Is naked co-working the future of working-from-home?
The ultimate body-confidence boss-move.
Why am I sitting around my kitchen table with six naked men that I’ve never met before? This could be the future of work.
One of the most evident impacts of the roller-coaster of the last few years is that the way we work is changing.
This is particularly evident in what were traditionally seen as “office jobs” - the kind of job that had you commuting each day, sitting at a desk, and trying to make sense of whatever was happening on your screen.
The big trend for this type of job is the shift to “working from home” - the nature of the work means that much of it can be done remotely, it doesn’t have to be done in a specific location such as an office.
Enabling people to work from home has a lot of advantages for both employers and employees. Employers are able to access a more flexible workforce and save on property costs, and employees can more easily adapt their work to their lives, and cut down time spent commuting.
The thing that working-from-home lacks is the social aspect of spending time in an office - the day-to-day interactions with other people, the kind of mundane, inconsequential communication and dialogue that is a bit of a basic human need.
That need for interpersonal connection is one of the reasons that coworking spaces have emerged as a concept - you can rent a desk and go work somewhere where there's other people. But what if you wanted to do that naked?
I’ve been on a bit of a journey with getting naked, or naturism as it’s often described. I was interviewing people about body-image and body-confidence, and it seemed like an obvious move to publish those conversations as a podcast - Naked Men Talking was launched.
Talking to a range of people about their experience of taking their clothes off helped me to connect with a really strong community of men in London who coordinate opportunities to get nude through the Naked Mates platform.
There’s nothing new about social naturism - getting naked with other people in a non-sexual context - but it’s not something that I’d really experienced before.
I get a bit obsessive about things I’m interested in, so I’ve thrown myself into Naked Mates and have been testing out a number of different event formats - partly to help me explore different experiences of naturism but mainly because I like getting naked with other guys.
Which is what brings me to naked coworking.
I’ve now hosted a number of naked coworking events and it’s a format that really seems to work.
My flat in London is small, so I limit the number of attendees to 6-8 guys. I set up the event listing on Naked Mates and people register to attend - it's a free event.
The guys turn up, take off their clothes, pull out their laptops, set up a workspace around my kitchen table, and crack on. It seems to be a fairly productive way of working.
Although everyone is pretty much focused on whatever it is that they're working on, there also seems to be plenty of opportunities for chat and interaction. But it is social naturism - it's not a sex party, no one is getting intimate, there are no boners. Well, so far, there haven’t been any boners.
Why does it have to be naked?
Obviously, it doesn't. I could organise some coworking opportunities and everyone could keep their clothes on. But ask any naturist why they want to take their clothes off with others in a non-sexual space and everyone will tell you that it changes the dynamic.
Some people describe it as being more vulnerable, or more open, or more authentic. Whatever words you use, it seems that the universal experience of social naturism is that the vibe or the energy is different - more positive - when we share space with others unencumbered by clothing.
I’ve met some really interesting people through my naked coworking experiences. I’ve met guys that I wouldn’t have come into contact with unless our shared desire for homosocial spaces brought us together.
I have had sex with some of these guys, but as a consequence of having met them through the naked co-working - no social naturism rules of engagement were broken.
The feedback from attendees is also really positive. They report getting a surprising amount of work done, of being able to think creatively in a different head-space, of feeling less lonely, isolated, more connected to people with which they have something in common.
Is this the future of work? It may not be right for everyone and it may not be appropriate for every profession, but once a month, on a Thursday, I’m going to be stripping off and inviting the men of London to join me at my kitchen table.
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