Lame Reasons For Wearing Clothes In Bed
It’s been a long time since I teased Halley, but I have to tease her now about her Ten Reasons Women Aren’t Sleeping In The Nude. I know she’s trying to explain rather than excuse, but still. I once had a girlfriend who (as things began to sour) started coming to bed wearing a huge full-body “sleeper” (like the ones little kids get zipped into, only without the feet) made out of thick flannel. Then, once she’d settled on the new man, but before she’d bothered to tell me about him, she bought a special blanket made out of rough waffle weave fabric (like thermal underwear only scratchier) and she’d wrap herself up in a cocoon in the scratchy blanket.
It didn’t help when I started to tease her about “setting the anti-submarine nets” while she was wrapping herself in the blanket.
Halley’s reasons for not being nude in bed, summarized and assesed by me:
1) Body self-consciousness. Assessment: Lame. We’ve invited you into our bed, we like your body well enough.
2) Wearing fancy undies. Assessment: Acceptable. We’ll be happy to help you take them off, though.
3) Risk of kids jumping into bed. Assessment: Acceptable. But not strictly necessary. Lots of kids have no problem with the idea that Mommy and Daddy don’t wear clothes in their bedrooom.
4) Don’t want to be nude in case of disaster. Assessment: Lame. Odds are too low.
5) Too many random folks in sleeping environment. Assessment: Acceptable. But fix it already! Or move. Or go naked anyway; it’s possible they will move if it bothers them.
6) Clothes required to be cozy in bed. Assessment: Ultra-lame. Get better bedding.
7) Too much touching when sleeping naked. Assessment: Now the truth comes out. That’s not a bug, it’s a feature. That’s why you should sleep naked. And that’s why your man may object if you won’t. Why are you sleeping with someone you don’t want touching you, anyway?
8) “It’s hard to keep your own hands off yourself sometimes.” LOL — welcome to our world. See above for assessment.
9) Arms get cold. Assessment: Lame. Again, get better bedding. Or snuggle.
10) Feels too libertine for our Puritan heritage. Assessment: Hah, you know that’s lame. Dare!
See, wearing clothes in bed is almost as crazy as wearing clothes to go swimming. No, wait, everybody does that… I’m so confused now.
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Sorry, I’m with Halley on this one. If I want to play touchy-feely, I’ll be naked. But if I want to sleep, I’m getting dressed. I don’t mind sleeping with someone, but personal space is an issue. At some point, he needs to stop fondling me and let me go to sleep.
Our rule: No clothing in bed, ever!
The Teacher
I`m with the no clothes in bed.
Good practical reasons, feels nice, lets your body breathe, and…..
less clothes in the washing basket!!!
I have big American breasts that try to scamper away from me like playful puppies during the night. I like to wear a tank top just to keep them coralled into a fitful submission.
But I’ll go bottomless. I have no problems with my naughty bits being naked. They don’t try to go anywhere while I sleep.
Before I met Matt, I used to sleep in pajamas… the long pants and long-sleeved top type. Oh yeah, and socks. Just the way I grew up, I guess…
Now – I sleep naked (or nearly naked, meaning I wear panties and nothing else).
And I will never go back to wearing clothes to bed… (well, maybe a t-shirt when I visit the parents).
I don’t do well with touching while I’m trying to get to sleep. I need full-on sensory deprevation to enter slumber. No lights, no sounds, no touching.
“Clothes required to be cozy in bed.”
Lame, agreed. But the flipside, “clothes required to maintain comfyness when leaving bed” has some merit, especially for those many of us who must travel down the hall (or farther!) to reach the restroom.
Hmm… in the summer time no problem, but in the winter I just naturally start wearing a t-shirt. It’s the cold arms thang for me too. And I have ‘great’ bed sheets. :)
Before we got married my wife and I made a pact that we would never wear clothes in bed. And 21 years later we’ve stuck to that. I would definitely recommend it.
ArmyWife’s comments make me sad. Basically because they mirror my own wife’s.
If you don’t want your partner touching you, tell them. Don’t hit them with this pajamas thing. That’s worse than death! ;o)
If you have good quality linen, the sheets feel fabulous on bare skin.
I vote no clothes, unless either party is unwell and feeling chilly.
Been sleeping nude since 5th grade, even if it’s -25 outside I sleep nude. Like William Wallace from Braveheart said……FREEEEDDDDOMMMMM
I refuse, under pain of death, to wear clothing in bed. Pajamas bind. I don’t care if it’s a nightgown (those are hideous. They crawl up, wind around and before you know it, you’re being strangled), tops/bottoms (they also crawl and wind, only in 2 pieces), or even a tshirt (sleeves get twisted wierd). AT MOST, I may wear undies. And you can take those off to your heart’s content.
How about rolling around a lot during sleep and accidentally kick off the covers and get too cold without something on?
Or don’t want to have the multiple cats walking across exposed bare skin when they want attention at 3am?
The sweetest thing I have ever known – or will ever know – is waking in the night skin-to-skin, wrapped in my beloved’s arms, his leg tucked between my legs, his breath warm and moist on my ear softly snoring. I would choose anything else?
Apart from the excuses (“there’s reasons and there’s excuses, you need to look out for the reasons and ignore the excuses”, wise phrase, haven’t forgotten it since i first heard it), i see all the reasons stemming from prudishness and some deep-held remains of the “sex is bad” beliefs. The bad body acceptance can be cured in a day or two (sometimes even only an hour or two, depending on the person) in a good naturist place. The beliefs you’ll have to work out by yourself. But indeed, if you don’t feel comfortable with another person (or yourself) touching you, the issue is NOT your sleepwear.
it is in fact not good for women to wear underwear to bed. your nether regions need to breath, there’s a higher risk of yeast infections if you wear underwear to bed. if you feel the need to cover up then wear cotton pj bottoms without underwear, or a nighty.
personally though, i don’t like to wear clothes to bed, i always end up tied up in them as the night wears on, and not in a fun way. ;)
There is also the possibility that the two people in bed have very different temperature preferences. I’m a very warm guy, so I like to sleep in a cooler environment. A girl in that environment may need a bit more insulation.
This is a hypothetical excuse though- in my experience I throw off so much damned heat that any girl in my bed can’t stand to wear clothes, no matter how afraid of the cold she is.
Always naked. Always.
Pyjama bottoms only. And on;y when Ma Nature says so. But other than that, I’m with Annie.
Funny that I just read this. I always sleep nude, but the heat isn’t working so I can’t right now and it’s driving me crazy. As someone mentioned above, I always kick off the covers, so until I can get my oplace above 50 degrees, I’m stuck wearing clothes.
Both my wife and I sleep in the nude. Although sometimes she complains about her breasts and is discussing wearing a sport bra to bed instead.
Well, I can’t believe no one else has this problem… I’m sure there are some other women out there! What about girl gunk? If I go to bed without underwear on, I get disgusting crusty gunk on my labia and legs. THAT is a definately gross turn-off for sex, for me, I get paranoid that my husband is going to be grossed out by it. Whether he is or not, I still like to be gunk free when he goes in.
It’s like this. Do you want 3 extra throws seperating you from me? Because that’s the only way I’m going naked. Women generally feel cold more and heat less. In order to not wear clothes in bed I am going to need extra blankets because the amount you desire is not going to be enough.
Okay, I’m a tiny bit of a lingerie fetishist and nighties, negligees and nightgowns – not to mention sweet little silk chemises and vintage baby dolls to get that tiger in…Ah, yes.
But there is a difference between coming to bed and sleeping. Heck, I’ve got several pairs of 5 inch heels which are designed entirely for the ten foot walk from dressing room to bed.
Sleeping, on the other hand is best done nude on 300 plus thread count cotton sheets with a goose down duvet and a friendly, and deeply satisfied, companion to lend heat as required.
As for the transition: a friend of mine once said the very best lingerie always ended up as a scarf…
8) “It’s hard to keep your own hands off yourself sometimes.”
Imagine that. Girls discovering they’re beautiful, sexy, and hot.
My wife and I always sleep naked. She actually falls asleep faster if I’m snuggling up to her for a while. But I can’t fall asleep that way.
If you have a problem with that, tell your partner that you’re trying to sleep. If she’s a decent human being, she’ll let you.
Ann Landers from thirty years ago: What two people wear to bed is between them.
My “ex” wore a brassiere to bed (and other clothing as well). It was her armor. She’d been molested in the middle of the night, in her own bed, by a family member. She never would get therapy. As I said, she’s my “ex”…
I read this post a looooong time ago and it’s kind of been eating at me. Sure some of those reasons for wearing clothes in bed are lame. But I personally resent the attitude that I should sleep naked so that I will be sexually (or even just tactilely) available to my partner. I feel most comfortable wearing at least a t-shirt and comfortable panties to sleep (I don’t like the feeling of my arms sticking to my torso, and I’m cold natured) and I don’t like the idea that I should sacrifice my comfort because my partner is somehow entitled to my body because I agreed to share mattress space with him. I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean for this post to sound obnoxious or entitled, you probably didn’t even realize it–but it still got under my skin.
And Dr. Whiplash–poor girl. Guess that just wasn’t the right time for her to deal with that trauma.
Seraph, in all seriousness, it’s not about entitlement, it’s about physical closeness. If you aren’t “available” to your partner, why are you “sharing mattress space” with him?
I don’t think it’s “obnoxious” to want to touch the woman I share a bed with. If she did think so, she wouldn’t be there. Seems pretty simple to me. But coming to bed deliberately armored against physical closeness? That would be the truly obnoxious thing in my view.
Note to Seraph:
I can’t tell for certain, but it sounds a bit that you may be questioning my sympathy to my ex’s unfortunate experience. I waited patiently for over a decade and a half for her emotional health to return. While waiting, she once split my lip open with her elbow when I tried to snuggle up to her in bed.
In psychological terms, she suffered from transference. She shifted the anger she felt towards the family member who molested her, onto me, because:
A. She wanted to mollify family members who wished to keep the family intact as well as preserve it’s good reputation in the community.
and
B. She couldn’t “unload” her anger on a stranger, they might well punch her out, and she knew I wouldn’t hurt her.
For all those years that I coddled and indulged her, and attempted to appease her, all I got in return was contempt and disdain. It was like a bad carton of milk left in the refrigerator. I checked on it constantly, erroneously waiting for the milk that had gone sour to somehow become sweet again.
I hope you don’t mean to sound like you are defending her behavior. Perhaps you were being somewhat sarcastic about her negligence. In most of this country’s courts, failure to avail oneself of therapy, when it is so plainly indicated, is grounds for divorce. At the very LEAST, the “right time” for her to “deal with that trauma” would have been immediately after she accepted my engagement ring, would it not?