Naked attraction: Inside Palm Springs’ clothing-optional hotels

I’m no stranger to public nudity. I’ve been a gay adult man for long enough to have visited my share of nude beaches and bath houses. I’ve practised stripped-down yoga and organised skinny-dips, and spent enough time in Scandinavia to fully embrace naked sauna culture. It’s not that I’m a naturist, I just love experiencing everything that life has to offer – and sometimes that just so happens to involve taking your clothes off with strangers.

Clothing-optional hotels, however, are something new to me. For years I’ve heard stories about the nude resorts out in the desert playground of Palm Springs, California, a place that seemed like a veritable paradise for nudists. My curiosity finally got the better of me.

I didn’t know what to expect when I approached the gates of Descanso, a nudist resort for men tucked away on an otherwise unremarkable desert road in the north of . Thick vines curl along its, but I couldn’t help but imagine disposable bedlinen and wipe-clean plastic furniture.