Nudity, homophobia, and the battle for Jacob Riis Park
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Nudity, homophobia, and the battle for Jacob Riis Park
Nudism and the counter culture converge where beach meets the sea at Jacob Riis Park
Jacob Riis Park, located in the Rockaways in Queens, New York, first established as a park in 1912, has a long history as an unofficial nudist beach. During the 1930s, the beach was informally known as "the people's bath," due to a historic art deco bath house that was first built there in 1932. In the 1950s and 1960s, the beach was a popular destination for members of the LGBTQ community, who faced discrimination and harassment at other beaches. As the decades went by and the beach became more mainstream, Jacob Riis Park became a site for tension of culture clashes.
As at most nude beaches, one issue at Jacob Riis Park has been the tension between nudists and non-nudists. While some beachgoers have embraced the nudist lifestyle and the values of body positivity and self-acceptance, others in the community have been less comfortable with public nudity. A familiar story in the United States.
Jacob Riis Park has been a site of cultural conflict in other areas than just nude sunbathing. The beach has been a popular destination for the LGBTQ+ community since the 1940s, and there have been instances of homophobia and discrimination against gay beachgoers in the past. During the 1960s, many gay men faced harassment and citations from police for alleged violations of bathing suit size regulations.
Jacob Riis Park is just one example of anti-nudity ordinances and views being used to target members of the LGBTQ+ community and limit their civil rights. Many of these ordinances have been selectively enforced to target queer communities, prohibiting activities like nude beach days and drag queen shows.
Nudists can—and should—stand together with the LGBTQ+ community in solidarity against discriminatory ordinances that seek to limit their rights to self-expression.
When Jacob Riis Park became part of the Gateway National Recreation Area in 1972, nudism at the beach became more difficult to practice. Despite this, the beach has maintained its reputation as a diverse and welcoming space for the LGBT community.
Jacob Riis Park's history as a place of counterculture and social defiance is closely tied to its history as a place of acceptance and inclusivity for the LGBTQ+ community. It is a powerful example of how nudism can be a radical act of self-expression and resistance, and how it can be an integral part of a larger movement for social change. 🪐
Nudity, homophobia, and the battle for Jacob Riis Park
Our moment in history is defined by a majority consensus for change around a lot of issues. Sexual liberty is one of these, with a hundred and eighty degree attitude shift having happened over my adult lifetime—at least for most. This was proper. Nudism may or may not be non-sexual, but going without clothing must seem like a sexual practice to the uninitiated, and nudists should be natural allies to people who are romantically and sexually interested in their own sexes.
I first experience experienced [then] legal beach nudity at Riis Park in 1970 and '71. I was 17 and 18 years old during those summers. It was my first opportunity to be naked outdoors without fear of being caught. I spent long happy days in the nude, body surfing, gathering shells, sunning, even waiting in line naked to buy a potato knish on the boardwalk. For the first time, I got tan all over. On hot days it was mobbed, with only narrow paths of exposed sand to walk on between “wall-to-wall” beach towels. In my memory the crowd was an equal mix of gay and straight, and I don't recall any tension about that. The great majority of people (including my boyfriend) wore swimsuits , but nudity wasn't uncommon; it was legal and accepted. It was very public but also very anonymous; a liberating combination. Well, it was anonymous for the most part… I once recognized my former camp counselor, and another day I saw a retired couple who lived upstairs from me in Manhattan. All of them wore swimsuits. My first impulse in both cases was to turn away and hope that I had not been seen, but I forced myself to say hello. We had friendly conversations. My nudity was neither acknowledged nor awkward. When I later encountered those neighbors in our apartment building, I realized that their having seen me naked changed nothing. For me, these were moments of growth. When laws around nudity at Riis changed I felt the loss strongly.