
Designated Clothing-Optional Beaches: Should They Be Legal?
This is belated news, but last year in California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently
rescinded or allowed the rescinding of what was known within the State's Parks and Recreation system as "The Cahill Memorandum". This memo was a decision in 1979 by then Parks Director Cahill to pretty much ignore nude sunbathing/skinnydipping on State beaches unless there was a complaint, and for the next 30 years or so there was therefore a local clothing-optional area available at the end of Trail 6 in a remote area of San Onofre State Beach.
http://naturistaction.org/AlertsAdvisor ... 21-08.htmlIn 2008 the current State Parks Director Ruth Coleman revoked The Cahill policy citing an increase of popular use of the clothing-optional area and with it 'an increase in the number of lewd acts by irresponsible visitors'. The concerned protectors of the clothing-optional took it to court and lost, and the State Supreme Court refused to review the decision which favored the prohibition.
Now for a little background. Sunbathers in the majority are not practicing exhibitionism. We are not engaging a sexual act to ourselves or with others, and you know this to be true if you look at the man who is engaging sex. For me, the beach was/is about self-ownership and with that there is no need for self-control anymore than in any other situation.
We cannot call the cops to complain about the oftentimes fully-clothed gawkers, voyeurs, jerkers and stalkers who sometimes cause trouble at the location. When we do, we are cited for nudity and fined upwards of $500 while the voyeurs, jerkers and stalkers walk free to continue their crimes against still others in other places because 'the sunbathers are blamed for causing the trouble', and it seems to me that these troublemakers are not exclusive to clothing-optional beaches and that they are also often found around the clothed beaches and studios as well. Seems to me these are the people the State should be fining $500 while protecting the peaceable assembly of the peaceable sunbathers. The State would then make money instead of going bust by outlawing popular peaceable activities and policing them for citation fines in a climate of discouragement and dwindling use. Rights anyone?
Though I've never been to Europe I've read about the relaxed attitudes toward clothing-optional sunbathing and maybe this is not so in practice, but I am very tired of our so-called free country, the one with all the rules, and I thought I'd ask what people think about it in this forum where the depiction of nudity in films is often common while, unlike clothing-optional beaches, overt sex in cinema is frequent.