It’s a Tuesday morning, the infinite blue sky of Byron Bay has opened up and the six naturists – four men, two women – have stripped down to their birthday suits for a quick dip in the buff.
This section of beach – an 800-metre stretch along the vast coastline – forms the only legal clothing-optional beach in the shire. Among those taking advantage of the opportunity to be out in the open is Duncan James, vice-president of Northern Rivers Naturists, who is something of an evangelist for “embracing the beach as Mother Nature intended.”
“Many of the beach users have described the clothing-optional beach as their happy place, a place where they can disconnect from modern day stresses, a place they can feel at one with nature,” he says.
There is, however, a metaphorical cloud on the horizon. On Sunday, Tyagarah is set to be stripped of its status as an official clothing-optional beach.
“I guess these values aren’t shared by New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service [NPWS], who are hell-bent on closing one of Byron’s last alternative community hubs and experiences,” James says.
First they came for the nudes, and I did not speak out. Because I was not nude.
Tobias?
Some rich asshole named Stuart Sloan, owner of University Village, tried low key getting rid of our nude beach here in Seattle. He talked directly with the mayor to get a children’s park right next to the beach and offered to pay for it which would likely mean police would crack down on nudity there. Thankfully the community gathered together to tell him to fuck off.
Lets all buy the property next to Stuarts house, tear down any existing building, and build a glass house…for nude parties!
There is one near there for sale for only $2.7 million. The other one near there is less affordable at $6.2 million. That one does have a pool though so hanging dong easier to do.
Haven’t heard “hang dong” in awhile. Upvoted and may your dong hang freely.
I don’t hang dong… I place dong on a fleshy cushion where it pleasantly sits in its turtleneck among a field of tall grass.
👏
Having a pool doesn’t make it easier to hang dong, just marginally more plausible.
Or put a children’s park there so they can enjoy the children’s screams of joy.
I thought walking around naked was part of Australian culture.
jeezus you really are dumb as hell aren’t you?
no.
covering up to protect against skin cancer has been so successful that for a while rickets were a concern in parts of Australia.
I’m sorry, I thought humor reached Australia a long time ago. Apparently not.
Hasn’t reached you either it seems.
I hope you’re well stocked on your vit D supplements.
Someday I hope to build up the courage to visit/participate a nudist beach. It seems far more comfortable and “normal” in Europe than in the States from my travels. Remarkably humanizing.
Went to one while in Spain. The spectrum was roughly the same as you would see at any beach. There were no creepers hanging around or anyone who was judgy.
I experienced the same at “regular” beaches out in Greece. Topless women and Speedos were just as normal as any other beachgoer. It was really rather relaxing thinking back to it now.
The Speedos were the French. They do love their budgie-smugglers for some reason
It used to be required at a lot of camping pools because the longer shorts would take too much water out of the pool… nowadays it’s not often required anymore in my experience.
It’s still required at pools because the downhill (VTT) bikers will wear board shorts, get covered in mud then try to just walk into swimming pools with them
I also remember being told it’s because they’re more hygienic (less pubic hair escaping). Always hated them though and would avoid places that enforced that.
Because topless != nude in most of Europe. Hell, you can see topless women at pretty much any seashore when it’s warm enough.
Beaches are tougher but I believe there’s a nudist resort in every state in the US. You can visit the AANR website and find the closest one. If it’s a “family resort” that means it’s probably very welcoming, if a little boring depending on location.
They are really good. And tbh, they feel pretty normal once you get used to it, usually takes about 15 min. I prefer them now, since you dry off a lot quicker and don’t have to deal with a wet bathing suit. The US has some good ones, as does Canada.
There’s one in my area of Florida. It’s the busiest part of the beach lol. Other people get judgy if you tell them you go, but the people there are super normal. It’s really more about yourself being free in nature. If you go to ogle at people you’ll be disappointed and also unwelcome, naturists don’t generally tolerate creeps. They like to keep it chill and everyone interacts like any other beach. Occasionally there’s even kids there.
But it’s technically illegal in the state… But the cops turn a blind eye and haven’t gone after it (it’s been this way for decades). The (federally run) park even put up signs to warn that you made encounter “nude sunbathers” at a certain part of the beach.
North Fla resident here, where’s the beach you’re talking about?
Playalinda beach on the space coast, near Titusville and next to the launch pads. Last parking lot is clothing optional. Really clean and natural beach. Also great for watching rocket launches, if they keep the beach open for it.
(The structures in the distance are rocket launch towers, it’s legitimately the closest you can get.)
I’ve never had the opportunity to go to Playalinda, but I do really miss Paradise Beach before the tourists found out about it.
Occasionally there’s even kids there.
Ew ew ew ew ew ew no. Just…just no.
Before I wasn’t going to go because I’m not comfortable with my own body. NOW I’ll never go, because I assumed it was 21+. I don’t mind catching a glimpse of adult male nudity (I’m a straight male), because at least it’s an adult consenting to it. But I DO NOT want to see 8 year olds running around naked. Both from a standpoint of I don’t want to see it, AND from the standpoint that I don’t want others knowing they can go there to see it.
Think about it. Prior to 2012 or whatever year it was, NOBODY would have thought anything wrong with Jarod from subway going to a nude beach. But would you want your 8 year old at the same nude beach as Jarod??? Nobody knew he was into that, and the only reason you know now is because it made the news. The people in your neighborhood WON’T make the news.
There are various search tools online to see who in your neighborhood has been placed on the sex offender registry. Of the 37 houses on my street, 24 of them have had some form of sexual based arrest since the 1970s.
Can YOU pick out the predators based on visual glimpse? I can’t.
Honestly , you are projecting sexuality where there really is none. I have been growing up (except for the teen years, where everything is embarrassing) going to our ‘naturalist’ (FKK) lakes and beaches every summer, and there newer were such problems.
Username checks out
Not sure why what I said is so unpopular? Basically I don’t want to see naked kids, and don’t want others to know of a place to look at naked kids.
And that’s…somehow me being crazy?
Because you turned a completely innocuous discussion about nude beaches into an unhinged rant about sexualizing children. Nudity does not inherently mean sexual.
A short comment like “yeah I don’t know how I’d feel about children at a nude beach” would have been fine, but the extent to which you’re talking about it comes off as creepy and projecting.
Not sure why what I said is so unpopular
There’s only one person in this thread sexualizing kids being naked.
First off, I’m not sexualizing them.
Secondly, I’m not worried about people in this thread sexualizing them. I’m worried about people on the beaches in person sexualizing them for years. Eventually they act on it. Four of my neighbors raped kids before they got arrested. And a guy roughly 15 streets from me kidnapped and raped 3 teenage girls for 15 years, before one eventually broke out of his basement. My sister was raped in the 80s when she was a teen. There are rapists all around.
What’s so different about a kid being naked compared to an adult being naked? Also, if you don’t want to see naked kids, just… don’t look at them? I don’t get what your problem is here.
Well, I know kids today aren’t being raised with the same protections I was as a kid. Kids swear more often now, see more violent tv than I did, and see sex more often than I did.
However I still maintain that kids should be treated as if they are as innocent as I was as a kid. I didn’t know what sex was until puberty, and thats the way it should be. Let them have a childhood.
You start making it known “hey, this is a place where naked kids are”, then you’ll inevitably have people going there specifically to see the naked kids. And you’ll never know which ones are doing that. Nobody suspects the pedophile until they’re caught…which tells me the uncaught ones are just out there consequence free.
And as far as “just not looking”, I covered this with the naked guys. I don’t mind seeing the naked guy, even though I don’t want to. You’re going to see it if you’re there. It’s just going to at some point be in your visual line of sight. With adults, at least they’re consenting adults who understand that any visitor to that beach, at anytime might sexualize them in their own mind. Children can’t consent to that, because they don’t understand the severity of the situation.
If this is your mindset, then you probably don’t belong at a nudist area. Nudists are expressly non-sexual. They do not get along well with swingers, who are more explicitly sexual. Swingers invading nudist areas tend to get nudist areas shut down.
I swam naked in the fountain at our towns courthouse as a child, and it was fine. You’re weird and creepy.
Ew. I’m fairly certain if I’d have done that, my dad would have beaten me with a tire iron, and then my mom would have beaten me with a belt in case my dad missed any spots.
Man, that sucks. But also kind of explains your mindset regarding this.
Im sorry that you are this fucked up in your head. It’s just bodies, nothing sexual, if god wanted us to be embarrassed then why did we turn out this way.
…well, I’m an athiest. So, our bodies are all we have, and when we die, they get set on fire, or decompose in a box. Everything BEFORE that matters though.
how do you even know the kids are allowed to be nude there?
I was responding to a portion of another persons message that said they were.
see thats weird, i read that comment, not one mention of “naked kids” being there, just “kids” being there…
At a nude beach.
There’s definitely kids walking around naked at nudist beaches. Nudist areas are explicitly non-sexual, though.
its surprisingly a nothing burger. from 50+ feet away a nude elderly man looks quite similar to a nude elderly woman. the breeze is the best part.
What options does the community have? Was there no RFC by the park board?
Its a cultural thing, in Japan and Europe its the opposite, nudity is considered less extreme than violence
Japan seems to have picked up more American-like attitudes about nudity over the decades. Older anime had a lot more ecchi nudity than current stuff, including anime that was meant for a younger crowd.
For example (NSFW link): https://animebathscenewiki.com/index.php?title=Mobile_Suit_Gundam/Episode_22
I may be making assumptions about a whole culture based on one aspect of it, though.
Judging from the screenshots, it seems to be completely non-sexualized. You could hardly get aroused by looking at the woman’s body there.
I wish I could find a video–this scene is on the DVD version–but it’s definitely ecchi (lighthearted sexual humor). It’s pretty obvious in the dialog. Basically, one of the boys remarks how the older teenage girl has boobs and the younger girl doesn’t.
I understand that the subject of the OP is community space specifically for shedding judgement and all that, but
That URL is very suspect, even knowing that not all anime is made for kids
OG Gundam was totally made for kids. It’s cheesy as fuck, but it also had nude ecchi scenes. And yeah, it’s not the sort of site I would normally link, but it’s the most comprehensive one for showing the point in this case.
Ehh… that depends too. Here in Italy there’s plenty of people that wouldn’t bat an eye at their 10-year old playing CoD and shooting people in the most graphic ways possible, as long as there’s no female nipples in sight.
Recently, some solid gold asshole tried to close one of the two nude beaches in our city by getting a playground installed on it (the nude beach is in the wealthy part of town, nestled between $6.2m dollar homes in a neighborhood that only recently become staggeringly wealthy. The beach itself is tiny, but heavily used.
Luckily, hundreds and hundreds of people showed up at the tiny community center, all in favor of protecting the nude beach. People were packed in, and a line stretched out deep into the lobby and out the main doors. They keep trying to close it, but people love it too much. Realistically, the city needs more nude beaches, not less. Beach goer cars line the neighborhood for blocks, and the park and bike racks are always completely full.
I hope the recent attention brings it back to its former dykekiki glory this summer, it’s really fallen into grody hempfest crowd over the last several years. I pick up so much trash when I go there now, it’s kinda depressing.
Yeah, I agree. The other nude beach down the road feels a bit cleaner.
They worded conservative creep perfectly to be completely misleading
Weirdly it was only on reading your comment that I saw the ambiguity. I quite like it.
Misleading yet entirely accurate
Admit it, you zoomed.
Is this the case of Byron becoming fashionable, hippies being gentrifuged out by rising prices and replaced by Liberal voters who wanted their slice of heaven to be more conservative and family-friendly?
Family friendly?
Are you for real? Nudist campings are family campings in yurop. Went to a nekid beach last week and it was filled with families. As it is every time we go.
It’s not the nakedness that seems to be the issue. It’s your hyper sexualised mindset and culture.
Someone needs to explain to me why nudity is considered not ‘family-friendly’ but watching movies/playing video games with massive amounts of bloodshed and death is considered fine and dandy for kids.
I’m ok with people without clothes on at the beach, but I really don’t want to see a line of people tanning their assholes, so can we at least keep that to a minimum?
I would just turn my head or move further down the beach.
shrugs
I just wouldn’t want to have to explain such a thing to a toddler.
Toddlers don’t sexualize everything like adults do, so there is nothing to explain, really.
Toddlers imitate everything adults do and I don’t think that’s something toddlers should be doing, nor something that people on a beach should see toddlers doing.
Ya as a parent that would be your choice to make, but there really shouldn’t be anything wrong with nudity at any age.
Then go to a different fucking beach, you idiot. You’re doing the equivalent of walking into a sushi restaurant and complaining it has too much fish. 99%+ of beaches require clothing, go to them.
Comment I already made:
I’d say that really depends on context. Nudity at a beach? Sure. But I also think that there should be clothed-only areas as an option as well. Give everyone what they want. This is obviously not the way to do it since that was how it already was.
I’m certainly not suggesting people get arrested for child abuse or anything.
So apparently I’m an idiot who agrees with you. What does that make you?
I have never heard of anyone actually doing that.
You are so weird
Yes. I am on Lemmy. And also, I was asked about it.
I’ve gone to nude beaches countless times and never seen this, lmao.
It’s like a normal beach with a clothing nerf. Most people are reading, chatting with friends, or swimming with beach balls and floaties.
Why do you stare at people tanning their assholes? That’s considered very impolite germany.
Don’t get your Burkha all crinkled you doorknob
I just looked at my comment and nowhere did I say that I stared at them. Why are you lying in order to criticize me?
I’m pretty sure those games and movies are age-restricted.
PG-13 and rated T for teen, respectively
I know lots of kids were/are playing those without parental supervision. Those same parents had/have existential fits if their child sees a penis or breasts in a movie.
Just because their parents are bad parents doesn’t mean there are regulations and restrictions… at the end of the day parents need to parent and so many are unwilling to do so.
I will mention I have no problem with nude beaches or public toplessness of both genders, religious prudishness has no place in the modern world
“why are so many parents bad parents and/or messed up people in general?”
That’s a big can of worms you’re trying to open, GF.
Just because it’s big doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be opened. Only Sonlight can cleanse the shit that bullshit ‘Christianity’ has wrought.
Because of the American Puritannical values, which dictate what the credit companies and advertisers are willing to do business with and the cultural zeitgeist along with it.
The Puritans were some of the earliest British colonists in the US, and were either thrown out of England for attempting a coup to replace the king with a puppet to force their more extremist form of Christianity on the country, or left by their own choice because they felt that the Church of England was too liberal. They were basically a bunch of prudes who believed that the human body and sex were shameful and disgusting.
This has led to the dichotomy where advertisers want nothing to do with sex/nudity, except when it comes to implied sex in advertisements. Because sex is bad, but it also sells, which is good.
Who said violence was good for kids? If I were a parent I wouldn’t let my kid play those games. Not until they’re 14…unless they’re a stupid kid. Then 18.
as much as we all hate Liberal voters*, and gentrification and rising prices - Byron Bay is ground zero for hippy anti-vaxxers and the resurgence of measles in Australia.
So… I’m torn.
* for Americans, the Liberal party (capital ‘L’) are the conservatives. Basically, wannabe Republicans. They’re economically liberal, not socially liberal. That is, like all conservatives, they like wasting government money and giving liberal amounts to corporations.
Glad you gave the astrict!
Regressive’s like maga claim to be all about personal freedom but in truth they don’t want others to have any freedom they don’t approve of. Tolerance is not something they possess. Never listen to what regressives say just watch what those perverts do.
Someone on the Internet put it nicely as “there must be outgroups the law binds but does not protect, and in groups the law protects but does not bind”. That’s all there is it to it. My people good and can do what they want, your people suck.
Stripped down to this basic level, you can see it’s a pretty vile worldview.
Regressives want the personal freedom to harass hurt and kill who they want. That’s what they’re talking about. They feel the walls finally around them saying they can’t. So they lash out, at anything.
They are dangerous feral animals
I really need to start using the term “regressives”. It is so accurate!
This thread must be mind-blowing for Americans.
Not really, were used to good things getting banned.
We have nude beaches just not as common.
But you knew that already
You have nude public beaches like in Europe? Where?
I don’t know why you continue to pretend like you don’t know. I mean you got your 6 upvotes by lying, what purpose does it serve to continue to lie? Weird. Are you hoping for another upvote or something? It’s a week old comment, that isn’t likely.
https://amazingworld.travel/nude-beaches-usa/
Anyway have fun with your karma farming.
Never lied. Also, you don’t seem like a very pleasant person. Lighten up.
Nah you lied the alternative was that you were giving your opinion on a subject you didn’t know about.
Didn’t lie. Just pointed out that many Americans are prudes. The truth is not a lie.
Second lie.
Sorry to read that. How dare you sun yourself as nature intended. /s
These prudes would be terrified of San Francisco, whole city is clothing optional. No one ever really does it cause it’s too cold though saw a couple out today for pride. Sucks there banning it in a place that would actually be comfortable to do it.
Not sure if you mean -
[It] sucks there, banning it in a place that would actually be comfortable to do it.
Or
You’re just too lazy to learn how to be coherent for the rest of us
“[It] sucks they’re banning…”
Probably autocorrect or something like that, it’s not that hard to figure out.
Did you think you were being witty? Cause you’re just an asshole.
San Francisco is not actually clothing optional. Full nudity is mostly illegal. You have to cover the genitals
Have you been to SF? So many genitals
I live there
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