My first real experience happened when I was 21. I was vacationing in Croatia with two university friends. It was a typical girls’ trip: the sea, the sun, conversations late into the night, and the feeling that we could allow ourselves to be a little braver.

One day, we joined a small boat tour around the islands. During one stop, the captain pointed behind the rocks and said there was a quiet bay there, often visited by nudists.

We exchanged looks. At first, it was just curiosity. Then came that expression when an idea feels risky, but impossible to refuse.

“Shall we go look?” Marina asked.
“Just look,” Lera clarified.

Of course, with us, “just looking” rarely ends there.

We climbed over warm rocks and came out into a small bay. I froze. There really were people there — completely naked. Men, women, couples. Some were reading, some swimming, some lying on towels under the sun. I had never seen so many naked people in one place before.

At first, I didn’t know where to look. If I looked directly, it felt rude; if I looked away, it felt even sillier. We stood there in our swimsuits and suddenly felt overdressed.

But the longer we stayed, the clearer it became: there was nothing dirty or vulgar about it. People were simply relaxing — calmly, naturally, without tension. And at some point, our swimsuits started to seem like the strange thing.

For about an hour, we swam in our bikinis, laughed, dived, and pretended we were totally relaxed. But the wet fabric stuck to my skin, the strings rubbed, and the swimsuit began to feel like an unnecessary barrier between me and the sea.

Then Lera suddenly said:

“Girls, I think we’re the only ones here wearing clothes.”

Marina laughed.

“Technically, this isn’t clothes.”

“Still,” Lera said. “We look like tourists who got lost in someone else’s freedom.”

That sentence hit exactly right.

We came out of the water, sat on our towels, and started whispering, laughing, arguing.

“I can’t,” Marina said, while already touching the tie behind her neck.
“I can’t either,” I said, although I was already imagining what it would feel like.

Lera looked at us.

“Then on three. So nobody gets to be the first coward.”

I remember that moment clearly: hot stones under my feet, salty air, the towel in front of me, my fingers trembling slightly. One second — and the top of my swimsuit fell onto the towel. Then the bottom. And suddenly my body felt louder.

I was embarrassed. But it was not heavy embarrassment. It was warm, alive, almost ticklish from the inside.

All three of us stood there naked, red from shyness and laughter.

“Well then, unpacked mermaids?” Marina said.

And we ran into the water.

When I stepped into the sea, the fear disappeared almost instantly. The water wrapped around my whole body without fabric, without seams, without artificial borders. I dived under, came back up, ran my hands through my wet hair, and felt an incredible lightness.

It was not just “swimming naked.” It was the feeling that my body had finally stopped being something I needed to adjust, cover, or control. It simply existed. Mine. Alive. Warm. Free.

We swam for a long time. Then we lay on the rocks, letting the sun touch our skin. At first, we still covered ourselves with our hands, then stopped. At first, we looked around, then forgot. At first, we were shy, then we began to enjoy it.

I loved feeling the wind on my stomach, the sun on my chest, the warmth of the rocks under my back, salty drops on my thighs. I loved that my body dried completely, without wet fabric. I loved that there were no white lines and no feeling of “this part is allowed, that part is not.”

The most surprising thing was that, after a while, I no longer felt undressed. I simply felt like myself.

That evening, when we came back from the boat tour, we were tired, sun-kissed, salty, and unusually quiet. On the boat ride back, each of us pretended to be looking at the sea, but I knew we were thinking about the same thing.

At the rented house, we showered, opened wine, sliced fruit, and sat on the terrace. The evening was warm, the yard smelled of grass and the sea, and somewhere cicadas were singing.

The conversation naturally returned to the bay.

“I didn’t think it would feel so… normal,” Lera said.
“Not normal,” Marina objected. “Better than normal.”

We talked about why nudity had always seemed forbidden or automatically sexual to us. Why the body had to be hidden. Why a swimsuit was considered proper, even though sometimes it only emphasized what it was supposedly meant to hide.

And the more we talked, the more we wanted to keep that feeling of freedom going.

Marina was the first to say it:

“What if we just don’t get dressed again tonight?”

We went silent.

“You mean at all?” Lera asked.

“Yes. The house is ours, the yard is private, nobody can see us. We already survived the biggest shock. Why wrap ourselves up again?”

I felt that same nervous thrill again — a mixture of embarrassment, laughter, and boldness.

“I’m in,” I said.

And we all agreed.

At first, it was funny. We walked around the house naked and commented on everything as if we were conducting a scientific experiment.

“Making salad without clothes feels unexpectedly ceremonial.”
“Sitting naked on the sofa is strange, but comfortable.”
“Pouring wine naked somehow feels very adult.”

Gradually, the laughter became softer. We stopped noticing nudity as something separate. The evening simply continued: music, wine, fruit, wet hair after the shower, warm air from the open doors, skin still holding salt and sun.

There was something deeply sensual about it. Not crude, not performed — just sensual: air on shoulders, a cool glass in the hand, hair brushing the back, a body relaxed after the sea.

Then Lera took out her phone.

“Girls, we have to remember this.”

“Just don’t post anything,” I said immediately.

“Of course. Just for us.”

That was how our private nude photo session began.

At first, we fooled around: hiding behind pillows, posing like “ancient Greek goddesses after supermarket discounts.” Then it became more beautiful. Marina turned on a lamp in the living room, Lera found a white sheet, and I opened the doors to the yard to let in the evening light.

We photographed each other on the terrace, by the wall, near the window, in the garden among the greenery. Nothing vulgar — only skin, light, silhouettes, smiles, hair, shoulders, body curves, and warm laughter. Sometimes a photo came out funny, sometimes unexpectedly beautiful.

“Do we really look like that?” Lera asked.

“Yes,” Marina said. “We’re usually just too busy criticizing ourselves.”

That sentence stayed with me.

That evening, for the first time, I looked at my body not as a list of flaws. Not as something to improve, hide, or turn at the right angle. But as part of myself — real, feminine, alive, worthy of light.

Later, we went out into the yard. The night was warm, the tiles under our feet had cooled, and the air smelled of the sea and plants. We stood there together, naked, a little drunk on wine, sun, and our own shamelessness, laughing so easily as if we had taken off not only our clothes, but also some old caution.

Then we simply lay down on a blanket and looked at the sky. No jokes, no awkwardness. It was calm, close, and free.

I thought that maybe self-acceptance begins exactly like that: not with loud words and not with a perfect body, but with a moment when you lie under a warm sky beside your friends and no longer want to hide.

The next day, we talked again about the bay, the house, and the photos. And we no longer asked ourselves whether it had been strange.

Only one thing seemed strange: that we had been afraid of such a simple thing for so long — our own bodies.

Now I think that day really changed the way I see myself. The sea, the sun, my friends, the laughter, the first embarrassment, the first courage, and an evening without clothes in a little rented house — all of it became one big open door for me.

I don’t know whether I became a nudist after that. Maybe yes. Or maybe I simply allowed myself to be natural for the first time.

But I know one thing for sure: the feeling of freedom was too good to forget.

And this summer, we have already agreed to try more: find another quiet beach, spend a whole day without swimsuits, arrange a new photo session — maybe at sunrise, in the yard, or by the sea. And end the evening the same way again: without clothes, without shame, with a glass of wine, salty skin, and the feeling that our bodies are not a reason to hide, but a reason to live more freely.