Greek House

My co-worker Jane used to share an apartment with 5-6 Greek men who were recent immigrants to the US. All of them (and their friends) were extremely comfortable with their bodies, and spent much of their time in the nude.

Jane described living in that apartment as, "It was like being on the set of Caligula."

It was not unusual for Jane to come home and find about a dozen naked, or near-naked men in the living room, chain-smoking cigarettes. Because of this, if she brought her own friends over, she would enter the apartment first to "do a naked check."

One day, during a naked check she ran into Stavros, who asked, "What are you doing?" Jane explained she had a friend outside the door, and she wanted to make sure there were no nude men wandering about.

Stavros was appalled. "Why don't she want to see me naked?"

He was genuinely offended. "I look good naked." He could not understand that some people did not like to look at his naughty bits.

However, the men were very nice, and they did occasionally put on clothes. At night, they greased up their hair, donned cowboy boots, put on garishly neon clothing that exposed their chest hair, and went clubbing. Jane told me they looked like "radioactive gay cowboys."