ROSELAWN, Ind. — The sign said “Nudist Parking Only: All Others Will Be Embarrassed.” And it was true.
I felt more out of place, more gawked at, more naked, walking across the pool area of Ponderosa Sun Club Family Nudist Resort, dressed in heavy boots, blue jeans and a shirt, than I did on the tennis court five minutes later, wearing not a stitch of clothing.
A quick glance at the folks reclining at the club in the mid-morning sun on a recent Tuesday was all I needed to take in the full spectrum of human creation. The women were both as big as manatees and as small as mannequins. And as for the guys, well, their “size” ranged between Dirk Diggler and the statue of David.
It was probably unnudist of me to have noticed such things. Playing tennis with a longtime member of the resort, Debbie Cappel, a 50-year-old divorcee from the Chicago area, I decided to ask. After all, what better way to conduct a no-holds-barred, frank, open and honest interview, than in the nude, playing tennis against a nude stranger, with other nude strangers looking on?
Tennis balls bounced left and right, back and forth, as did the question-and-answer pendulum, serve-volley, lob-smash.
So you’ve been coming here since you were 10?
“My mom bought me a trailer here when I turned 18. That way she can still yell out at me to keep the noise down.”
What do you like about it?
“I like the family atmosphere. I raised my kids here, and they still come out when they’re stressed.” I noticed a few people wearing clothes here this morning.
“Well, it’s a little cold out. We’re nudists, but we aren’t idiots.”
So what do you do about mosquitoes biting you… you know?
“Ponderosa Perfume — can of Cutter, can of Off. Don’t leave home without it.”
Do people sneak a peek much?
“Honestly, people don’t gawk. If they do, they’re brought in line quickly. I didn’t even notice for a decade that my neighbor here was uncircumcised.”
So what can you tell me about the big annual event here, Nudes-A-Poppin?
“I actually took part in the first shows, back in the ’70s. My girlfriend and I used to do the mud-wrestling. Her mother would work her corner, my mother would work my corner. They’d walk behind us, making sure nobody touched.”
So you stopped at some point, as the event grew and became more exotic?
“When they started asking me to bend over, I stopped.”
And there is the difference between the everyday nudism of Ponderosa Sun Club and Nudes-A-Poppin — the one day of the year here that being nude is not so much about emancipation as sexualization, that cameras are allowed inside the club, that guests can enter and not disrobe, and club members like Cappel keep their kit on.
“When you give so much out of the block for everybody to look at, you gotta give me something of my own,” she said. “My body is public, but my privates are private.”
Nudes-A-Poppin started out as a harmless beauty contest among Ponderosa members, but has evolved over the years to the point that it barely resembles the event it once was.
Porn legend Ron Jeremy has been coming to Nudes-A-Poppin for 25 years. Kiss frontman Gene Simmons is a regular. Kid Rock makes appearances often.
More than 5,000 people turn out for the event, often camping on resort grounds for the weekend, rain or shine. And the naked extravaganza is only set to grow.
A crew from Playboy Channel will be in town this year, filming the weekend for the television series “69 Sexiest Things to Do Before You Die.” HBO’s “Real Sex” has done a show here before. Askmen.com recently ranked Nudes-A-Poppin the 10th best festival of any kind in North America. And Stuff magazine last year ranked Nudes-A-Poppin eighth — one place below Germany’s Oktoberfest — in a list of best all-round festivals the world over.
There’s a nude dance contest, wet T-shirt contests, and the event draws 75 to 100 professional adult-entertainment industry performers, from dancers to porn stars to nude models, all of whom vie and compete for titles like Ms. Nude Galaxy, Ms. Nude North America and Nude Entertainer of the Year.
“It’s more of a couples thing,” said club owner Scarlett Schmitt. “Not just guys. A lot of couples come to the event.”
In addition to Jeremy, Simmons and Rock, other “celebrities” to grace the grounds of Ponderosa in July include comedians Andy Dick and Gilbert Gottfried, musicians John Popper (of Blues Traveler) and Vanilla Ice, as well as other familiar names, such as Cory Feldman.
Nudes-A-Poppin is essentially a fundraiser designed to keep Ponderosa’s club membership rates low — a necessary evil of sorts. A new feature this year that’s sure to bring in a few extra dollars is this Saturday’s magazine photo shoot.
Every year, Nudes-A-Poppin allows photographers from Cherry magazine to capture a full spread of images before the event, which has never been open to the public. But this year the public is allowed in — for a fee — and can shoot their own images, too.
The whole weekend is basically a wild event held at a place Schmitt insists is usually free of carnality. Still, Schmitt acknowledges that Nudes-A-Poppin could be responsible for Ponderosa having a reputation as a swinger’s paradise — a notion she and other club members flatly deny, but which requires some clarification.
“Nudism is not one simple doctrine,” said Schmitt. “It evolves over time, but there are also some very traditional, conservative nudists. Many camps don’t allow guests to bring alcohol, for instance. Other nudist clubs are not comfortable with people who have prominent piercings. It was the same with tattoos 30 years ago.”
Erich Schuttauf, executive director of the American Association for Nude Recreation, acknowledged that some nudist resorts do have strict policies, while others are more accepting.
“But whether it is a person’s body adornment, or behavior, or whether they bring a beer with them, the first and foremost concern is the comfort of the other guests,” he said.
As for my own comfort, it was actually waning. Not the nudity, mind you. That was fine.
My discomfort came with the somewhat foolish decision to play tennis in the nude without shoes or socks.
Cappel and I weren’t keeping score or even playing competitively, but I was still running across the concrete court with force, crouching low for a muscular backhand, stretching wide to reach a passing shot, naked. Bad naked, that is.
But I was having fun, and getting an all-over tan. And what began as a two-minute chance to play tennis turned into a 20-minute romp.
Having worked up a sweat, I made my way poolside. Someone was reading a sci-fi novel on a deck chair. Another person was catching some rays while smoking a cigarette and sipping a morning coffee.
A nearby bulletin board broadcast a message about an upcoming blood pressure wellness screening, and a chalk board noted that hot dogs and s’mores would be the poolside feature for the evening.
Cappel said I simply had to take a swim before I left the premises. I figured I had already fallen headfirst into my assignment, so I balanced myself by the water’s edge, and dove into the deep end, and swam freely, breaststroke, freestyle and sidestroke.
Then I rolled over for a few moments of look-at-all-of-me backstroke. No one batted an eye.
A group of a dozen nude strangers soon joined in the water, including Cappel, taking a quick dip before her drive north to a White Sox game.
“There’s nothing like swimming in the nude,” she said. “And if everybody else is in the nude, you don’t even notice.”
When: Sunday, July 20. Gates open 8.a.m. Preshow at 10 a.m. Show at noon.
Where: Ponderosa Sun Club, Roselawn.
Directions: Take I-65 to Exit 230. Head west on Ind. 10 for 2 miles, and take the first right after the railroad tracks. The club is a half-mile down on the left.
Tickets: $55 in advance; $60 at the gate. (A single ticket will allow a person OR a couple entry.)
Info: (219) 345-2268 or www.nudes-a-poppin.com
Extra: On Saturday, July 19, from 11.a.m. to 5 p.m., Ponderosa Sun Club will be holding a pre-Nudes-A-Poppin “Meet and Greet Day,” at which visitors will be able to meet the Sunday showgirls and bring a camera for various photo spreads. (The price of admission Saturday is $50, and is open only to guests with tickets for Sunday’s event.)
Note: The Ponderosa Sun Club Family Nudist Resort is open May through September, and is usually a nude resort (NOT clothing-optional), with no cameras allowed. However, for the weekend of Nudes-A-Poppin, guests are allowed to wear clothes and bring cameras.
About the Ponderosa Sun Club
Cottonwood seeds fall through the air like summer snow. The smell of wood burning on a bonfire wafts through the park. Hummingbirds dart from tree to tree.
It’s easy to see why Scarlett Schmitt’s grandfather, Harvey, chose to set up his nudist resort in this parcel of rural Indiana back in 1965, with his three sons.
“That’s how it got the name Ponderosa,” Schmitt said. “The three sons. Like from the movie ‘Bonanza.’.”
However, when the family patriarch died in 1976, one brother left to be a cop in Chicago, and another left to work on the railroad, leaving Tom Schmitt (Scarlett’s father), to carry on. He died in 1997, having raised his family on the resort grounds. Nudism is all Scarlett Schmitt has ever known, and now she runs the park with her mother and sister, all 76 wooded acres, featuring a children’s playground, two tennis courts, a beach volleyball spot, a shuffleboard court and horseshoe pit.
“It’s just like a regular campground,” she said. “Only everyone’s nude.”
The 65-foot-wide and 120-foot-long pool is the focus of campground activities for all 800 members, which Ponderosa draws from all over the country, but mostly Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Wisconsin. The club has members who belong to nudist resorts in Florida during the winter, and spend their entire summers at Ponderosa, like jaybird snowbirds.
Women are given time to take their clothes off, to grow accustomed, but men are forced to undress on day one. Public erections are very uncommon, but unacceptable. Gawkers are ejected.
“I had somebody come in last weekend, and he didn’t want to undress, so I had to ask him to leave,” said Schmitt. “It’s not clothing optional. But people do come, and I guess they expect no one’s going to ask them to take it off.”
Schmitt understands why nudism isn’t for everyone, but can’t herself imagine not wanting to strip.
“Clothes are very much costumes, for whatever you’re going to be doing that day, or for whatever image you want to project,” she said. “The whole nudist thing is, ‘You are who you are.’ No one’s going to be judging you by what outfit you have on.”
Interest in nudism is on the rise, said Erich Schuttauf, executive director of the American Association for Nude Recreation. And contrary to popular opinion, the age demographic grows younger every year. Scarlett Schmitt, owner of the Ponderosa Sun Club in Roselawn, Ind., has observed the same trend.
“I think Americans are perhaps not as uptight about nudity as they once were, even Midwesterners,” she said. “It seems like people are more accepting these days of different lifestyles.”
The AANR, for instance, has more than 45,000 members, and has grown to include almost 270 charter clubs. Abroad, tourists are flocking to nudist resorts, and they’re getting there in nude cruises.
“People are trying nudism far away from home,” added Schmitt. “Then they’ll come back to where they live and try it there.”