Nudey Rudey & A Little Dr Who

G'day,

I'm going to share something with the world that may come across as a little scary... or exciting, depending on what side of the fence you sit on. Are you ready?

I sleep starkers.

Yep. In the raw, naked, nude, bare, au natural. And while some of you may now be looking at my profile picture in the right column there and thinking such things as,

• "So what? I didn't need to know that. Eew. It's completely put my off buying his books now.", or 
• "Ohh, how exciting." (Snigger) "Now I'm going to buy every book this hot fella puts out!" (cough, splutter choke), or 
• "Who gives a horse-riding S*&#?", or even 
• "Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm never going to sleep again!"

 I feel I need to break it to you that it's not that unusual. According to Mr Google and his mates at the Interwebs, 31% of men sleep sans clothing, and almost 14% of women. Apparently, sleeping in your birthday suit is even supposed to be good for you. Haven't read up on that theory, but Amen I subscribe! So now that I've let the rabid possum out of the bag and he's scratched your hand and bit a finger or two, allow me to help your visualisations by saying I naturally have little to no body hair and distinctly sexy white-to-brown transition marks where my sleeves and socks end. (Insert wolf-whistle here)

 And after you've just come back from watching 15 mins of Nightmare On Elm Street 2 just to clear your mind's eye of those images, you're probably wondering why in the universe am I writing this down for the world to see. Well, this is kind of like all my other writing: I don't know yet because I haven't written it. Don't knock it; it's a good method, as it keeps the author on his/her toes at all times. Nothing forms suspense like never knowing what's around the corner. But I digress. What I can tell you is what got me thinking about this topic. It was hearing for only the hundredth time somebody say, "If you sleep naked, what would you do if there was a fire?"

What would I do if there was a fire? Get the bloody hell out of the house, of course! Who gives a flying bazzoo whether your wearing porky-pig PJs or not when you're about to get your butt-hairs singed? You're about to die in a raging inferno; you get out. Simple. So what if old Mrs Mable from across the road sees you in your nuddy. It's nothing she hasn't seen before... especially if she owns a good pair of binoculars and you never close your blinds. I think getting out alive is more important than your ego/pride/embarrassment, don't you?

Every other creature on this lovely world of ours goes around in the buff, and it's only our own "civilised" human attitudes standing in the way of a good open moon. I was actually typing away happily a few weeks ago with the TV on in the background for some mood noise, when I looked up for a breather (it was a heavy action scene I was scratching down at the time) and found three people, 2 blokes and a young lady, slogging away in their kitchen, totally nekkid. Apparently they run a vegan cooking blog where they posts recipes and photos of their culinary escapades wearing nothing but aprons, oven mitts and cheekily broad smiles. They do all of this to promote nudity as a conduit for young people to be proud of their bodies. Apart from the obvious reason, I think it's great. It speaks to a much wider issue too.

Somehow, my generation has come into this world with a warped sense of themselves. I'm not really sure if all the shinks in the world could explain it, either. Whether it be photo-shopped images in magazines, pornos and the internet (Notice I group those two together. What? You don't?) or maybe just the obesity crisis gripping the western nations, the human race has a giant collective self-esteem problem. For those not in the know, that's psycho-babble for we don't love ourselves. What's not to love. As the great Doctor says, "Humans are amazing!" And you know what? We are.

(For those of you that have no idea of who I'm referring to when I say "Doctor", I'm sorry. I truly am. You are missing out on only the greatest TV show to grace the airwaves. And if you do watch the show and still didn't pick up on it, shame on you! You call yourself a fan?)

So, moral of the story? Be true to yourself. And not just in the air-fairy way that they tell you to in those hippy camps. I mean really. Because if you can't love that roly-poly pasty-white skinny-dipping vessel of beauty, then how the heck can you expect anyone else to? I've never seen you naked, but I reckon you're a bit of alright, and so should you. I'm proud of my nud-sleeping every night, even when the temp outside drops as low as minus 10.... (just a bit harder to find little mate when I got to pee, is all.)

This world needs more starky-sharkers. And I'm doing my bit for the team. Tonight, why don't you don the rudey and make a stand. Nude is beautiful.

Till next time,
-Damien.