Yale has a few secret societies. Skull & Bones is the one everyone knows of course: George Bush, John Kerry, etc. The Pundits are a semi-secret organization: they're basically the pranksters, truly funny people. They pull big jokes in certain classes (unleashing box loads of wiffle balls, handing out condoms in a bio class, and mainly at the end of each reading week--one week between classes and finals each semester to study--they streak the main library). The Pundits are 99 percent of the time the ones who are hosting the naked parties. They pick the location, act as security, and take care of cleaning up if the cops come. I've heard rumors that some of the things the Pundits did at the party the Times covered were set up for the reporter--they are, after all, the student prankster group.

There are some general rules at naked parties that everyone knows, or should know, that might be written down somewhere, but who knows:

1. Keep eye contact at all time. This is not a parade of eye candy.
2. No intimate touching. I've seen hugs become more and more okay over my two years of partying naked but you can't get gross. You will probably get kicked out.
3. If men get hard they have to go calm down. One of the female pundits usually walks around with a giant (I mean giant, we're talking 3 feet long) dildo and she will hit you if you're breaking this rule, or any of them really.

General etiquette is don't get too drunk. Being a sloppy alchy is nasty enough with clothes on.

At naked parties there are some people you might not normally ever want to see naked, and then there's some people you would've killed for to see naked. Sometimes you definitely notice people full on checking you out. When it's a smaller party though, there's usually the atmosphere of sophistication, with interesting conversation. Sometimes at the larger ones it's way too crowded and squeezing through the crowd might be a little more than you asked for. You might hook up with someone you meet here, but please don't really do it in front of people: it could easily get awkward if it isn't enough already.

There's the general vibe on campus that it's something everyone has to do before he or she graduates. You might hear of a naked party a week or so in advance, but you usually don't get the location until the day of; if you're lucky, the day before. Sometimes you might even get an email but it will only give you the location of the meeting point. You'll meet in front of a campus landmark and you will and then be led to the real location of the party by a guide (one of the Pundits). They leave every 15 minutes or half an hour.

My best friend and I first went our freshman year. A girl who knew the location had handed the address to us on a Post-It note. So we decided to check it out. We climbed the stairs and looked up at two naked men smoking cigarettes, ballsacks in full view. We were taken aback. We debated with ourselves and the two guys whether or not we should enter. "Look we're not trying to trick you. You can come in, you just can't wear clothes." We were about to leave when another female friend of ours was on her way up the stairs: "Please stay. I PROMISE you will have the BEST time." We disrobed (I kept on my tie, Natalie her pearls) and we went in.

It was infinitely less awkward than we expected. There was some very innocent and silly dancing, beer, good vibes, great conversations, and general good times. We've been going whenever we can ever since. I once made my good friend, who is a DJ and break dancer, do a naked head spin one time--that looks really weird with no clothes on.