JOAN GOES TO NUDES-A-POPPIN'
Roselawn, Indiana is home to the Ponderosa Sun Club, a classic old nudist camp, that hosted the renowned "Nudes-A-Poppin'" contests every summer from 1975 to 2019. These events were held to build interest in the Club and served as a major fundraiser too. Their "Miss Nude Universe" contests featured a wide array of professional exotic dancers, a.k.a. strippers from mainly the Midwest, but some from the coasts too, not to mention a cadre of performing artisans from XXX movies, and magazines. This competition was a major event for both the professional performers, and up to 6,000 spectators.
An amateur wet-T-shirt contest was added and proved to be a very popular event. The $50-$60 minimum entry fee, in addition to sponsorships provided significant revenue for the Club, as well as local motels and restaurants. These events were the only times where cameras were permitted on the grounds, and photography was rampant among the guests. Another side benefit was that the event was clothing optional for the audience, and not an insignificant number of spectators participated in various degrees of undress.
I attended three times with three of my closest single men friends, and while they teasingly goaded my wife, Joan to join us, she begged off figuring they'd pressure her mercilessly to at least go topless. While she had a great relationship with them, she wouldn't likely want any guys she knew to see her tits, and certainly not to have pictures they could show to anyone, including any number of our other friends. Knowing how much I liked attending this event, I also didn't think she wanted to inhibit me from fully enjoying my photographic endeavors.
While the professional performers were beautiful and 100% uninhibited in the poses they struck, my favorite photo opportunities were of women spectators who exercised the clothing-optional choice. Women probably made up close to one-third of those attending, and of those maybe 10-20% were topless or nude. So, it was likely that there could be up to 250 at least half-naked "civilian" women for me to admire and hopefully photograph a fair number of them. These represented a smorgasbord of ages, colors, body-shapes, and sizes. Their courage and willingness to show their bodies made each one of them beautiful in their own special way.
The friends I had attended with mostly tried to find places closest to the fences around the stage area to get photos of the "pros," featuring close-up shots of their proudly displayed pussies. I preferred to just meander among the spectators and approach women either showing their wares or looking tempted to do so. When asked if I could take their pictures, not surprisingly, virtually all those already exposed said "yes." Women who were clearly braless, wearing sheer tees, or crop tops, and those in bikinis also caught my interest. I batted about.500 when asking them to flash me for a photo. There was also a fair percentage of that group who offered to show me the goods, if I promised NOT to photograph them. I could understand that, since they didn't want any photos getting online to embarrass them back home.
Many women questioned me about why I wasn't up at the fence taking pictures of the contestants and why I instead wanted to take their pictures. If they were subtly fishing for compliments, I eagerly took their bait, hook, line, and sinker as I praised their good looks, good bodies, and good attitudes. I enthusiastically and truthfully proclaimed how I found "real" women much more attractive than the "professional strippers." After hearing my pitch, a good percentage of these women then pulled up their tops and told me to go ahead and snap a shot of their tits, usually with lots of vocal encouragement of the guys with them. A jealous husband or boyfriend wouldn't be welcomed here.
In the week after we returned home, each of us printed our photos and planned to meet at our house to compare our camera skills and the array of women we'd captured on film. We gathered in the basement where I would occasionally host poker games, so we wouldn't bother Joan with blatant evidence of our prurient interests. The photos of the contestants my friends had taken were a whole lot more graphic than those of my amateurs. But the women I photographed were a lot more alluring and sensual, at least to me.
After nearly an hour, Joan surprised us by coming down and asking to see our photos. She seemed genuinely interested in seeing what the attraction was for us to justify fourteen hours of driving time. As she pulled up a chair with wine glass in hand, I think my friends were a little embarrassed by the prospect of Joan seeing the graphic nature of their photos. Joan suggested we each display the best of our portfolios in rotation, ending with me. She chose our friend Dennis to go first, likely because she knew him best.
He had found a spot at the fence, near the fee-standing acrobatic chrome pipe where contestants showed off their pole-dancing skills along with their most intimate body parts. His photographic skills were proudly on display as were a plethora of bare and spread pussies.
Don was next and he must have stood near a low platform where the women competed in a special version of floor exercises, better known as "rug shows." It seemed as if he were checking for an inverted variant of "strep throat" since all these women's pussies seemed to be saying "ahh."
Lyle, our other friend was either more subdued, or just had a less strategic place at the fence. He caught the participants marching from one station to another, though they all seemed to stop and strike sexy full-length, standing poses for him. It was clear Joan liked these photos the much better than the others', and I did too.
I had already edited my photos to eliminate any I felt weren't flattering to the gracious models. Joan was genuinely surprised, and clearly pleased to see that virtually all of my pictures were of women in the audience. Our guests seemed to lose interest in my photos fairly quickly since there were no graphic crotch shots, and breasts were of modest size and various shades, and shapes without the surgical, silicon enhancements sported by many of the contest entrants. Only Joan seemed intrigued with the idea of regular wives and girlfriends allowing any number of men, like her husband, to see and photograph their bare breasts and in some cases more.
We all had another drink, and my three friends went into swap-meet mode, exchanging photos of contestants they might have missed, or of particularly erotic poses. They did this with a fervor you'd expect from 12-year-olds trading rookie-season baseball cards. No one seemed to want any copies of mine, and I wasn't much interested in theirs either.
After they left, Joan and I went upstairs for one more glass of wine. I was waiting for her to tip her hand as to what she thought of the evening. She's no prude and no virgin to nude photography. We've done a lot of erotic photos, but few of the wide-spread nature, and rarely have we shared any with other people.
When she was a senior in college, she, her roommate Jan, and a half-dozen male friends would often go to a topless club, usually on amateur nights. She had described how their men friends tastefully flattered, coaxed, and cajoled her and Jan to enter the contest every time, which she confessed made her even more tempted than the prize money itself.
While she assured me neither of them had actually entered these contests, the wistful way she described those nights convinced me she certainly got some vicarious excitement out of watching her surrogate coeds shed their inhibitions for a chance at $250. It felt to me like there may have been some feelings of belated regret there too. I'm sure if I'd been there, I'd have joined her men friends in their pleading her to enter.
With this history in mind, I wasn't surprised when Joan queried, "How did you convince these women to pose for you?"
"Well, many were already walking around topless, and a few were nude, so I just asked if I could take their picture. A lot of other guys were just snapping their candid photos without asking, and most of the women didn't seem to mind it one bit. I guess their state of undress was an unspoken invitation to take photos. But, for many, my politely asking their permission impressed them enough to pose more deliberately and more playfully for me."
"How about those who just pulled up their tops to flash you their tits" she asked curiously, "How did you get them to do that?"
"The same way; I just asked them if they'd mind showing me their breasts, and most did," I replied with a poker-face. "Saying breasts vs. tits seemed to impress some too. Then I'd ask if it would be OK if I took a photo, and again many were very OK posing for me, though some said I could look, but no pictures."
Joan took her time looking at each of my photos again, much slower this time. I was so glad I'd shot virtually all "girl-next-door" types and had edited them judiciously. "I can't believe this many regular women, someone's wives and girlfriends posed topless or even nude for you," she said clearly in awe of the women's self-confidence, courage, and pride in displaying their bodies. "You must have had a pretty good line and a glib tongue to persuade them to flash you their tits," she added with an enthusiastic chuckle.
"Do you wish you had come along?" I responded after seeing her become more curious, if not intrigued in reaction to my photos.
"Not with Dennis, Don, and Lyle along," she shot back instantly, which made me believe she'd given the idea at least some thought.
"They have a second event the 3rd weekend of next month too, and I know the guys won't want to go back before next year," I offered hopefully.
"Let me think about it," she said with a sigh. "If I do go, don't think it means I'll go topless, or pose for photos, if that's what you had in mind," she warned.
"I won't put any pressure on you to do anything; you can just come along and watch," I said honestly. And with our wine bottle now empty we called it a night.
For the rest of the week, we didn't say anything about Roselawn. But come the next weekend Joan was paging through her August calendar, and surprised me by asking, "Tell me again when that Roselawn thing is happening." I noticed her benign use of "Roselawn thing" vs. "Nudes-A-Poppin'" or something similarly more sexually graphic.
"It's the 3rd weekend in August, I think the 17th and 18th," I replied grateful that she remembered it, and was considering it enough to check her calendar.
