HBM071: The Evangelists of Nudism
Here Be Monsters
Here Be Monsters Podcast
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2017
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Growing up Mormon in Montana, Bethany Denton had a phrase drilled into her mind from an early age: “modest is hottest.” To her, it became a mantra even while many of her friends, especially other girls, struggled with Mormonism’s strict modesty standards. But never Bethany–she was fat enough to know that no one wanted to see that anyway.
By the time Bethany moved to Washington State for college, she had rejected the church and was looking for new, broader experiences. She got a job as a campus security officer, started drinking, and began wading into feminism. She looked for new, non-Mormon role models to help her find adventure. That’s when she met Helen, a punk rock pirate who invited Bethany to join her for an all-expenses paid nude vacation, courtesy of an eccentric tech millionaire who evangelized the merits of nudism.
Bethany said yes, and went with Helen to California to bake in the sun for a week, and to learn about the body she’d been hiding for the past 20 years, learn to decouple nakedness from sexuality.
And when she returned, she felt utterly changed. But she’d soon tearfully discover she was not entirely untangled from childhood guilt.
Names in this story have been changed.
This episode was written and produced by Bethany Denton, and was edited by Jeff Emtman. Nick White is HBM’s editor at KCRW.
Music: Nym, Half Ghost, Lucky Dragons
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the Independent Producer Project of KCRW, this is here being monsters. So I have a weird question for you. It was Helen. She was eyeing me as she drove. You're going to think I'm crazy. I didn't. I thought she was magnificent. It was January. We were |
| 0:38.7 | at work driving the campus security truck, patrolling our university with the heat on. |
| 0:44.6 | Our uniforms were big puffy green coats with public safety written on the back. |
| 0:50.1 | I got the job as a fluke. |
| 0:51.9 | I was not very authoritative. |
| 0:54.0 | Most of my co-workers spent their shifts busting kids for smoking weed. |
| 0:58.0 | Me? |
| 0:59.0 | I'd use my keys to sneak into a classroom and do homework or watch Netflix. |
| 1:05.0 | Helen was a few years older than me and as bad of a fake cop as I was, |
| 1:10.0 | even though she didn't get the job as a fluke. I think it was because she didn't was pirate who had no trouble confronting wrongdoers. Only instead of citations she |
| 1:24.9 | handed out advice on how to be more discreet in illicit activities. Her entire |
| 1:30.3 | head was braided at the root with red black and purple ribbons that went all down her back. |
| 1:35.9 | Her ears and face were shackled by piercings I'd never even seen before. |
| 1:41.8 | For some reason she took a liking to me too and claimed me as her new friend. |
| 1:45.4 | When we weren't at work she showed me her favorite anime films. |
| 1:48.9 | I watched her debate queer and feminist theory with men. |
| 1:52.8 | She taught me how to take tequila shots and defended me from lecherist drunks at her favorite |
| 1:56.6 | dive bars. |
| 1:58.7 | Helen was my friend and she was also everything I wanted to be. |
| 2:02.1 | I couldn't fathom what someone like her could possibly see in |
| 2:04.6 | someone like me. I grew up fat and Mormon with the mantra modest is hottest drilled into my head at an early age. |
| 2:15.8 | My regular-sized peers struggled to keep modesty standards, |
... |
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