Nude dinner

Last night I was invited to a dinner I’ve been seeing pop up on IG over the last few weeks. It caught my eye for one reason, it was dinner served in the nude. Yes butt ass naked dinner. Sounds like my vibe but obviously the vibes have to be correct.

The dinner is called the Fude Experience and it was founded by Charlie Ann Max. They do these dinners in LA, New York, London, and Paris and I was happily surprised when Charlie slid into my DM’s Saturday morning inviting me to come the next even which happened to be the next day.

Being naked is comfortable for me. Being naked in front of other women is something my mom normalized early for me. Having a nudist bestie (jamilah) helped me get back into my body after having a baby and feeling foreign shame around showing “too much”. Our retreats generally have a lot of nudity as well so I felt excited to experience similar vibes in my city.

As I got ready for the dinner I decided I wanted to wear heels and something sexy that would encourage me to get into my body and feel super feminine. I was surprised to get the official invite and see that it was at a private location less than 10 minutes from my house (this never happens. Nude dinners in the valley?!).

So I ordered my Uber and off to this mystery house I went. When I walked in people had already arrived as I could hear them from the driveway. The entrance was unclear and so I eventually found an open door and was surprised to see a guy sitting in the room. I assumed this was a womens only event and thought maybe he was just the owner. He pointed me to the main area of the house. When I walked in I could see that there were many people already there, all of which were already naked. I was surprised to see…men. I assumed this was a womens only event based on their IG so I was caught off guard when I saw a few naked men walking through the house. However, I adjusted quickly and was greeted by Charlie who showed me where to disrobe and put my stuff. I do wish they had a better set up for clothes then everyones stuff on a couch but that’s just personal preference and my own boujieness lol.

I walked outside near the pool to find people chatting and taking pictures. There was a beautiful dinner table set up and everyone seemed pretty comfortable off the bat with the nudity. The women seem to range from my age to early twenties. While the men (there were 6 of them) ranged from mid twenties to seventies. Although I don’t know for sure what their sexual preferences are I would conclude based on our conversations that 3 were gay and 3 were straight. I only share this to paint a picture because some people attending this event may want to know or feel uncomfortable based on the unknowingness. For me, I don’t care either way as long as respect is kept, which it was.

After everyone hung out for a while we gathered around the pool and were led into a breath-work exercise by Lihi, who is also a teacher at my favorite meditation app, the Open App. P.S. you can try open free for 30 days when you click the link above. Anyway, I wasn’t expecting that but was happily surprised! I’ve done her breathwork exercises on the app. She introduced the evening’s theme which was the “yes within you”. We laid down by the pool and she asked us to reflect on what “yes” and “no” looked like, felt like, and even tasted like to us. She then guided us through a 30 minute circuit holding this question and idea at the forefront throughout. If you know anything about breath work it taps into your physical body first and then begins to penetrate your emotional body. I could feel like body starts to detach from itself after 3 rounds and finally it started to dig into my emotional self. The question of what “yes” means to me and what is holding me back from this “yes” started to bring up stuff I’ve been pushing down. She then asked what is the “no” that would make this “yes” easier. Tears flowed and I was forced to face a few hard truths I’ve been avoiding. I highly recommend you try breath-work, it can be extremely hard but also very transformative.

Anyway,

After we came back to reality it was time for dinner. This experience is also know for its culinary experience and I was hungry and ready to dig in. We first took a moment to put intention into our food and then that was that. We started with sweet bread + chive butter and soup. The soup was cold (by design) which I never really understood. I like my soup hot! I got to know my seat neighbors. One gentleman by the name of Henry, an La native whose probably in his seventies. This was not his first event which I thought was cool. The two other women next to me were first timers. One a food critic from the LA times and another just a wonderlust living in LA by way of Alaska. Then there was another gentleman sitting next to me with pink hair and gold studs on his eye brows. I pre assumed he was one of the girls but he was not. A Cis gendered and self proclaimed weirdo(in the best way possible). We all chatted for a while and I did wish I could get to know the rest of the table more but it seemed everyone was sticking to their seats (pun intended haha).

Before the main course came around Lihi asked the table to share a “yes” they are inviting in, what is currently getting in the way of that “yes” and what is the “no” they have to introduce to get it. As I listened into people’s responses a theme of limiting beliefs, people pleasing and leaning into the unknown seemed to be what was coming up. Even for me. One girl shared a perspective that really stuck with me.

She said:

we often lean into people with limiting beliefs about us to affirm the limited beliefs we have about ourselves.

A fucking word!

We got dinner which was good. Not exceptional based on the name of the experience. I chatted a bit more with my table buddies and we ended the night with thank you’s. I honestly kind of wished we could have dug in a little more. It barely scratched the surface of what the theme was, but time was limited this ain’t a retreat. However, I will say the the nudity does instantly create a level of vulnerability and kindness amongst people. Like are you really gonna be a bitch and be butt ass naked? And if you’re already an awkward person, you become less awkward because what’s more akward than being in a backyard with a bunch of naked strangers?

Overall, I enjoyed the experience. There were three other black women there but overall it was predominantly Caucasian which is not a surprise. Not a slight on the founder at all, but more so that black and brown women often don’t feel called to these types of experiences especially if the face of the event does not look like them. Plus their social looks mostly beige.

I would recommend this experience if you’d like try a unique experience and begin to embrace getting comfortable with your body in it’s rawest form.

So the question is…..

• What are working on saying “yes” to?
• What’s getting in the way of that “yes”?
• What do you need to say “no” to in order to invite the yes in?

Let’s share below!