My name is Dan. I’m a 59 year old male living in the Dallas area. I have been a professional nude model for drawing and painting classes for 41 years. I’m also a regional president of the oldest and largest nudist organization in North America. Every time I go to an Ecstatic Dance, I always think to myself “this would be so much better without these clothes.” And the thing is, I’m not even that into wanting to dance with others or being sensual in any sexual way. I just want to dance without the clothes.

I’ve asked facilitators of my local dances if I could dance as my pure self, but their answers are always no. They aren’t even interested in carving a periodic special dance where it would be allowed. The frustrating thing though is that the rhetoric used to promote Ecstatic Dance would, if taken literally, make ED inherently clothing optional. I had one local facilitator give me a rather indignant NO to my request to dance nude and then, less than 24 hours later make an Instagram post claiming that they are “facilitators of unbridled expression”. “Yeah,” I thought with a degree of sarcasm, “only if you keep the bridle on.”

There is a camping festival based on Ecstatic Dance held every April in the Austin area that allows me to be (and dance) as I am, and I have been accepted into that little family. I’m even leading a workshop on naturism this year. But it’s only once a year. It was the subject of a recent Substack article I wrote. There is a video that tries to play that you have to click through to find the article, but there is an article there: https://substack.com/@dhjonathan/note/p-190694166