A correction to yesterday’s ”Swift Justice – Key West” post. I wrote that Peggy Butler is Diane Bureldsen’s partner. My gaffe. Peggy is one of Diane’s straight friends.
(Halover Beach, Miami)
A letter to the editor from yesterday’s Key West Citizen:
Nude beaches are gentle moneymakers
Keep your shirt on, lady. To be naked is not to be immoral. To feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, cooling ocean breeze caressing your body or the freedom of swimming unencumbered by fabric is hardly immoral. If it makes you feel immoral to look at a naked body — don’t look. If you wish to expose your children to immorality, take them to Higgs Beach this afternoon.
Nudism is enjoyed by many of all ages. Families visit nude beaches and resorts together, older retired folks are retiring in clothing-optional resorts in droves, young people play and swim together. Eden taught us we should boycott apples, not bodies.
Nude beaches and resorts flourish nationwide. There are 22 organized nude resorts, beaches and clubs in Florida. Vacationers desiring a holiday naked in the sun will take their money elsewhere than Key West.
Where do they go? The closest nude beach to our “liberal” island is Haulover Beach. Haulover was a trashy, abandoned, drug-infested county park until the South Florida Free Beaches (SFFB) declared it clothing optional in July 1991. The drug dealers disappeared; parking revenues soared to over $1 million in 2002. Official status came in February 2002, when the Miami-Dade County Commission approved a Haulover master plan naming the nude beach as an official park feature.
Near Naples is a small, nude, family-run resort. Farther north, just north of Tampa, are three huge resorts that continue to sell real estate and grow. Kissimmee is the home of one of the older nude resorts. These resorts are expanding, flourishing and making money while Key West resorts sit empty.
We are missing a huge segment of the vacationing public. These vacationers ask little. We don’t have to accommodate 6,000-passenger cruise ships or dig up our harbor again to attract them.
I don’t know who you turn to for support. I can say if my God wanted me to be naked, I would have been born that way.
We desperately need a nude beach.
Geoff Schrader
S/V Three Dolphins
Key West
Next, a comment about the very seldom used part of Higgs Beach in front of the Martello:
Hi Sloan,
Your picture of the backside of the garden’s wall reminded me of the things my now 10 year old son and I have encountered over the years. Just a few weeks ago there was a young couple smoking pot there. Many other times we’ve seen people urinating on the wall. We’ve also seen drug deals going down behind there. You can always tell, by the way they act when someone walks by. And also the grafitti that the county can’t afford to clean off the historic wall. From reading your posts, I think the Naturists would be of a great help in eliminating the things my son and I don’t like about that part of the beach.
Rooster Girl
Then this comment from an amiga living up Ft. Lauderdale way, who comes through Key West regularly on cruise ships.
Sloan,
As I recall, Lady Godiva rode naken by City Hall in her little town [forget the name] to protest taxes. Perhaps a group of Lord’s and Ladies Godiva should ride by on horses– requesting an optional clothing beach.
Ginger
Next, this forward from the Editor and Publisher of Key West’s own, THE SECRET OF SALT: An Indigenous Journal.
November 18 2009
California beachgoers were officially stripped of their right to bathe nude this past October, but many naturalists are refusing to cover up.
Here’s the skinny: For more than 30 years, the far south end of San Onofre State Beach has been a hot spot for those who prefer to spend a day at the coast and leave sans tan lines. The 1,000-foot stretch of shoreline—less than 3.5 per cent of the park—is not only secluded by 300-foot cliffs, but also has had a longstanding, unspoken toleration for nudity. Traditionally, naturists were left to sunbathe in peace unless another beachgoer complained, in which case an official would ask those in the buff to either cover up or leave for the day.
The bare-skinned bliss came to a halt in May 2008, when nudists became vulnerable to fines after California State Parks Director Ruth Coleman encouraged officers to ticket those who go au natural.
According to USA Today: “Park Superintendent Richard Haydon began efforts to halt the nudity after receiving reports of sexual activity and solicitation for sex.”
With regard to Haydon’s statement, USA Today reported that Allen Baylis—a lawyer who has sunbathed on the beach since the 1970s—said that nudists don’t want sexual activity on the beach either. Baylis pointed out that sex acts take place in other public areas regardless of whether or not there is nude sunbathing nearby.
Baylis, along with two groups of bare-skinned beachgoer advocates—the Naturist Action Committee and Friends of San Onofre Beach—fought back by suing the Department.
The naked beachgoers won their first round in court. However, they were left defenseless in October, when the California Supreme Court unanimously refused to review a lower-court ruling that allows officers to site nude sunbathers.
“Nudity prohibited” signs began popping up along a trail that leads from the parking lot to the beach, but beachgoers are refusing to cover up despite the ban.
According to USA Today, “half a dozen middle-aged men were sunning in the buff one recent November weekday when temperatures were in the 70s. On hot summer weekends, several hundred nude sunbathers may show up.”
Baylis told USA Today that nudists are ready to be arrested. “If they really want to come down there and issue citations, we have people willing and able to be cited in order to take it up in the criminal courts as a matter of civil disobedience,” he told the publication. “It’s a very important issue for a lot of people.”
On September 13, more than 100 nudists showed up at San Onofre Beach with signs reading “Nude is Not Lewd” and “Nude is Not a Crime.” No citations were issued at the beach rally.
So far, park rangers have not issued any citations—but Haydon has warned park officials could begin slapping naked beachgoers with fines at any time. Tickets could carry a fine of up to $500, and would be considered misdemeanors.
A statement on the Naturist Action Committee Web site reminds nude beachgoers that “lewd activity is never appropriate” and requests that nude beachgoers “speak up for proper clothing-optional beach etiquette.”
Well, what would be more salty than naked people sweating on a beach next to the ocean? Well? Maybe naked people being chased around a beach by the ocean by Key West police officers, trying to give them tickets for not having any clothes on!!! Imagine the free attention that would get from the national and international media. Tourist Development Council, eat your hearts out :-)
The last comment today came from Richard Mason, co-founder of Halover Beach:
We keep hearing people comparing the exhibitionist nudity at Fantasy Fest with the nudity that will occur at a designated naturist beach.
This is wrong. They are two separate and distinct forms of behavior.
The partial nudity that occurs at Fantasy Fest is motivated by a completely different set of brain mechanics than the nudity the takes place at a naturist beach.
The nudity at a naturist beach is more in line with the the atmosphere of a monastery, while the exposure at Fantasy Fest is more akin to a circus.
After over 20 years of dealing with naturist recreation, asking questions of thousands of people looking for a nude beach in Florida, I have learned the following.
Most people have an inner urge to be nude in an appropriate setting, like a tropical beach or forest. Most people have told me that they have had this desire from a very early age. Probably triggered by reading National Geographic or watching a Tarzan movie. That is something ticking away inside them for years.
Most people have told me that they are shy and would really want to be alone, when nude in that tropical setting,but, they also fear being alone, because they believe there would be some kind of danger, being alone.
What we witness at Fantasy Fest is a form of rebellion against the forced requirement to wear clothes. Also, the rebellion against a society that will punish, through their criminal code, anyone being merely nude in a public setting. Even while praying to their God.
That is why you witness so much costuming and body paint.
Further, many, to overcome their shyness, resort to alcohol to break down their learned restrictions on being nude. After many years of repression and being told it is wrong to be nude in public and that inner desire to be nude, being repressed, and, the opportunity to walk on a public street, exposed. now available, the alcohol gives them the courage; and the paint and other material give them some cover.
These same people will go back to their regular lives of being a policeman, pastor, school teacher. doctor, lawyer and Indian Chief. Many will feel that they got the frustration out of their system, for another year. Somewhat like bursting a boil.
Many who visit a naturist beach would never, never visit Fantasy Fare. Why, because it is the opposite of what they want to do while being on a beach. They want quiet, read a book. Enter their spiritual being with nature. There is a mutual vulnerability while nude on a beach. You are exposed to the elements, your surroundings and other people.
Loud and noisy people are truly a vexation to the soul. Being nude on a beach is about respecting your body and the others around you.
Many feel closer to their God, fully exposed on a beach. The wind, the water and the sea grass all add up to a lowering of your blood pressure and a revisit to your inner self and life’s journey. When you respect your self, your body, it is then that you respect others and nature.
Just like the famous psychoanalysis stated: “Sometimes a good cigar is just good cigar” People visiting a naturist beach say, “Sometimes a nude beach is just a nude beach.”
Let the process continue. But those that are selecting a beach for a designated naturist beach, should not go hastily off into the sun.
They MUST consider the elements that are important to a naturist beach experience. Those elements, more important than the nudity, is a location that is remote, quiet and one where people can get lost in the natural scene.
The avoidance of cement walls, noise, and only worldly objects are best out of sight. In Key West, they want people to return for a naturist beach experience. That is only possible if visitors experience a natural area.
The only site that meets this criteria is the East end of Smathers Beach. Remember, you are not creating a “ghetto.” You are creating a natural experience that visitors will remember.
Richard Mason
Naturist