The naked man of James River
Thomas Roane's 30-year battle to be nude in nature in Richmond, VA
When I first moved to Richmond, VA, I turned to Google hoping to find fellow nudists in the area and places to be nude outside. Sadly, my search returned very few relevant hits, but there was one frequently mentioned spot—Texas Beach— that kept appearing in local news articles.
Texas Beach, part of the 600-acre James River Park system, is a popular destination for hiking and dips in the river. In the more remote areas, it’s not uncommon to spot a naturist sunbathing on one of the large rocks, but perhaps none are as well know as the subject of the news articles I had discovered, Thomas “The Naked Man” Roane.
Months before his 80th birthday, the retired agricultural engineering professor was banned from the park after five arrests for indecent exposure over a more than 30 year stretch of nude sunbathing. The charges were generally dismissed in court by argument that nudity without sexual behavior or intent is not obscene, though at least one charge in 2006 did result in a conviction an…
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