MY NUDE AWAKENING

Dating for the first time in 27 years, Rosie Green finds that getting naked with a man requires prep that would make the Kardashians blanch

- Rosie Green

My grandmother always said it was a tragedy only one man (my grandfather, I’d like to think) had seen her naked. She was a swimming champion: tall and shapely with, as she never failed to tell us, aristocratic ankles. Yet, like a dust-sheet-covered masterpiece, her body went largely unappreciated. A beauteous thing, seen by so few.

My body, like hers, has not been viewed by many men. I wouldn’t be so boastful as to profess this as a tragedy for mankind. But, you know, Jack Nicholson once told me I had ‘nice t**s’, so I’m thinking there might be an audience. Why so few observers? Well, I was in a 26-year relationship that started when I was 18. I am 45 and have slept with just one man.

I was so young when I got together with my husband that I never had the wild 20s my friends had. The flirtations, the rejections, the uncertainty, the all-consuming lust. The intense highs and lows. While they regaled me with stories (he wore sunglasses throughout; he rang his mother three times), I listened (sometimes smugly, sometimes enviously) from the safety of my relationship. But now that safety net has gone. For the first time in nearly three decades, I am single.

Which means I’m dating again. Who am I kidding? There’s no ‘again’ about it. So the prospect of getting naked in front of a new man is very real, which is scary and thrilling at the same time. When I talk to single friends, being naked with a new partner seems to top their lists of worries. Because naked, if you look at a dictionary, means ‘exposed and stripped’. The thesaurus lists its synonyms as raw, defenceless and vulnerable.