Usually, when reporting where French is spoken, I worry most about my grammar. But in Marseille last month, the plus-que-parfait was far from the front of my mind.
Instead, I was a little more preoccupied with my own incredibly public social nudity.
I had traveled to Marseille, France’s second-largest city, to attend an exhibition about social nudity, the practice of being naked in public settings unrestricted by gender, in Europe. It was a special night: The last of five naked visits the museum had organized, held when it was otherwise closed.
About 150 naked people would be walking through the show, “Naturist Paradises.” I planned to join them. (I thought it would be more awkward to be the only one still clothed.)
But the visit happened to fall during a vacation I’d already planned to take with my mother. I live in London, where I am a general assignment reporter for The New York Times. She lives in New York. Our time together is precious.
I suggested Marseille. The city is vibe-y: great restaurants, great hikes, great wine.
There was just one caveat. I might need to step away one evening to report at Mucem, the Museum of the Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean, there.
My mom, who has long tacked our vacations onto her business trips, nodded.
What’s the story? she asked.
So, I began, there’s this exhibition where visitors go naked —
Sounds fun! she interrupted. Could I come?
This was not our first joint reporting trip — she has tagged along as I covered a dinner party in West Virginia and bakeries in northern Vermont. Back then, I was a reporting fellow on The Times’s Food desk, and she just had to eat well and be her lovely charming self.
Here … well, it was a taller order.
We have both struggled with body image; we are, after all, American women alive in the 21st century. We’d been to saunas and hammams together, but only with other women. How would we do with no clothes in a French museum?
When the night came, I was nervous. I loitered by the snack table, watching visitors line up for tickets. My mom, though, was totally fine.
She was one of the first people to emerge from the makeshift locker room. And, because I’d forgotten to tell her to bring a sarong, a garment for covering up and to sit on, she had to walk across the lobby with her puffy blue coat pulled down just below her butt.
I started apologizing — it’s my fault, take my sarong — but she thought it was hilarious. And as soon as she walked in, she unzipped.
Soon, I joined her. But almost immediately, I realized I had a problem. Looking down at my notebook often meant looking straight at people’s genitals. That is a no-no in any community, and especially a naked one.
I lifted my pad higher. But that put me at eye level with people’s breasts. So I just scrawled, barely glancing at the page.
We joined a tour led by Bruno Saurez, an expert on French social nudity, which its practitioners often call “naturism.” (He also leads the local naturist association.) Naturists view shared, nonsexual nudity as a way to more fully respect themselves, one another and the natural world.
But naked museum tours can be just as hard to hear as clothed ones.
So I started speaking to visitors. As always, my mom quickly stole the show, chatting to the leaders of the French Naturist Federation as they lamented their public relations challenges.
“Young people, before, said about naturism: ‘Oh, it’s boring, it’s only old people who play pétanque and make barbecue,’” said Éric Stefanut, the federation’s communications director, referring to a common lawn game in France.
“I love pétanque,” my mother retorted, indignant, as the men around her laughed. “Excusez-moi!”
About an hour later, Mr. Stefanut invited us for dinner. I knew what I’d be getting into: “In my house, 80 percent of people who come are naturists,” he had told me during an earlier phone interview.
“Everybody is naked,” he added. “For us, it’s normal.”
I have a firm say yes reporting policy, especially with dinner invitations. It felt like a chance to speak with the leaders of the movement away from the buzz of the museum, and a way to understand their lives firsthand. And the naturists were friendly. I wanted to go.
But would my mom mind? I looked across the exhibition at her. She was tapping her feet as she watched an archival video, just like the little dances she sometimes does standing absent-mindedly in line at the grocery store. She was having fun. Amused, even.
I thanked him, and told him we would love to come.
At Mr. Stefanut’s house, we left our shoes by the door and our clothes on the bed, like the other guests. Lucky, his dog, wove between our legs while Kira, the cat, scratched at the towels that the naturists had laid out on the sofas. We shared pizzas and boxed wine, chatting. After an hour or two, we left, air-kissing our new friends goodbye.
“I was surprised by how little I thought about my body,” my mom mused in the cab going home, the sea like an inky stain past the lights of Marseille.
That’s true, I told her, surprising myself. Me too.
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