I admit it – I sleep naked.
I didn’t adopt this practice all at once. As a small child I wore pyjamas – basically because my parents decided I should. However about the time I reached single figures I decided I was more comfortable sleeping with only the pyjama bottoms on. During my adolescence and early adulthood, by increments, I discarded what remained of my nocturnal wrappings and have been a nude sleeper for at least the past 20 years, probably longer. Yet it is only in the past week that I have thought much about this habit and done some research into it.
I find sleeping naked much more comfortable than sleeping in any kind of clothing. Indeed, in Brisbane summers I doubt very much that I could sleep any other way. It now puzzles me that anyone, given the option, would choose to sleep not naked. Yet, if the sleeping habits of Australians are anything like those of our fellow Anglophones in the US and the UK, I’m still part of a deviant minority.
ABC (US) News reports that 31 per cent of American men and 14 per cent of American women sleep naked. A UK survey reveals (sorry!) that just 18 per cent of Britons sleep naked.
The US survey notes that:
People who are less inhibited generally also are more apt to sleep in the buff, including those (disproportionately men) who describe themselves as sexually adventurous, who’ve had more than 10 sex partners in their lives, who’ve had sex on a first date, who fantasize and who call their sex lives very exciting.
although in all honesty I can’t say that I fit this particular bill (apart from fantasizing).
So the questions arise. Why do people still dress up for bed (apart from practical considerations like living in a draughty, unheated old house in a Melbourne winter)? Why are women less disposed than men to sleep naked? Why do so many people, after they have broken free in most conscious respects from the psychic fetters of a conventional religious upbringing, still labour under a subconscious dread that God’s terrible all-seeing eye will see through their bedroom walls and their doonas and gaze wrathfully upon their nakedness? Why not get your kit off tonight and sleep as nature intended? Well, why not?
P.S. I must disclose that I and other noctural nudies are in some less than savoury company, though not the sort you might expect. See here and here.
Why not sleep naked? Kids.
Not that we condemn getting all uninhibited or anything, just to avoid the pointing and sniggering, endless questions over the body hair and general hilarity that comes from being the only male in the house.
Plus, with a baby in the house, I tend to sleep where I fall and in what I’m wearing at the time.
My view from Melbourne in August: In cold weather, I think it makes sense to sleep naked as well, as long as you have adequate bed coverings (doona and the like) because I think human skin an human skin is probably the best way of keeping warm, and absent someone else’s skin your own often has to do.
There is the problem of contact with the hot water bottle, which could lead to a nasty burn. The solution is to cover the hot water bottle with fabric, not yourself.
The only problem is if you pass away in your sleep. Then the tabloids have a field day with prurient stories like “The deceased was found naked in his bed…”
TMI.
I bought some Sheridan sheets on sale on Friday – unless they’ve invented Sheridan pyjamas, it’s a no brainer…
Sleeping naked is brilliant. It saves on boxer shorts and means that if you’re in a strange place or just ‘tired and emotional’ you can simply strip off and hit the sack.
I’m similarly the only male in my household. My girls know that mummy and daddy both generally are in bed with no clothes and we seem to have no puerile sniggering going on. As long as he knows where the emergency boxers or dressing gown is, this Pommie bastard says “No worries”.
T’s and boxers…….never known a time where I didn’t wear jammies….interesting but not something that I’ve thought greatly about, though the divide has come up in past relationships.
It’s just a pattern of behaviour that feels comfortable (and natural) now. I think the preference largely has to do with upbringing more than anything else.
rpg said:
At the risk of totally debasing the thread, it’s the early morning riser (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that might be disturbing to the younger members (oops) of the house, so it’s at least undies for me for the foreseeable future.
I’ve been sleeping nekkid since I can remember, and feel uncomfortable with clothes on in bed. Might have something to do with being brought up in the tropics. In really cold weather I might throw on a close fitting T-shirt or singlet, but that is pretty rare, I usually just add another blanket.
Which raises a related issue: What do people here prefer in cold weather? A doona, or plain wool blankets? Give me the blanket every time. Hate doonas, they don’t breathe.
I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE
Pyjamas are only necessary on the off chance that there is a fire in the middle of the night.
Don’t have to wash the sheets as often either. Clean boxers & t shirt every day, clean sheets once a week.
I wonder if they’d find a higher percentage of Aussie naked sleepers based on weather? I was never a naked sleeper when I lived with my parents (who had an unfortunate habit of knocking and then opening the door without waiting for an answer), but since I left home, I generally don’t bother with nightclothes. Of course, being a Queenslander without airconditioning for four years probably has a lot to do with it.
Family was recently in Japan on Holiday.
I wear not-so-grungy underdaks to bed.
One morning, Tokyo was hit with an earthquake. Getting out of bed and into the relative safety of the doorway in the bathroom: my only thought was: “I am only in my jocks! I cannot leave this hotel out to the public in my jocks!”. The imminent collapse of the buildings and general mayhem did not enter my mind. Just my nighttime attire: merely jocks.
The image of an Australian in his jocks, wobbling around with the verandah over the toyshop in the streets of Tokyo was all I cared about.
So, from from that time on: I am wearing full emergency clothing to bed and when overseas: my passport and cash in a special pocket. I’ll be prepared for such natural catastrophies.
Nick
I hate sleeping naked. For winter I got an old rugby top with flanelette pants and for summer a big t-shirt and boxers.
I love the feeing of getting into those after a hot shower just before going to bed. It signifies a transition between the land of awake to the land of sleep.
I tried sleeping in the buff for a few nights and I had fitful sleep. My shoulders would get cold and I would struggle with my doona. I talked with a buff sleeping friend about this and he told me that I would get used to it?
And I asked myself why? I’ll keep my night clobber thanks.
That’s what dressing gowns are for!
I had an ex who claimed that sleeping naked was good for your skin. Not quite sure what her reasoning was.
Wearing clothes to bed on a cold night means that your own body warmth takes longer to heat up the air cavity under the doona. Takes about half a minute when naked, otherwise lots of tossing and turning, and getting caught up in twisted clothing. Its a no brainer, but do keep a dressing gown handy for earthquakes during the night.
400 thread count sheets can only be fully appreciated nude. Hey, I come from very bloody cold and earthquake riddled Wellington and I find it just too weird to wear clothes in bed.
Pyjamas are part of the global conspiracy by evil multinationals to make us use more detergent (thus contributing to degradation of the biospehere &c &c). Flanelette pyjamas are an abomination before God (yes, He is watching). Slightly fuzzy dressing gowns with tassled cords that look like they should be hanging off Grandma’s curtains are, on munchkins, a form of child abuse, and on adult males just sad sad sad.
When not otherwise required by the weather, politesse or propriety, the most anyone should have to wear at home is a grey marl t-shirt and a pair of boxers (possibly the sexiest outfit a woman can wear). These can be casually dumped next to the bed before leaping into it.
If pets are a complicating factor in any of this you should probably re-assess your priorities.
As long as I know where my weapons and credit cards are and can get at them, I’m fine.
David, we also have a strict ‘closed door’ policy for our bedroom. I.e., if the door is closed (it’s not usually), you knock and wait.
rpg wrote:
It’s not a bad idea and we do it ourselves, although it makes it a bit harder to hear the world’s angriest baby. Add to that the idea that if I go to bed naked, her indoors may take it as an invitation to make another angry baby which is something I’d like to avoid, at least until we can teach this angry baby to speak so it can tell us what it is so angry about. I promise I shall sleep shirtless as an act of solidarity though.
For me, it’s a cold weather meets child waking issue.
Having slept in the altogether since forever, including until my first daughter was 2, I acquired my first PJs since childhood when I moved from Sydney to Tassie into an old cold house, and my second daughter came into the world.
The first three nights of getting up several times to go to crying kids, freezing my butt and bits off, led to a quick purchase of flannies, I have to confess.
Now in equally cold Canberra, but the kids sleep through. Bye bye flannies, hello skin to skin!
Only sleep nekkid when sleeping with someone else unless of course they sweat profusely in which case clothing protects me from ending up wet and shivering. Hasn’t been a problem lately. I bed down only on cotton sheets, under one cotton thermal blanket, one doona and an old eiderdown. No lekky blanket just one old cat. Wear in winter, black woollen, elastic waisted pants found at Vinnies, cotton t-shirt, black angora cardigan and brush-tail possum fur or angora /lambswool socks. Sometimes my head gets cold so I wrap it in a cashmere scarf, also found at Vinnies. I am, a glamour puss.
Living alone in bucolic surrounds, one never knows when one might have to get up and attend to summit. Sleeping nekkid would make for a less smooth transition from bed to paddock at 3 am and -5, to investigate snow/strange noises/meteor showers. Plus on days off when feeling slovenly, it is only me who can know for sure that I’m still in my bed attire should anyone spy me wandering around the garden in the early afternoon.
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t – I’m not fully committed to either position on the subject. Nighties are handy for breastfeeding mums who co-sleep, because otherwise my daughter just used to think I was Open All Hours and I can’t properly sleep whilst a mouth is still attached to me.
Unless if extreme latitudes, when something around the shoulders & neck helps for the first 5 or 10 miutes, I cannot understand how anyone could sleep in clothing of any sort.
Many years ago in a student household (ie shor of bits & pieces, like blankets) my g/f gave the rest of her g/fs our blankets coz she reckoned I was equivalent to at least two (and that just sleeping).
Most women say the same, a bloke in the bed is worth at least one blanket, usually two.
Maybe something to do with hirsuity & Ice Age Neanderthals?
I usually wear trackie pants and a shirt to sleep. The main reasons being that I can get up in the middle of the night to get a drink etc without having to worry about anyone else or getting frostbite (lives in Melbourne). That and I can go get the morning paper without having to get changed. Finally, if I stay in my PJ’s all day then I get bragging rights for being the laziest person in the house.
Sorry, but if it is cold then leaping into a cold bed in the altogether is just plain painful.
Sounds like some of you could do with central heating.
Why do people still dress up for bed (apart from practical considerations like living in a draughty, unheated old house in a Melbourne winter)?
It’s a civilised custom. Just as people put on their coat and hat in order to greet people in the world outside, they put on clothes in order to greet the world of dreams… really!
Great post.
I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE
Well, hey, now you guys can sleep naked toge…
Oh.
The only reason for clothes in bed would be to find common thermal ground with somebody who has different needs. I’ve slept with ladies who needed much more insulation to be warm enough, which left me boiling and led to the extremely unusual request that they cover their loveliness in some way. Curses!
My main squeeze for the foreseeable is fortunately better attuned to my needs, as it were, so as soon as I’m out of share housing and into our newly-purchased Carlton apartment, it’s going to be a skinfest in the bedroom and out.
Honestly, if you knew us you wouldn’t be retching. We’re like, totally hawt and shit.
Right, and for my day job I am Brad Pitt’s body double. No, really, just strip away the extra 10 kilos of natural thermal insulation (which comes in useful on those cold nekkid nights under the bedsheets), and voila! Instant chick magnet. Honestly.
Why are you all sniggering? Was it something I said?
For my day job, I’m Brad Pitt.
Ha ha ha ha. Good comeback.
What about the singlet and socks minus jocks?
An attractive look and sinsible.
Socks can be discarded, if tings get very hot.
But only then, Mr Norton.
Well I only sleep naked when I’ve got no clothes on. Or is it the other way around? Bit like Captain Haddock trying to work out whether he sleeps with his beard under or over the sheet. (cf: ‘The Crab With The Golden Claws’)
There’s nothing wrong with pajamas provided they’re properly accessorised (eg: Meerschaum pipes are right out.) and fit properly.
Absolutely. Why not go for a supple black leather kinomo instead? And surprisingly practical when you’re woken up by a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door.
“Oh yeah hi, c’mon in. Always wanted to hear more about that Sodom and Gomorrah stuff. Feel like a breakfast martini?”
“Umm… we can see you’re occupied sir. We’ll just be on our way. Sorry to have disturbed you.”
“No worries. Drop in anytime Spanky.”
Warning: This approach does not work on ABS census takers.
Only if one has time to search for it and then don it before having their pubes scorched by the fire.
No, no. You just work with the dripping candlewax , not the whole bloody candle.
I tried, yes in Brisbane, when I was in my 30s and every time I’d catch a cold in the nose.
Same with singlets. Unless it’s full-on summer I need an undergarment right on my skin, especially the small of my back or I catch cold. It’s as simple as that.
David Rubie, clearly you need to take up throat singing. Phillip Adams interviewed a bloke once (forget his name) who is a throat singer. When the bub started screaming in the other room his wife would give him a poke, he’s roll onto his back and start warbling. Within minutes everyone in the house would be back to sleep.
Seasonality should dictate commonsense. Warmer months no clothes and open windows.Colder months bed sheets quilts and socks and beanie and windows open,and doors if the wind isnt doing any damage.Doonas are not meant for Australian conditions accept in high altitudes and snowlines.Here it is a cold climate,but right now all the burning off has turned the pleasant nights brisk or warm into a smokey unappealling breathing part problem..and well water is getting low again so spring and summer requires close management of washables,almost an unwinnable outcome.I tend to sleep now without a pillow,,for I now accept they are unneeded.I have slept alone for the majority of my sleeping moments,I think that should be everyones right..we should not be slaves to the fashions of material like beds or any blanketing process.I keep a few blankets in store,I do not trust climatologists much.
Brian said:
Throat singing eh? Anything like the following Rodney Rude joke?
I do, my wife doesn’t (sleep naked that is). It’s commoner than you think: just one of those daily quirks people don’t talk about much. But I’ve had lovers who needed to wear undies to bed. I guess it’s a security thing.
I don’t want to blame pyjama culture on the clothing stores: I suspect it’s more a hangover from parental nostrums. I dress my infant girls in singlets/undies (summer) and winter pyjamas (a) because they have to wear something between bath and bed, and (b)out of fear of chest colds. There’s probably an element of reverse modesty in not wanting to see them nude as they grow older.
In short I suspect those adults who cling to ‘jamies’ do so naturally because they grew up with them.
David, good one!
Graeme, not so much a hangover from parental nostrums, I think, as a hangover from outside dunnies.
I only wear jarmies to bed if I am sick. Casting them forth is a symbolic return to wellness.
Also, if I wore jarmies when i was healthy, I would never put my clothes on. And that. would. be. bad.
There was a wonderful remrk on the internets a while ago by a writer who confessed to getting a day job and said she had to get her jarmies surgically removed the weekend before.
I have almost worn through my dressing gown. It is not a pretty sight.
Yes, but David do you sleep with your beard under or over the sheet?
Husband….sweaty body….nightie.
Divorce….bed all mine…..nekkid.
Damn Jahteh, yer just a few syllables, a seasonal reference and a rearranged line or two away from one hot haiku there.
Summer nights clasp me
the humming fan scans the room
I dream of more skin
Autumn leaves crash out
blankets go up and down like
body temperature
Without my dressing gown
and my heated toilet seat
winter bites my arse
The flowers awake
pajamas host a big top
spring is in the air
Bugger. I knew I shouldn’t have written that down about the kids sleeping through. Both woke up last night for an hour of sleeplessness and scurrying about unclothed and semi-clothed…
Bugger.
I’ve slept naked for 40 years. Very few downsides except for the occasional visits to our bed by small children and one memorable event when drunken girlfriend of drunken son’s drunken friend found the wrong room in the dark and crawled into my side of the bed.
Some comment from, the now sleeping, Mr Zappa, anyone?
Some people’s hot
Some people’s cold
Some people’s not very
Swift to behold
Some people do it
Some see right through it
Some wear pyjamas
If only they knew it
The pyjamas people are boring me to pieces
They make me feel like I am wasting my time
They all got flannel up ‘n down ‘em
A little trap-door back aroun’ ‘em
An’ some cozy little *footies* on their mind
Po-jama people!
Po-jama people, people!
Lawd, they make you sleepy
With the things they might say
Po-jama people!
Po-jama people, people!
*Mother, Mary ‘n Jozuf*, wish they’d all go away!
Po-jama people!
It’s a po-jama people special…
Take one home with you & save a dollar today
Po-jama people!
Po-jama people, people!
Wrap ‘em up
Roll ‘em out
Get ‘em out of my way
A personal view from the UK – I’ve been sleeping nude since I was a kid, thanks to enlightened parents who didn’t wear nightclothes themselves and who saw no reason why their children should be coerced into doing any differently. So, once my sister and I were reliably dry at night, our bedtime ritual was a bath, a warm fluffy towel to dry off in, and then into bed with a teddy, a drink and our birthday suits. It made sense at the time, and still does. After all, most kids prefer to be naked, and what kid could resist the opportunity to be legitimately naked for 9 or 10 hours out of 24 – my sister and I certainly didn’t, and neither did our own three offspring, now in their late teens and early twenties, who were introduced to sleeping in the nude in the same way.
Where, if your parents didn’t wear nightclothes, does coercion come into any decision by them, or you, that you would not wear nightclothes?
Was there some Nightclothes Act of the British Parliament that they were bravely defying?