TNT!MEN: The gay nudists who helped Canada get totally naked
TNT!MEN: The gay nudists who helped Canada get totally naked
Nude swimming, nude dancing, nude protesting—there’s barely an area of Canadian nudity law that this group didn’t revolutionize
In 2023, Toronto’s queer and naturist communities took up a struggle to save Hanlan’s Point Beach—one of only two official clothing-optional swimming spots in Canada—from city development schemes.1 Spearheaded by a group called “Hands Off Hanlan’s,” the fightback succeeded in preserving the beach, raised awareness of the site’s place in local LGBTQ history, and garnered government pledges for revitalization.2
But long before the campaign to save Hanlan’s, another grassroots group at the intersection of nudist activism and gay politics revolutionized the clothing-optional scene in Canada’s biggest city and left a legacy still felt to this day.
Founded in 1997, TNT!MEN—Totally Naked Toronto! Men Enjoying Nudity—was for several years the vanguard organization of not just gay nudism, but of naturist political action generally in Canada. From naked swimming to naked dancing to naked protesting, there’s barely an area of relevant Canadian law that it didn’t challenge—and change.
The organization resisted “body fascism” and won for all Canadians the right to be their natural human selves and to bare it all—at the beach, in clubs, and on the streets. This is its history, as told through internal documents, news coverage of its activities, and by its veterans, several of whom graciously agreed to be interviewed for this article.
TCAN and the pre-history
The pre-history of TNT!MEN stretches back many years before its official establishment. Most of the founding fathers had come across one another informally in gay nudist circles or worked together in its forerunner, TCAN—Toronto Canada Area Nudists. TCAN was formed in 1995, largely via connections made among Canadians attending gay naturist (or naturist-adjacent) events across North America.
In late March 1992, David Drascic, then a graduate student at the University of Toronto, Peter Gray, an upholsterer, and Peter Simm, an attorney, met at the “1st International Gay Vision Conference” in Toronto. As Simm describes it to Planet Nude, the event featured “workshops, panels, lectures, and visual arts” focused on “gay male sex and spirit.” It proved to be a catalyst, sparking gay nudist organizing in the city.
Later that summer, Drascic and Gray traveled to Ottawa for a local gathering of the Radical Faeries, Harry Hay’s 1970s queer counterculture movement.3 There, they learned for the first time about the annual Gay Naturists International (GNI) gatherings in the Poconos. GNI’s roots go back to the Gay and Lesbian Special Interest Group that had been incubated in Lee Baxandall’s Naturist Society in the 1980s.4
“When I heard about GNI,” Gray tells Planet Nude, “I couldn’t get there fast enough.” That August, he and Drascic spent a week with 600 other gay nudists at the GNI summer camp in the Pennsylvania woods. The experience proved galvanizing. The two men, by now partners, started hosting naked parties at their house in Toronto the following summer, filling the guest list largely through contacts accumulated at GNI.
The pair next went to New York in June 1994 for the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. “Some of the Radical Faeries were naked in the Pride parade,” Gray remembers. “We, too, got naked and joined them and stayed naked in Central Park at the end of the parade.”
Around the same time, separately, a man named Jim Marcelle placed an ad in the local gay newspaper looking for people interested in starting a nudist club. “We contacted him,” Drascic says, “and he organized a gathering with a small group of perhaps ten men”—fully clothed. There, Drascic and Gray shared their experiences at GNI and invited the group to a naked party at their home.
“Jim had no experience with social nudism, but he was interested in getting a club going,” Drascic says. Marcelle didn’t show up for the house party, but others did, including Brian Rogers, who’d soon play a prominent role in the nascent organization.
Amidst the footwork being done to get the new club off the ground, though, Toronto was engaged in a debate over “public sex” and whether sexual activity in secluded spots was “public.” The discussion erupted after tens of thousands of spectators in the city’s largest stadium cheered on a man and a woman having sex in a hotel room whose window faced the baseball field; no charges were filed against the couple.
By contrast, gay men were still being regularly arrested and harassed for “having a liaison in the dark tangle of bushes” in the dead of night, Drascic says. The double standard in how authorities policed sex depending on who was having it left many gays and lesbians distrustful and angry. The memory of the 1981 Bathhouse Raids, which saw Toronto police storm into four gay bathhouses and arrest nearly 300 men on allegations of “indecent acts,” was still fresh in many minds.
A forum focused on the public sex debate had “a huge impact” on Drascic. He came away convinced that any gay nudist group also had to be prepared to face the sex question and not shy away from that aspect of gay male life. “I brought [to TCAN] my passion for the need for, and the right to have, sex included in at least some of our events,” he says, “but this later became a point of contention.”
Members of TCAN first showed their faces (and most of the rest of themselves) to a public audience at Toronto Pride in the summer of 1995. “We had a combined Pride booth with the Hot Oil Massage club we were a part of,” Gray says. Drascic remembers, “We were only a bit naked that year, mostly wearing a little something,” such as a small box, fig leaf, or hankie.
With a rush of new member applications, TCAN activity started to ramp up after that. Drascic handled communications and membership engagement. He “did much of the work behind the scenes running TCAN,” preparing newsletters, and overseeing the phone line message board—still an essential means of communication when the World Wide Web barely existed. In its first couple months, the line averaged over 100 calls per week.5 He also designed and launched “the world’s very first website for a gay nudist group—possibly for ANY nudist group,” in early 1995.
There was a major expansion of social activities, too. Rogers, who acted as event coordinator, started convincing other venues to host TCAN events—a bowling alley, a restaurant, a swimming pool, and a club which would later play a pivotal role in the group’s history, The Barn. Rogers told Planet Nude that participating in TCAN was a no-brainer for him.
“I’d attended the YMCA for nude swimming lessons and nude swimming in high school. As an adult, I was always comfortable naked in a gym or pool change room.” After coming out as gay later in adulthood and meeting a partner “who was also comfortable being nude among others,” TCAN was a logical recreational outlet.
In June 1996, TCAN’s Pride parade presence pushed the envelope even more, encouraged by research done by Simm suggesting there might be some legal leeway for being nude at such an event. “The Black Eagle [a Toronto gay leather bar] invited us to join them in the parade,” Gray told Planet Nude. Goaded by Eagle staff, he and another TCAN member, Richard Westgate, got naked while marching. “We kept saying, ‘Okay, let’s see if we can make it another block,” Gray said. To their surprise, they were only met with smiles and cheering.
Soon, however, disagreements started to emerge over the nature of TCAN and the kind of organization it should be. The differences rapidly spiraled out of control, pulling TCAN apart at the seams. The bulk of the members started to find themselves in contention with Marcelle, who had taken to calling himself the founder and president of TCAN.
In November 1996, elections were announced to choose the first board of directors, and discussions were opened on a constitution. Eight men stood for election and were unanimously proclaimed. In January 1997, though, with no explanation, Marcelle announced that a different slate of board members had been appointed, said the constitution was “vetoed,” and revealed he had actually registered TCAN months earlier as a for-profit business under his “sole proprietorship.”
According to Drascic, this had all been done in secret. Fearing they could be liable for fraudulently soliciting membership fees for Marcelle’s private corporation, the rightfully-elected board all resigned immediately—leaving Marcelle with the rump TCAN apparatus, which slowly faded away.
Looking back, Drascic says that “the reason behind the split was never really made public.” As he recalls the situation, “The self-appointed leader of the old group felt he was losing control and wanted it to continue to be coy and low-profile,” especially about whether sex ever happened at or after events. “The rest of the group, on the other hand, was pushing for more events open to non-members, such as naked bar events, and for a higher profile in the community, including participating in Pride and campaigning for clothing-optional status for a beach in Toronto.”
The old leadership had formed a faction and stolen the organization; it was a coup engineered from the top. Those who remained decided to “leave the in-fighting behind” and return to the reason they had joined a nudist club in the first place: “to get naked and have fun.”6
Totally Naked Toronto
On March 1, 1997, Totally Naked Toronto! Men Enjoying Nudity was launched. Simm registered TNT!MEN with the Ontario government, this time as a not-for-profit corporation governed by its board, not a private business with an individual owner. He also drafted a charter which laid out objectives covering both recreation and political action.
The organization dedicated itself to: “fostering the growth of gay-positive social nudism,” “cooperating with other nudist/naturist organizations,” “supporting initiatives for the designation of public land and facilities in Ontario for clothing-optional purposes,” and “amending the Criminal Code of Canada provisions related to being ‘nude in a public place.’”7
This was not a group that wanted to be left alone to hold private members-only events. It was open and proud of its naturist philosophy, and its devotees were committed to advancing their cause.
On June 29, 1997, TNT made its debut before a crowd of 850,000 people when its members marched nude in the Pride parade, as a group. “We were hugely popular,” Drascic says. “The Toronto Sun wrote about us: ‘TNT!MEN, the most loved and photographed group of the day.” In the Naturist Gayzette that fall, Drascic wrote, “I marched naked because I wanted to loudly proclaim that the human body is a good thing, that shame is a bad thing, and that social nudity heals shame.”8
One of the co-chairs of the Pride board was unhappy with his fellow homosexuals, however. “It was inappropriate, and it’s a shame it happened,” Doug Dent told the Toronto Star. His disgust was not shared by most elected officials, though. Councillor Pam McConnell said she enjoyed the parade—and TNT!MEN. “I thought it was a hoot,” she said at the time. “I didn’t see anybody offended by anything.”
And although one police officer threatened to shut down the parade the following year, supervisors intervened, with one saying, “There’s no concern about nudity or obscenity; we have not received any complaints.”9 That was just the beginning of the police doublespeak TNT!MEN would become all too familiar with in the coming years.
The following summer, in May 1998, Pride Chair David Clark issued a press release infamously threatening arrest for anyone who went nude. Under his signature, the Pride Committee—which TNT!MEN had taken to calling the “Prude Committee”—sent a letter to the group, cc’ing the Toronto Police:
“We ask all those who might be contemplating a ‘Full Monty Parade’ not to do so… The law is clear. It’s a criminal offence to display genitalia in public… Pride organisers, marshals, and security personnel will warn naked participants and attendees that they are subject to police arrest. If these warnings are ignored, the police will be notified.”10
Essentially, Clark threatened to deploy a snitch patrol at the parade to rat out nudists to police. Speaking to NOW magazine at the time, Drascic (using his nickname Spike) challenged Clark’s hypocrisy:
“Can my willy really bring down society as we know it? How can we claim to be proud of our sexuality, how can we celebrate our lives in all their complexity and wonder, and yet be ashamed of our bodies?”11
In an article for the TNT!MEN newsletter, he accused Clark of trying to turn Pride into a “sanitized mainstream event, no doubt with an eye to corporate sponsorship.” He reminded the Pride Committee that “Pride is a queer event, about sex and sexual diversity… that will never be palatable to fearful conservatives.”12
Xtra!, the main gay newspaper in Toronto, rallied to TNT!MEN’s side. An editorial by publisher David Walberg condemned Clark’s threat: “Pride volunteers are required to be police informants, reporting any nudity sighting to officers. Shame on Pride. The committee may not want to endorse nudity, but it is not obliged to police it.”
As for the Pride Committee’s claim it was following city orders and would shut down the parade if it had to, Walberg responded: “I dare you. Pride will happen with or without a permit. And without one, perhaps we'll all show up in the nude—in protest.”
He then spoke up in defence of the philosophy behind TNT!MEN’s actions: “Some think nudists are high-jacking Pride with an unrelated agenda. But you can't accept your sexuality if you can't accept your body. Bodies are not indecent, and it makes sense to assert this at Pride. To those celebrating their bodies at Pride, Xtra! salutes you.”13
In the wake of the controversy, Pride was never the same. According to Drascic: “This drew huge national attention. For the first time ever, EVERY newspaper in Canada talked about how big Toronto’s Pride parade was, how many people attended, and how some of them were going to be naked, and they were going to be arrested!”
It broke the logjam of the press ignoring Pride. “If you search through Canadian media archives, you will find that newspapers and media almost never mentioned Pride before that, aside from negative or hostile mentions… But after 1998, it became much more routine for them to mention Pride was coming, and TNT!MEN deserves a lot of the credit for that.”
To keep the police and the Pride Committee at bay, though, members wore plastic fig leaves during the parade that year. Clark marched beside them the entire time, supervising. “It turns out he didn’t want to be embarrassed by naked people in front of his parents,” Drascic claims, “and he later recanted, as I recall.”
In 1999, the nude marching resumed once again, without interference. So, with the right to march naked in Pride seemingly secure, TNT!MEN moved on to the next order of business: Establishing a nude beach in Toronto.
Rescuing Hanlan’s lost history
The clause in TNT!MEN’s constitution supporting clothing-optional public spaces “was drafted with Hanlan’s Point specifically in mind” from the very beginning, Simm tells Planet Nude. Since the TCAN days, he had been working behind the scenes preparing a campaign to legalize what was already the de facto naturist norm at the Toronto Island beach.
Studying Section 174 of the Criminal Code of Canada, Simm knew that being completely nude in a public space required “lawful excuse.” There was thus little hope of legalizing nudity in any form unless a body of government could be persuaded to offer one. Marching nude in the parade was one thing; now, they were talking about a permanent right to be without clothes in a designated space.14
For Hanlan’s Point, that meant a new bylaw would have to be passed by Toronto City Council. Simm and other TNT!MEN members met with Councillor Kyle Rae, a gay man who represented the downtown Church-Wellesley Village, the city’s queer neighbourhood. He was a veteran of the gay liberation movement and had helped lead the protests against the 1981 Bathhouse Raids.
Rae pledged to advocate for the idea at City Hall but said he’d only do it if TNT!MEN prepared a high-quality written study to substantiate it. The council typically makes policy by approving, amending, or rejecting recommendations from staff committee reports, so Rae would need a bulletproof case if he was going to get past the bureaucracy.15
The organization commissioned Simm with the task “on behalf of all nudists and skinnydippers everywhere.” He dove in head-first, digging through newspaper archives (all not yet digitized), vast expanses of library shelves, and massive tomes of old Toronto Council minutes and bylaws. What he ended up producing was astonishing.
Though not previously documented in any published history of Toronto, he discovered that from 1894 to 1930, the city actually had three legally-sanctioned clothing-optional beaches—the first of which was Hanlan’s Point. Simm unearthed proof that not only did Hanlan’s have a naturist history, it was likely the first legal nude beach that had existed anywhere in the world. In January 1999, he finished his brief, entitled “Enhance Toronto Tourism and Recreation: Restore Clothing-Optional Status to Hanlan’s Point Beach.”16
Lending citizen backing for the brief were TNT!MEN, a group called the Hanlan’s Beach Naturists, the Ontario Roaming Bares, and the Federation of Canadian Naturists. Fearing homophobia from the Council and the public if only gay nudists were speaking up for the beach, Simm had reached out to other groups, especially those that were majority straight, for support.
The effort was a success. TNT!MEN formally affiliated with FCN around this time, and the latter’s director, Stéphane Deschênes (now Co-President of the International Naturist Federation), signed on as a public advocate for the campaign, lending himself as the family-friendly face of naturism.17 Linda Deschênes, FCN Information Officer, testified before the Council, bringing along her two-year old son, Marc, to demonstrate that everyone intended to use the beach.18
In a public deputation, TNT!MEN bolstered Simm’s case, dangling dollar signs in front of officials’ eyes. “The City of Toronto routinely provides facilities for recreational activities. Nude swimming and sunbathing are simply other forms of recreation,” the group argued. “Making a beach clothing optional will draw the many Torontonians and tourists who prefer swimming and sunbathing au naturel.”19
Rae also hammered away, saying clothing-optional status was a safety issue: “Right now, you’ve got people who are trying” to swim naked there “and they’re being harassed by police or other people. If you create a space that’s free to do that, then the harassment factor is gone.”20
In April 1999, the Economic Development Committee finally reported back to the Council. Surprising many, it recommended the (re-)establishment of clothing-optional status at Hanlan’s on a pilot basis for one year. Commissioner Joe Halstead, initially hostile, said Simm convinced him. Praising the brief as “well-researched and presented in a cogent and thoughtful manner,” he included the entire thing as an appendix in his report.21
On May 12, Toronto City Council voted 41-9 to endorse Halstead’s recommendation. The occasion was not without some theatrics, though. Conservative Councillor George Mammoliti stripped his shirt off in the chamber in protest and warned, “Today it is a secluded beach, tomorrow it will be the beachfront, and then it will be the streets!”22
The following weekend, Simm and members of TNT!MEN, including one dressed as Queen Victoria (it was the Victoria Day holiday) officially opened the clothing-optional section while “God Save the Queen” and “O Canada” blared out across the waves. City Councillor Olivia Chow said at the celebration, “It’s a great place to be, and if you don’t want tan lines, come here!”23 Years later, in 2023, she was elected mayor of the city. Toronto finally had its own nude beach—a beach for everyone.
The Toronto Police, however, immediately went to work undermining the Council’s decision. One day in June, cops roamed the dunes threatening to ticket anyone they caught swimming naked. Citing an obscure 65-year-old bylaw that banned nude bathing in the city’s port, they argued Council had legalized baring it all on the sand but not in the waters of the harbour.
“The absurdity of not having swimming at an official clothing-optional beach was apparent to everyone with the possible exception of a few police officers,” Simm said. A news report commented, “From the mid-1890s, near the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, until 1930, the fig leaves fell with abandon at Hanlan’s Point and two other legal clothing-optional beaches on the Ontario mainland,” but police were now trying in vain to reattach them.24
The City’s Director of Municipal Law called the cops to task and scrutinized their motives. “The other question this raises,” Mary Ellen Bench asked, “is why they would even be enforcing a Harbour Commission bylaw.” The clear implication was that police were selectively targeting nudists, particularly gay nudists.25 The FCN’s Deschênes called police actions “ridiculous,” and noted, “Naturists are not out to shock anybody; it’s about resting and relaxing.”
As it turned out, the 1934 bylaw police had cited was already null and void, probably unbeknownst to them. The Toronto Harbour Commission had been abolished at the beginning of the year, and its successor body, the Toronto Ports Authority, had declined to adopt the 1934 swimming ban.26 Once this was pointed out, the police quietly retreated, but not before firing a final shot toward the beach.
The Commandant of the Toronto Police Marine Unit, Ed Hegney, peevishly ordered that the only lifeguard tower in the new clothing-optional zone be moved to the relatively deserted textile part of the beach. Hegney claimed it was too difficult to find lifeguards willing to staff the nude area, but Rae believed the police just didn’t want to do it. “As the city becomes more diverse,” he later said, “the police have to move with it; they can’t be so Victorian in their views.”
By the time the one-year pilot had wrapped up, the debate was over. The clothing-optional section had seen ten times more visitors per day than the textile area, while traffic on the ferry to Hanlan’s was up more than 11%, to nearly 90,000 people. Rae told his Council colleagues the first summer was a “resounding success.”27
They approved a two-year extension, and then in 2002, dropped all further discussion of the matter and made clothing-optional status permanent. Within a short time, the City even started promoting nude swimming at Hanlan’s Point as a major selling point in its official tourist advertising and travel guides.
Even Mammoliti—the shirtless protesting councillor—admitted defeat. Though he’d claimed at one point that the beach would turn into a “sex fest,” he finally conceded: “The complaints haven’t come in at all. So, the city is ready for a nude beach, and I guess I was wrong.”28
Naturists at large celebrated the win, and this time, unlike in most past struggles to win free beaches, straight naturists gave their gay counterparts the credit they were due for leading the fight. An editor’s note in FCN’s magazine, Going Natural, acknowledged the victors:
“It is clear that under the skilled leadership of Councillor Kyle Rae and the hard work of TNT!MEN, aided by the FCN, the City of Toronto not only approved the c/o status of the beach but went out of its way to make recommendations that would help implement the proposal. That a gay naturist group was so heavily involved in promoting a concept that benefits everyone in the area should be noticed.”
FCN also made special mention of the role Simm and his research had played. Editor Paul Rapoport called it “a model for those trying to gain c/o status for a beach,” praising it for “appealing to all the things politicians like and making its conclusion seem inevitable to anyone who reads it.” FCN said the brief “should be read throughout North America by those involved in naturism and free beaches.”29
Even as the struggle to ditch swimsuits was unfolding, though, TNT!MEN was simultaneously consumed with another fight to defend social nudism.
Busted at The Barn
The monthly naked dances that started during the TCAN era had continued under TNT!MEN. For three years, they were held without incident at The Barn, a gay club secured by Brian Rogers. The venue’s storied owner, Janko Naglic, had offered his bar for 320 TCAN or TNT!MEN dances by the spring of 2000, of which Peter Simm says 55 were mandatory nude and 265 were clothing-optional.
Unannounced, however, plain-clothes police officers showed up at The Barn in February and told Naglic’s manager they could not host a TNT!MEN event. Debating what to do, Naglic sought and received assurance from Simm that there was nothing illegal about the dances.30
A month later, on March 25, the cops showed up again, this time claiming they’d received a complaint from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission alleging that The Barn was “permitting riotous, quarrelsome, violent, or disorderly conduct” on the premises in violation of its liquor licence terms.
On April 29, police returned and officially laid charges against The Barn for allowing “disorderly conduct” during the TNT!MEN dances. Simm hit back with a 10,000-word legal brief to the court arguing that mere nudity did not amount to any of the things police were alleging. “Disorderly conduct must mean something that is similar to riotous conduct, that is similar to quarrelsome conduct. None of these have any connotations of immorality or sexuality or whatever,” he told the press.
The FCN actively supported the efforts of TNT!MEN on the issue after Simm reached out. Simm says he “recognized that if The Barn were convicted of ‘permitting disorderly conduct’ in the form of mere non-sexual nudity, then the liquor licences of landed naturist clubs throughout Ontario would be in jeopardy” as well. He drafted a brief survey and asked the FCN to distribute it to the landed naturist clubs in its network.
“This enabled me to compile a list of such clubs with Ontario liquor licences, including information on how many years they’d been licenced, and whether they had ever had any problems with their licences.” The results formed part of The Barn’s written factual record filed with the court.
The police pressure had come at a suspicious time, which was not lost on the group’s members. The first summer of Hanlan’s clothing-optional status had just concluded, and police were still in a quarrel with TNT!MEN over that situation. But further, there had also recently been a series of fresh raids targeting gay and sexually-oriented businesses around town.
The Bijou, a porn theater, had been raided several times since June 1999, and 18 people there had been charged with “indecency,” code for sexual acts of one variety or another. Its owner was forced to close and could only reopen after surrendering his liquor licence and rebranding as a bathhouse. Even then, the harassment didn’t stop.
Councillor Rae saw a pattern at work. He asked why after years of no problems the police had decided to target The Barn and its naked patrons. “It’s a test case to clarify the law,” he said. “Far too many laws on the books have been constructed over time to control sexuality, and it has to stop.” He said it was time to challenge the Criminal Code.
In the meantime, he brokered a deal between the cops, The Barn, and TNT!MEN. Police Supt. Aidan Maher promised no further harassment if the naked dances were held as “private parties” with tickets sold in advance rather than at the door. But just nine days later, Maher violated the agreement when his officers forced their way into The Barn, once more alleging liquor licence violations.
Outraged, Simm penned an op-ed in Xtra! headlined, “Memo to: Police, Re: Harassment.” Describing the invaders’ behaviour, he wrote: “Upon entering The Barn, the police rushed directly to the washrooms. Were their bladders bursting, or were the officers just full of crap? If they were hoping to find sexual activity, they went home unsatisfied…. If the cops wanted to catch someone doing something shameful, all they had to do was look in the mirror.”31
He accused the police of copying the homophobic tactics of the New York State Liquor Authority, which used vague licencing laws “to make life miserable for lesbians and gay men” from the 1930s to the ’60s by closing bars on the basis of supposed “disorderliness.” Simm concluded: “Some of Toronto’s finest have decided they don’t like uppity naked faggots.”
Facing media scrutiny, the police claimed “miscommunication” was to blame and that the deal was actually back on.32 But by then, the “disorderly conduct” charges were already working their way through the courts. Though Simm and Naglic’s attorney, Andrew Czernik, had presented what they thought was a watertight case, there was nothing to do but wait. The naked dances were left in limbo, and for two years, underwear was mandatory.
On June 26, 2002, the Ontario Court of Justice finally came back with a decision—complete acquittal. Convinced by Simm’s statutory-interpretation argument, Justice Robert Bigelow ruled that, as a matter of law, nudity that is anticipated by attendees at an event could not possibly constitute “disorderly conduct.” With immediate effect, all nudist events at bars and clubs gained legality, not just TNT!MEN dances or gay events.33
The decision came just in time for Pride, and to celebrate, TNT!MEN and The Barn declared the dance that weekend would be officially nude. Nearly 400 men attended, and zero police officers showed up. Simm told the media that the “chill on naked events in the city” that had prevailed since The Barn was charged “should end now.”34
Little did he know that just four days later TNT!MEN’s next battle to protect legal nudity would explode.
He’s not naked, he’s wearing shoes
Fresh off the high of their court win, the members of TNT!MEN hit the streets on Sunday, June 30, marching naked before an audience of a million people at the Pride parade, just as they had done every summer since 1998.
Not feeling very happy, however, was Police Supt. Maher. His department was batting 0-for-2 in its matchups against TNT!MEN. Within just the first half of 2002, Hanlan’s Point’s clothing-optional status had been made permanent, and The Barn charges were tossed out by the courts. He must have been wondering whether there was still some way to shutdown the gay nudists.
Rather than focusing on “murder, domestic assault, and dangerous driving,” that weekend, Maher “turned his attention…to the weenies of a handful of gay nudists.”35 Drascic says that TNT!MEN’s leaders spoke with everyone before the march and told them that anyone with their penis visible would probably be arrested at the end of the parade. A few chose to slip on some clothes before then.
“But the men who were naked at the end all did so quite deliberately,” he says. “It was their intention to challenge the police.”
Gray recounted the day for Planet Nude: “We were warned ahead of the parade that if our penis was showing, the police would charge us. Plain-clothed, they followed and filmed us all the way. I was carrying a six-foot pink fabric penis that I had made and yelled to the crowds, ‘It’s a penis, what’s the big deal?’”
At the end of the hours-long march, cops made good on their threat. “More than 20 armed officers wearing bullet-proof vests” nabbed seven members of TNT!MEN in what the group denounced as a waste of taxpayer dollars.36 Their crime? Violating Section 174 of the Criminal Code, “being nude in a public place” without “lawful excuse.”
After refusing to put their clothes on, TNT!MEN board members Richard Westgate and Abuzar Chaudhary were arrested and taken into custody for eight hours. U.S. tourists Kelly Martino and Patrick Johnson were hauled to the station, given a summons, and released without bail. Peter Gray, Andy Chong, and Lev Jaeger were all given a summons but released on the spot.
Despite being arrested, Westgate told the press he had no regrets. “The plan of TNT!MEN is to fight the charges” if they come, he said.37 A clause within Section 174 says that while police can recommend charges in cases of nudity, it is up to the attorney general’s office to make the final decision. “It’s easier if the attorney general doesn’t give permission [for the charges to proceed],” Westgate said.
TNT!MEN was actually hoping he might, though, so that they’d have the opportunity to possibly get the entire law tossed or amended. Westgate argued that Canada didn’t need regulations prohibiting non-sexual nudity. “Nudity laws are a holdover from the morality of a previous age,” he said.
As lead defendant, he lent his name to the legal fight—R. vs. Westgate, et al—that became a major test case on public nudity. Simm acted as attorney, pro bono. He submitted a detailed brief to the Senior Crown Attorney, Paul Culver, laying out his analysis of Section 174 and the facts related to the alleged offences of the TNT Seven.
He also relied on the precedent-setting case of Gwen Jacob, the woman who won the right to go without a top in public in an Ontario Appeals court in 1996. A judge had found that the nudity of the upper half of her body had not caused any offence or harm to the public.38
It took just a few weeks for Culver to come back with his decision: “No reasonable prospect of conviction”—i.e. no charges would be laid. Although Simm had provided abundant documentation and argumentation, in the end, it all came down to footwear.
“The law is very straightforward if someone is absolutely and completely bereft of clothing,” Simm explained. “However, things become a little more complicated if there is a scrap of apparel anywhere on the body, and the Crown [the government] has to show that the person is indecently clad.”39
To prove indecency, the Crown had to show a reasonable apprehension of a “substantial risk of actual harm” to willing onlookers or to society. (People being offended doesn’t count.) Importantly, the context was non-commercial and non-sexual, and Parade onlookers could not reasonably claim to be surprised by the sight of a few flaccid phalluses filing past. Simm convinced the Crown there was no provable risk of “harm” and hence no viable case against the accused.
The international media went mad, oversimplifying the argument down to: You’re not naked if you’re wearing shoes. CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Pravda, China Youth Daily, Live with Regis and Kelly, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Times of London—everybody was talking about TNT!MEN and their famous footwear.
Humour and late-night TV jokes aside, however, Simm illuminated the most important point to come out of the case. “Being naked per se isn’t considered immoral under the law,” he told the National Post. “It has to cause actual harm to those watching, and I have trouble understanding how the sight of the human body—in a non-sexual, non-commercial context—could be harmful.”40
Although Section 174 remained on the books, the case of the TNT Seven had essentially neutered its usefulness for pressing criminal charges in cases of non-sexual public nudity, at least in settings where members of the public might reasonably expect to encounter it, like a Pride parade or protest. It was yet another win for nudism.
Legacy
It’s been said that there are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen. TNT!MEN achieved more for Canadian naturism in a short time than anyone would have imagined possible when they started out in 1997. They won Toronto a reputation as place safe for naturism and as a sexually-liberated city.
Having repeatedly frustrated police efforts to shut them down, some members of the organization finally took a breather from their constant political battles in the 2000s. Other leaders came to the fore, key among them Bert Bik. One of the original men who’d bolted from TCAN, Bik became the most well-known personality of TNT!MEN in the late ’00s and early ’10s.
Bik traced his nudist lineage back decades. The Netherlands native had grown up in a family where nakedness was often the norm, though nudism as a concept was never discussed. “In Grade 3, we had swimming lessons,” he told Xtra! in 2010.41 “I went for the first time with the whole class, took all my clothes off, and jumped in the pool. People were horrified!”
After that, he kept his nudism in the closet until long after he’d relocated to Canada and visited the famous Wreck Beach in Vancouver. “It was an eye-opener for me; finally, I could be myself,” he recalled. After moving to Toronto, he sought out other like-minded gay men, eventually finding TCAN and then becoming a founding board member of TNT!MEN.
Taking on a more public-facing role, Bik ensured the naked dances continued. Now that the organization was freed from persecution, it focused on fun and trying to expand its aging membership base. The Barn remained the home for many activities, at least until until Janko Naglic’s violent murder in 2004. A short time later, the venue closed, and TNT!MEN’s events rotated from venue to venue over the next few years.
Controversies still popped up for the group from time to time, usually whenever some crusading councillor tried to make political hay out of nudists at Pride yet again. Invariably, such efforts were beaten back. Eventually, Bik retired.
After that, the group “went through some difficulties with an autocratic board that became quite heavy-handed toward their volunteers,” Drascic says. When that board left, another took over and essentially presided over the group’s death. “They had given up on the idea of house parties and smaller, more intimate events. They maintained big monthly dances, the nude swim, and events at the Spa Excess sauna, but not much else.”
But it was the COVID-19 pandemic that ultimately killed TNT!MEN. “When the lockdown happened, all events stopped, and the bank account started to dry up,” Drascic says, “and the president at the time moved away.” The email list and the website were essentially abandoned, with no logins or passwords passed along, despite plenty of asking. That last president “stopped answering inquiries some time ago.”
Today, the only tangible remainder of TNT!MEN’s existence is Peter Gray’s determination to register the organization for the parade every year. Speaking to Planet Nude just days before the 2024 festival, he pledged not to stop anytime soon. He says getting naked at Pride is an icebreaker of sorts, an introduction to social nudism. “People need to give themselves permission, and by being naked, I’m giving them permission.”
Though the TNT!MEN banners are unfurled only once a year nowadays, there are plenty of other signs of the group’s legacy around town. Groups organized on platforms like Meetup, including Toronto Nude Dudes and Toronto Gay Naturists/Nudists, plan several events every month, including dances, game nights, life drawing sessions, discussion forums, and more.
Parties like “Bare,” “Naked-ish,” and “Naked Night at the Black Eagle” are all direct descendants of the TNT!MEN naked dances and only exist because of the fights the group waged in the 1990s and 2000s. And hundreds of nude bicyclists pedal through downtown each year for the World Naked Bike Ride, amplifying the call of “Less Gas, More Ass,” with no fear of police harassment—again thanks to the successful legal battles of yesteryear.
There are others who attend and recruit at Pride unclothed these days, including the GTA Skinnydippers Club and FCN. Though TNT!MEN won everyone the right strip down, some naturists shy away from any open association with the group and ban genital jewelry or other hints of sexuality on the part of their volunteers. “I’ve heard some of them complain,” Gray says, “that they don’t want to be near ‘a fetish group.’” He believes other nudists and naturists would do well to remember that they are at a queer event. “They are guests at our celebration.”
As for the veterans of TNT!MEN like Gray, they can still be found on the streets of the Church-Wellesley Village during Pride, as nude as ever. Some people, unfamiliar with their stories, giggle while snapping a selfie with them for Instagram; others treat them as just eccentric exhibitionists. A small number of people are emboldened and eagerly ask questions; a handful even join them in the march.
The detractors are still around too, of course—people like Ontario’s Conservative Premier Doug Ford, who just a few years back refused to go to Pride because he didn’t “want to see middle-aged men with pot bellies running down the street buck naked.”42 He’d be well advised to steer clear of the Village.
“People are different when they are naked,” David Drascic believes. “They literally have nothing to hide; they’re more open and friendlier.” TNT!MEN was always an open and friendly organization with nothing to hide. It had a clear and positive purpose: Helping everyone to overcome body shame and body phobia and to accept themselves as they are.
Few of the city’s residents or the hundreds of thousands of tourists who come here every June are aware that the naked men they see marching proudly down the thoroughfares of Toronto were trailblazers for freedom. They repeatedly put their names, their reputations, their careers, and their own liberty on the line. For that, they deserve respect and applause.
Hopefully this article goes some way toward cementing their legacy. 🪐
Acknowledgment: I cannot thank David Drascic, Peter Gray, and Peter Simm enough for sharing their stories, memories, and personal files for this article. They were beyond helpful. Appreciation also goes to the Federation of Canadian Naturists Research Library and the Nudist Research Library Consortium for access to their collections.
For an exhaustive selection of news coverage of the activities of TNT!MEN, see the archive maintained over the years by David, preserved here: https://web.archive.org/web/20060507052531/http://tntmen.abuzar.net/tnt/beach/news/index.html
Curtis Atkins, “Can Hanlan’s Point Nude Beach survive?” Planet Nude, March 10, 2023. https://www.planetnude.co/p/can-hanlans-point-nude-beach-survive
Curtis Atkins, “Nude revival: Toronto’s Hanlan’s Point Beach will now be bigger than ever,” Planet Nude, June 16, 2023. https://www.planetnude.co/p/nude-revival-torontos-hanlans-point
CAMP, “Getting to the root of things,” Planet Nude, May 13, 2024. https://www.planetnude.co/p/getting-to-the-root-of-things
See also: Curtis Atkins, “Before Stonewall: Queer liberation’s Communist Party roots, “ People’s World, June 24, 2001. https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/before-stonewall-queer-liberations-communist-party-roots/
Leslie E. Rollins, “Gay Nudists Celebrate: A SIG of the Naturist Society Becomes an International Organization,” Nude & Natural 12.2 (1992): pp. 73-81.
See also: CAMP, “Values too central to abandon,” Planet Nude, March 11, 2024. https://www.planetnude.co/p/values-too-central-to-abandon
Brian Rogers, “Origins,” Toronto Canada Area Nudesletter, 1(1), April 1995.
Spike (David Drascic), “Exposed!” TNT!MEN, 1(1), February 1997. Archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20060220204007/http:/tntmen.abuzar.net/tnt/letters/v1n1/
TNT!MEN By-Laws. Archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20070304090249/http://tntmen.abuzar.net/tnt/constitution.html
David (Spike) Drascic, “Nude Pride Marchers Stir Up Controversy in Toronto,” Naturist Gayzette, 3(3), Fall 1997, pp. 44-45.
Bruce DeMara, “No plan to cancel parade despite nudity, say police,” Toronto Star, July 5, 1997, p. A4.
Spike (David Drascic), “The Prude Committee Speaks,” May 22, 1998. Archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20091027205959/http://tntmen.abuzar.net/tnt/news/e28.html
Enzo DiMatteo, “Keep clothes on, Mel says,” NOW, June 1998. Archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20091027203830/http://tntmen.abuzar.net/tnt/news/e30.html
Spike (David Drascic), “Big Prude David Clark Makes His Bias Clear,” TNT!MEN, June 22, 1998. Archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20091027212423/http://tntmen.abuzar.net/tnt/news/e32.html
David Walberg, “Celebrate Your Body at Pride,” Xtra!, June 18, 1998.
See Simm’s account of the process: https://petersimm.ca/174-hanlans-details
See also: Dale Barbour, Undressed Toronto. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2021, pp. 221-23.
Peter Simm, “Enhance Toronto Tourism and Recreation: Restore Clothing-Optional Status to Hanlan’s Point Beach.” https://petersimm.ca/172-simm-s-brief-re-hanlans-point
Peter Simm, “Hanlan’s Beach is renude: Major Gain for Canadian Naturism,” Going Natural, 14(2), Summer 1999, pp. 16-17, 22.
Paul Rapoport, “Hanlan’s Point Clothing-Optional Beach,” Nude & Natural 18(4), p. 106.
“Nude beach called a bare essential,” Toronto Star, April 23, 1999. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/6.2.02%20Media%20by%20Place%20-%20big/MR175big%20-%20Toronto%20Star%201999-04-23%20p.A1%20-%20Hanlans%20proposed.png
“T.O. ogles buff zone,” Toronto Sun, April 9, 1999. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/6.2.02%20Media%20by%20Place%20-%20big/MR240big%20-%20Toronto%20Sun%201999-04-09%20-%20Hanlans%20proposed.png
ibid., note 19.
Rebecca Bragg, “Nude beach given nod,” The Hamilton Spectator, May 14, 1999. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/6.2.02%20Media%20by%20Place%20-%20big/MR380big%20-%20Hamilton%20Spec%201999-05-14%20-%20Hanlans%20OKd.png
Michael Clement, “Out with the old, in with nude,” Toronto Sun, May 25, 1999. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/6.2.02%20Media%20by%20Place%20-%20big/MR270Bbig%20-%20Toronto%20Sun%201999-05-25%20-%20Hanlans%20opens%20pt2.jpg
Reuters, “Nudists allowed to strip but not dip at Toronto beach,” June 15, 1999. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/6.2.02%20Media%20by%20Place%20-%20big/MR003big%20-%20Reuters%201999-06-15%20-%20Police%20harass%20swim.png
“The new bare essential for skinny dippers,” Toronto Star, June 15, 1999. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/6.2.02%20Media%20by%20Place%20-%20big/MR200Abig%20-%20Toronto%20Star%201999-06-15%20%20p.A1%20(and%20A19)%20a%20good%20lawyer.png
%20a%20good%20lawyer.png){kind=link}
“Police lay off skinny-dippers on Island,” Toronto Star, June 16, 1999. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/6.2.02%20Media%20by%20Place%20-%20big/MR205big%20-%20Toronto%20Star%201999-06-16%20-%20Police%20accept%20swim.png
“Au naturel an all-over hit: Nudists say Hanlan’s Point beach is thriving,” Toronto Star, August 25, 2000. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/6.2.02%20Media%20by%20Place%20-%20big/MR225big%20-%20Toronto%20Star%202000-08-25%20-%20Hanlans%20a%20success.png
“Nude beach debate barely there,” The Globe and Mail, March 23, 2002. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/6.2.02%20Media%20by%20Place%20-%20big/MR110big%20-%20Globe%202002-03-23%20-%20Hanlans%20to%20be%20permanent.png
Paul Rapoport, “Commentary,” Going Natural, 14(2), Summer 1999, p. 22.
Heather M. Ross, “The Barn gets busted: Now police don’t like nudist dances,” Xtra!, April 6, 2000. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/4.1.18.03%20Barn%20big/BARN005big%20-%20Toronto%20Xtra%202000-04-06%20-%20Barn%20charged.jpg
Peter Simm, “Memo to: Police, Re: Harassment,” Xtra!, May 4, 2000. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/4.1.18.03%20Barn%20big/BARN030big%20-%20Xtra%202000-05-04%20-%20Memo%20to%20Police%20re%20Harassment.png
“Peter Simm’s Questions,” Xtra!, June 29, 2000. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/4.1.18.03%20Barn%20big/BARN010big%20-%20Toronto%20Xtra%202000-06-29%20p.21%20-%20Simms%20Qs.png
Spike (David Drascic), “VICTORY! Nude Bar Events Are Legal!” TNT!MEN, June 26, 2002. Archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20061231135917/http://tntmen.abuzar.net/tnt/news/f29.html
“Naked Dance Victory,” Xtra!, July 11, 2002. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/4.1.18.03%20Barn%20big/BARN015big%20-%20Toronto%20Xtra%202002-07-11%20-%20Court%20win%20re%20Barn.png
Paul Gallant, “Pride Nudies Nabbed,” Xtra!, July 10, 2002. https://xtramagazine.com/culture/pride-nudies-nabbed-45370
David Drascic and Peter Simm, “Nudists arrested at Pride parade,” TNT!MEN, June 30, 2002. Archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20091027191226/http://tntmen.abuzar.net/tnt/news/f31.html
ibid., note 35.
See Simm’s description of the defence brief here: https://petersimm.ca/65-r-v-westgate
Reuters, “Shoes Spare Toronto Gays From Nudity Charges,” September 20, 2002. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/6.2.02%20Media%20by%20Place%20-%20big/MR004big%20-%20Reuters%202002-09-20%20-%20Charges%20gone.png
Chris Wattie, “Annals of law: You’re not naked if you have shoes on,” National Post, September 19, 2002. https://petersimm.ca/images/web/6.2.02%20Media%20by%20Place%20-%20big/MR140Abig%20-%20National%20Post%202002-09-19%20p.A1%20(and%20A12)%20-%20Charges%20gone%20pt1.png
%20-%20Charges%20gone%20pt1.png){kind=link}
Todd Klinck, “What do you really know about the men of Totally Naked Toronto?” Xtra!, February 24, 2010. https://xtramagazine.com/power/what-do-you-really-know-about-the-men-of-totally-naked-toronto-10989
Don Peat, “Doug Ford doesn’t want to see ‘buck naked men’ at Pride,” Toronto Sun, February 6, 2014. https://torontosun.com/2014/02/06/mayor-rob-ford-is-not-homophobic-doug-ford-says
 | A guest post by
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Fun fact: While my parents will tell you the hardest part about raising me was keeping clothes on me, finding the TNT!MEN website back in the day is what opened my mind to the possibility of being naked everywhere. And that a clothing-optional world could actually be a possibility.
I recall in the early days of the internet finding the TNT!MEN and being fascinated by their determination to achieve freedom for public nudity. The gay nudist community owes a lot to the TNT!MEN and their story can still embolden all naturists to fight for the right to be naked everywhere.