and oddly (?) it was only the older woman who was hairless, all the women in the 20s – 40s had some sort of pubic hair. I also realised pretty quickly that everyone has different types of bodies. But as different as they were, they were all beautiful. #bodypositivityiamhereforyou
We were running out of time – it had already been close to an hour – so decided to head to the World of Books exhibition (a quick aside: Asha and I met while doing our Masters in Editing & Publishing at RMIT. As part of the entrance criteria (it was, at the time, a difficult course to get into) we had to attend that exhibit and write a few hundred words on it. We both noted the coincidence and speculated that Michael Webster – our lecturer, my thesis supervisor and a darling of the Melbourne literary scene – would either be proud of or horrified by us. We also both noted that it was weird to think about Michael while we were naked, so stopped it almost as immediately as we started.)
In the exhibit, we inspected books from the first wave of feminism in Melbourne, along with cuneiforms from Mesopotamia. Here, we all spoke at some length about the body. The females in the group spoke about the constant pressure that we receive from society to look and behave a certain way. The men mostly stayed quiet. It was from the balcony of the exhibition though, that I witnessed the highlight of the night: the beautiful La Trobe (Domed) Reading Room dark and still, with only the green desklights glowing. It really was something to behold. I had known this place so long, and it was always full of students and readers and whispered chatting. Seeing it like this took my breath away.
Slightly ruining the moment though, I absentmindedly lent on the glass balcony while I was gazing at the room below and the coldness made my nipples hard. Asha and I had a bit of a giggle at my expense.
Finally, the tour ended with us going down the stairs and into the Reading Room, wandering in between the desks and chairs and lamps. There was something so exciting and awesome about being in that room – full of so much history and normally full of so many people – while it was dark and quiet… and while I was naked. It truly was a privilege.
With that, the tour was over and we reconvened in the meeting room upstairs – after yet another mirrored lift ride. Waiting for us was another (clothed) SLV staff member who had champagne! And we were told that we could get dressed and pour ourselves a glass. At some stage though, Stuart mentioned that the Thursday night tour (also a sell-out, but apparently more men) had run down at the end to take a few happy snaps, so I asked Bec whether we could do the same. With a bit of a resigned ‘yes’, Bec directed about eight of us down the stairs. I led the group and imagine my horror when I ran right into a clothed (and now shocked!) staff member. I quickly bounded back up the stairs and waited for Bec to clear the way. Man. YOLO, right?
Asha thought that running around at the end to take selfies in the catacombs and Dome was the best part of the tour as there was more purpose, so she felt more comfortable being naked. I just kept feeling my hips jiggle. I did tell myself, though, not to care because no one was looking at me and I was running in the SLV Dome. Hips are meant for jiggling, I say.
Here I am, in the catacombs with the catalogues. I chose both earrings and makeup. What’s a nude tour without a bit of bling?
Returning upstairs slightly puffed and definitely joyous, we arrived to a room full of clothed people – and I couldn’t recognise anyone! I put my clothes back on (caring far less about my gracefulness compared to when I was undressing) and was quite sad that the tour was over. There was something emboldening and empowering about being naked in front of other people, who were naked in front of you.
Asha and I poured ourselves some champers (it was amazing how my hangover returned the minute I dressed) and spoke to a few of the other women about how fucked up we all feel about our bodies because of society and horrible things that men have said to us. We also all decided that it was proper bullshit to feel that way.
As we were saying our goodbyes (some were going for another drink, but both Asha and I, hangovers back in full force, were keen to head home to our beds), a couple of people from the group invited us out the following Friday. It turns out there were four or so ‘professional naturists’ who were part of the Melbourne Nudies Revolution group. I didn’t know such a thing existed, but their invite to nude bowling elicited a hard pass from me. Bowling naked just seems unnecessary (and reminded me of this episode of Seinfeld).
So – that was it. The night I had dreaded for weeks was over, how did I feel?
Well, I enjoyed it. I didn’t have any expectations coming in, but it was somehow still better than I anticipated. I felt stronger for it. More confident. I saw that bodies come in all different shapes and sizes, but they’re all beautiful and powerful. During the two hours, I was kind to and accepting of my body, even proud of it. I am trying to hold on to that feeling now as much as I can. I have done so much with this body and it has so many stories to tell. It really is worth showing a bit more of it every once in a while.
Bums out for books!
As I was walking down to the tram on my own, clothed, radiant, I realised that I didn’t even learn anyone’s name. I’d known them by their boobs and bums and vaginas and penises, their birthmarks and tattoos and rashes and bellies, but I didn’t know them by their names.
Although Melbourne is a big city, I hope I run into my nameless friends at some stage so as to laugh at our bravery and daring and to say thank you for being witness to something completely out of my comfort zone.
And to Asha, well, for all my complaining, I wouldn’t have done it without her. And now we can hit up the nude Japanese hot baths in the city all the time without it being weird. That’s a pretty good friend to have.
Asha and I, towards the end of the tour (the relief!)