Gay Naturists International (GNI) was founded in 1984 to host and sponsor men’s naturist events, as well as helping members find local clubs—and each other. They’ve built up a database of more than 10,000 men who love to let it all hang out.
GNI’s biggest project these days is hosting The Gathering, a 10-day all-naked camping festival attended by more than 800 men from as many as 20 countries. Held at a campground in the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania, about a 90-minute drive from New York City, this year’s edition runs August 15 to 24, 2025.
Attendees sleep in cabins, or they can bring an RV or tent to crash in. There are two heated pools, a gym and a lake to paddle in or hike around. But the big draw of gay naked camping are the myriad activities organized by volunteers that take place both day and night—including nightly barn dances, which they bill as “the world’s largest naked dance club.”
The most common questions GNI gets from nudist-curious guys are, “What if I get an erection?” and some version of “How sexy do things get?” Wander+Lust directed those two questions, plus a bunch of others, to GNI president Nicholas Roessler, who is based in Washington, D.C.
I was wondering if you’d show up on my screen naked for this interview, but I can see that you’re wearing a shirt.
I am, but it just depends. Because my roommates are on a cruise right now, I’m in the living room instead of my bedroom—I put on clothes to come out into the living room. I’m not shy about my roommates—they’re nudists, too. We co-founded a naked group here in D.C. called No Cover D.C. We’ve been friends for a long time, and we have a very loose household when it comes to wearing clothes.
How did you get involved with Gay Naturists International?
I started off with GNI in 2006. I was 22, turning 23. A couple of years prior, I had Googled “gay nudists”—I’d been a practising nudist since I was 18. I’d been to straight nudist resorts but never really connected with anybody. I found them online, went and loved it. I’ve been attending every year since and I started volunteering there. The hardest part of this kind of cultural advocacy is when the algorithm hates the word “nudist” or “naturist” and flags us for inappropriate content. It makes it hard to get the word out. We are asking people to invest their time in this experience when they don’t really have a baseline for it. If you had the chance to go to the Olympics, you’d buy tickets having a pretty good framework of what that experience would be like. But it’s harder for people to imagine what the Gathering is going to be like. There are a lot of variables. I mostly consider myself a party host because we host this wonder of an event every year for 10 days. It’s my goal to just have a very smoothly run party that everybody can escape to.
I’ve heard that while most of the attendees are from the U.S. and Canada, you also get guys from around the world.
We get a large number of Australians, which amazes me because they have to plan to come, like, a year out, and they have to fly 17 hours to get to this thing. But I think their culture has more room for social nudity, and they’re very used to long-haul travel.
How has the Gathering evolved over the decades?
It’s always in the same place and the grounds are a summer camp setting in the Poconos. When you sign up, you automatically get a bed in a cabin, but you can also attend with an RV or a tent, but you still get access to showering facilities and stuff like that. The venue is really big, so we set up communities—little villages, so to speak—throughout the campground, like a leather area, an area near the dance club where there are a lot of cabin parties, quiet areas, a sex area across the lake. They’re all very separate from each other. But what’s great is that members change the landscape each year. Someone comes in with a huge idea they want to play with, and we’re just like, “Let’s do it.”
What the members who come year after year expect is our camaraderie. In naturist culture, we tend to form bonds really quickly and make friendships fast. We have so much to talk about before we even get to “What do you do for a living?” Your first conversations are, “Why are you here? Do you always do this? Is this your first time?” Most guys go for this bonding experience. But just spending 10 days with hundreds of naked men is not a bad reason to come, either.
What makes gay naturism different from mainstream naturism?
The biggest difference is that there’s more of a family element for straight nudism as many of them have kids. When you take kids out of the mix, it really changes the social dynamic whether you have clothes on or not. There are other cultural differences, too. For example, if I were the president of a straight nudist group, I would probably never have mentioned the sex area of camp, because they tend not to talk about that stuff as openly as gay nudists do. We’ve figured out a way to do so and be socially nude at the same time, and to not be crude or make people uncomfortable about it.
How do you draw lines between social nudity and the sexual component, and how does somebody know when they’re crossing them?
Camp is a whole different world. It’s an opportunity for people to leave a lot of stuff on the outside. But I always tell new people: If you wouldn’t do that on the outside, don’t do it here. If you’re at a nightclub with another guy and you’re all up on each other and you’re both hard, that’s all fine. But having sex on the dancefloor would get you thrown out of the nightclub, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do here. Kissing, holding hands, hugging, that’s fine. Gay men can be very touchy-feely people. But if you wouldn’t do it with your clothes on, don’t do it with your clothes off.
Is there a generation gap between older and younger nudists?
When nudists are more organized, like with GNI, they tend to be older. Younger people often don’t get involved because of the cost of things, and they don’t have the time off. But when you go to nude beaches and campgrounds, you see younger people congregating. I’ve always been a younger nudist. I just thought this culture was interesting and wanted to join it. I’ve made some great friends who, because of our age difference, have become great role models for me.
What are some of the misconceptions people have when coming to their first event?
They think they’re going to take their clothes off and be hard the entire time. That’s far from the reality, because you’re having feelings and getting used to having your clothes off. When it does happen, it’s not a big deal. People build it up in their heads so much and then they get to an event and realize the fantasy they’ve built is nothing like what the event is actually like.
The other misconception is that they think it’s a sex party. That’s not what it is and you’re going to be disappointed if that’s what you’re expecting.
What are some of the amusing things you do naked at the Gathering?
We have a lot of leather-focused workshops put on by the group Pocono Eagle. There are workshops for grandfathers who are gay nudists and how to navigate that. Workshops on nudity and the law. We also do body painting—it’s a big favourite.
There are more and more clothing-optional beaches around the world. Does it bug you, as a nudist, when you see people wearing bathing suits in these places?
It depends on how accessible the beach is. If you have, for example, Haulover Beach in Miami, Florida, that’s a pretty accessible beach. If someone’s there wearing a bathing suit, I get it. But if it’s completely inaccessible, like Black’s Beach near San Diego, California, like… you have to climb down the side of a mountain to get to it and it takes a really long time. You’re going to put in all that effort and you’re going to hang out in your bathing suit?
Does it bug us? It’s just something we don’t understand. We go through all that trouble to take our clothes off. And sometimes with clothing-optional places, you see people wearing ridiculous bathing suits because they know they’re not going to be able to wear them in regular public spaces. So a nudist will look at them in their nylon Speedo that they spent $200 on, which they can’t wear anywhere else, and you can still see everything. They’ve left nothing to the imagination. But they don’t want to go naked? It’s like a fashion show. So it’s what they’re wearing that can be annoying, too.
You’ve mentioned friendship. Have people met partners through GNI?
I actually met my boyfriend at the Gathering almost six years ago now. A lot of members have done that.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
