It’s a trend! Well, sort of. Kind of. A little bit. OK, two recent examples. Wrote about the other one here, not so long ago. But I have heard of others from time to time.
Anyhow, this one’s in Scotland, and in a private home rather than a restaurant.
Nude dining may not be everybody’s ideal way to spend a Saturday night, particularly in the company of strangers. But in a surprising number of Scottish dining rooms, people are willing to bare all before the breadsticks arrive and only cover up again as the carriages are called.
Sadly, that “surprising number of Scottish dining rooms” seems to be a slight exaggeration. The article discusses only one example. It does allude to naturist B&Bs in Scotland. And it should not surprise anyone that when naturist friends get together for a home-cooked meal at someone’s flat or country estate, the wearing of clothes is as little to be expected as the telling of truth by prominent government officials.
What’s interesting here is that these clothes-free epicurean gatherings involve mostly complete strangers, to each other and to the hosts, Richard and Roxanne. Evidently, it’s all about good food and good times, with no hidden (sexual or commercial) agenda. The hosts
have made the choice to be more discreet, offering three-course dinners at their detached home, somewhere near Edinburgh. The evenings are entirely free of charge.
“Lots of people think there must be a catch. To be honest, I think we’d get more people coming if we charged,” says Richard, who wishes his surname to remain confidential. “But we do it for social reasons, not to make money. We have dinner, blether for a few hours and then the guests go home. Nothing more.”
Richard and Roxanne do it simply for the pleasure of nude company. There is even a website to get the word out: Nude Dinners.
As you might expect, however, there is a vetting process:
Swinging is strictly off the menu, a no-nonsense approach that is spelt out on the couple’s website. To safeguard against undesirables the couple chat with people over the telephone first. Couples are not given the home address but instructed to meet Richard at a nearby hotel. Here he assesses the couple’s sleaze potential over a pre-dinner drink. If the couple pass, which all have until now, he shows the way to his home where Roxanne gives the guests the final once-over. Only after this final check, lasting about an hour, do the clothes come off.
Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. And it looks like a good approach to meeting interesting people who share a preference for being naked. For all of you out there who don’t have convenient access to a naturist/nudist club or resort and haven’t found it easy to find nudity-loving friends who are also civilized and maybe even urbane and cultivated, this looks like a promising way to go. Put up a website like Richard and Roxanne’s, exchange links with them, mention the site at a few online forums… and see what develops.
Originally published March 2, 2006