Because funnily enough, yesterday (by which I mean Thursday) I was thinking about how sexy I would look in a skirt--and the skirt I saw was basically the exact water equivalent of that skirt. (Well, owned by an elderly chubby lady, so perhaps not proportions, but otherwise.)
And I thought, as far as swim suits go: "If I had to wear one, that is what I'd want to wear."
...Speaking of which, that makes a somewhat-decent segue into the long ramble I was planning on doing. (I mean I think it was better earlier but oh well, you do the best you can given the state of your mind.) And that's about my choice of wording.
When I said "if I had to wear a swimsuit", there's an obvious implication there--
Yes, I was raised swimming without any clothes.
Not so much skinnydipping as much as it is just swimming nude. Never naked, because I never felt exposed. Just nude. This is something that only about half of my family got into doing, but I am included in that half. There are a lot of misconceptions about nudists out there.
We're not hippies.
We're not people who parade around in the nude freely.
We're not engaging in orgies.
The driving force behind nudism is simply the belief of the natural beauty of the human body, that there is nothing innately sexual about a body without clothes, that it is our natural state and thus, not something to be shunned. We do however take the appropriate measures.
We only undress in appropriate locations. We also only undress at appropriate times: you can tell someone is new to the idea of nudism in the pacific northwest when they're parading around naked when it's raining, whereas all the more experienced people are either indoors and/or clothed.
I quite seriously would recommend reading the TVTropes page on the subject, but I say so quite seriously. No ruining your life. No link spam. (The article contains virtually no links at all.) Just pure information which is accurate. We don't have colonies; we have resorts. The article goes to describe basically everything you really need to know in a succinct form better than I ever could.
You can also look at the (for obvious reasons, NSFW) wikipedia page on the subject. Now the wikipedia version contains a lot of useless fluff you don't really need to know (albeit having trivia extras). It also has link spam. It's too technical in most areas. But it does give details on the subject as well. If you take the time to just read what's written, you'll get a much better understanding of where I come from.
This is not something I really consider weird. It's not even something which I really consider taboo, either: I mean. This is something I've always wanted to talk about. I've just always been distracted. It's been a part of my life for something like 13-15 years or so. (I was between 8 and 11 when I began, forget when exactly.) For me, there's nothing inherently sexual about being nude.
...Of course. Being naked is another subject altogether. (And I still am incredibly turned on by either removing or putting back on clothing.) Nakedness, being exposed, is something which I tend to treat appropriately. And just because these are my views does not mean I'd force them on others; I work within the views of others and thus will not stare at a body without explicit permission to do so. (If I did stare it'd be because of just how beautiful I find them to be.)
And then there's how I became a bit disillusioned with the community with time. I didn't understand why at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight I can recognize it as having been because of me being trans. I was okay with my body when I was younger, but as I grew to become increasingly not okay with my body, I became increasingly not okay with showing it to others.
Still, the mindset remains all the same even if the connection isn't there. If I ever get a chance to transition even partially, I'd probably be good with showing it off again. Even if not. I'm in that position where I've got a weird mindset in regards to my body:
I've got an acceptance of it being what it is, and I have come to terms with it being that. But at the same time, I hate that it's what I've got and do want to change it because yeah I'm a girl so I want the body of one. So basically...I really don't mind being exposed to nudity, be it others or myself. I work within their limitations (especially if they feel naked) and it's possible for me to be aroused, but largely I see the human body as being beautiful. While I don't like what I have and wish to change it, at the same time I know it's what I was born with and can go day to day usually without a big freakin' huge gender dysphoria attack.
...Still try to be as feminine as possible though because I am a woman and I prefer to look like one.