We recommend you get involved, it would be great to get many more people along and grow our numbers from prior years – there are already two beaches registered for CUA (Pt Impossible in Victoria and Birdie Beach in NSW) and it would be fantastic to get lots of people along to show their support for the beaches we all enjoy (and also do some cleaning up as well!!). If you do get involved, remember to stick to the rules outlined by your site supervisor for your safety, and only be nude in areas where it is permitted.

Don’t forget to check out the upcoming events at the bottom of the page, and if you have news or events you’d like included on the site, just drop us a note via the contact page!

Cr Ron Humphrey is back, and interested in our beach again!! Given the outcome last time, we would have thought he would have bigger issues to resolve. Apparently not. That’s OK, with Ron having his second shot at being on Council, he can be sure there’ll be plenty of people scrutinising the media ready to jump on anything interesting he might have to say. The whole article itself is worth the read, but we noticed a couple of interesting quotes worth mentioning below.

At least 11 people have been handed $200 fines by police and local law officers since the two- week blitz started last Friday.

That’s brilliant – we’re always happy to see people who behave inappropriately or are caught in areas outside the designated clothing optional area to be dealt with accordingly. The nudist community in Australia, and around the world for that matter, is often tarnished with a brush not of our own making. The Pt Impossible beach has two problem areas – the carpark/toilets and the dunes. Neither of these areas are designated nude areas. Other beaches have carparks and toilets, and have similar problems – so lets blame all the beach users on those beaches as well, surely they must be responsible for things that happen nearby. Or the dogwalkers, surely they have a part in it?? We’re being facetious here, but you get our drift.

And while the article itself is not bad in it’s general flavour, the journalist (Andrea Hamblin) does let Ron get away with a couple too many general purpose “headline grabbers”:

The beach threatened the family-friendly atmosphere of Torquay’s growth corridor, he said.

C’mon Andrea, that’s weak sauce – quoting something just because it came out of his mouth doesn’t make it good! What does that sentence even mean? The beach itself hasn’t done anything except be a beach, it is as family-friendly as Whites Beach, and Torquay’s growth corridor is down a dirt road?? You can quote us on this one – “The narrow dirt road to Pt Impossible threatens the safety of family cars, placing families at risk driving down Torquay’s growth corridor”. Maybe that will get the road fixed, it’s a real issue!! Again, we’re being facetious, but it is always handy to know who all the players are – a quote is only worth as much as the reputation of the source…

Cr Ron Humprey is not a new character in this “close the beach” theatre production, a show that has been running for years. Cr Ron hasn’t changed his tune much either, still blaming the nudists and continuing to mix his messages:

“When it was originally proclaimed (a nude beach), it was a tip down there and now there’s a big hotel, a golf course, a lot of residential development and a lot of kids,” Cr Humphrey said.

And a nude beach, Ron – you forgot to mention the international tourist attracting, revenue raising, family and business friendly beach that brings people with disposable incomes into Australia. European tourists who look up nude beaches in Australia are attracted to Victoria BECAUSE it has 4 nude beaches – and do you think they’ll visit your town if they see that the police AREN’T cracking down on inappropriate behaviour? Do you think they’ll visit if they see a Shire Councillor who thinks shutting down one beach solves an unrelated problem?

If the nude beach lost it’s designation, would the inappropriate behaviour in the dunes and carpark stop?? Or, from the flip side, is it only the well-behaved and ever vigilant/passionate nudists that have prevented the dunes/carpark from being much worse? We’ve made points about this in the past, relating to Pt Impossible and Sunnyside specifically. We even know from the Monash University study “Feasibility of Identifying Family Friendly Beaches along Victoria’s Coastline” that crime prevention is best achieved through environmental design and having MORE people use the beach, not less. If you are interested, you can read our previous post

Cr Humphrey said the perverse behaviour of some beachgoers could ruin the area for others.
“If that area was still being used that way, I would take up the campaign (to have it closed) myself,” he said.

Cr Ron, you know it’s not the beachgoers who are ruining it for others, it never has been. A more constructive action that all beach users on the Surf Coast would support and applaud you for is to clean up the inappropriate use of ALL carparks, and ALL toilet blocks. Focusing on the one beach is a distraction and not looking at the real source of the issue. Surf Coast Shire residents look to you for an approach to solving the big issues, not the one nearest your backyard. But if you want to take up the campaign, you know we’ll be happy to jump in to make sure it stays open to nudists.

Just a couple of quick additional notes:

• We look forward to the Geelong Advertiser, Surf Coast Times and other local papers reporting fair and balanced news on these topics. We also, as always, invite any of those papers and their reporters to contact us if they want a community perspective; and
• Cr Humphrey is very familiar with our passionate approach to keeping the nude beach open, while making sure the dunes and the carpark (non-nude areas) are identified and targeted for exactly the kind of blitzes mentioned in this article.

The nude beach itself is not the issue, and never has been – those involved in defeating Cr Ron’s last attempt to close Pt Impossible in 2006 will be ready again to jump in again, and we invite the nudist community to show their support of the beach by putting comments in to this site and directly against newspaper articles as we identify them. Feel free to write to Andrea Hamblin, it looks like she’s one of the few assigned to quoting Ron! Her email address is on her link above…

As always, nudists behave appropriately on the beach, don’t go in the dunes and report inappropriate behaviour around the beach to the police – we fully support the Torquay police and the Surf Coast Shire in addressing the inappropriate behaviour of a group of non-nudists acting in non-designated areas. Their behaviour is not a reflection of the nudist community, is not in line with nudist beach etiquette, and should be stomped on.

Beaches affected are Pt Impossible and Southside, and this process is our opportunity to make comments or suggestions covering various topics around the beaches and their management.

We highly recommend anyone interested in contributing should fill out the online survey, or register to attend one of the workshops coming up later this month. We missed out on being part of the CMP Community Reference Group (decided back in September), so this is our chance to get our voices heard!

Check out these links to get more info:
- GORCC home page – http://www.gorcc.com.au/
- About the CMP – http://www.gorcc.com.au/projects/298/
- CMP Fact Sheet – Fact Sheet
- CMP Survey – http://surveyfactory.net/s/746/cmpsurvey1

A recent visit to one of Victoria’s beaches highlighted the plight of the traditional Victorian (and probably global) nudist – we’re an aging community if you were to only take the beach-goers as representative of our population!! Today we saw a few people at our chosen beach, less than expected for a warm day – mostly middle-to-late aged males, single, although we did see two older couples turn up at different times, and one solitary female who walked the length of the beach and then tucked herself into a corner of the beach away from prying eyes!

What is becoming of our community? We’re a group of aged introverts casting furtive glances in the direction of other nudists, occasionally saying a curt “hello” or a brief nod, wondering if we should chat to anyone or keep to ourselves, or something? Going to the beach these days is not exactly easy even for the most comfortable nudist, with all the dune dwellers, carpark cruisers and poor facilities or access.

It would appear to be the same the world over, although internationally there are a few new trends emerging that are interesting and worth keeping an eye on. The first is that underground nudist movement in an ultra conservative culture like India is actually (slowly) becoming more public. According to the article titled “Being Nude: Nothing Unnatural About it“, meetup groups have formed and the topic is at least generating a little discussion. If nudism can become more public in a heavily conservative culture like India, surely there is hope for us here in our more liberal western cultures? Hmmm…

Another positive trend seems to highlight that nudism is not actually dead with today’s youth – while the current generation are often talking about how to get more of the younger generation interested in the lifestyle, it would appear they already are, and have set about being nudists in their own way.

Check out the article on MTSUSidelines – “Nudism Embraced by the Younger Generation” – it would appear that the 20-somethings would rather be nude in the safe company of a small group of like-minded friends than hit the beach or join a club. That’s not to say they don’t occasionally visit clubs or resorts, but they do so more as a holiday/break rather than an ongoing practice. And naked dinners seem to be popular in the US as well.

What’s interesting about all this is that the unwillingness of the youth to hang out in clubs and on beaches may well have nothing to do with their unwillingness to be nude. Put simply, nudism is still perceived as being an older generation lifestyle choice – and we all know that once the kids leave home, the last thing they plan to do is hang out with people the same age as their parents.

This could explain why Vita Nuda has been so popular with the younger generation – it is the youth providing a forum for the youth, and not the older generation trying to get the youth. That makes it interesting for the people involved with this portal (including this webmaster) – we’re aged in the middle somewhere, early to late 30′s, not part of the older generation and a bit beyond the younger generation. How do we fit in?

Us 30-somethings have the opportunity to empower the youth with our experience, without trying to muscle in on what they are trying to achieve. Let them do what they want to do, in a forum or location that is comfortable for them. It’s not about trying to get the youth involved in _our_ nudist community, it’s about getting the youth interested in being active in their own community, and helping them spread the word and generate interest for themselves. That kind of “behind the scenes” encouragement and experience should help as the youth get older and wiser themselves – if they’ve had great experiences in safe surroundings, they’re more likely to stay nudists and be more relaxed and open about their interests.

Read the article, it is definitely an interesting insight, and food for thought… hmmm, naked dinner perhaps?

Please check out the links yourself, they make for a fascinating, perhaps bemusing, read.

Bare Naked Ladies (from Marie Claire)
The Horrors of Locker Room Nudity (from broadsheet on Salon)

Well said, Mary Elizabeth Williams, nicely done!

(in case the link breaks again, it was originally posted on a site called “believeindestiny.com”, which appears to dead – the uncensored video is here)

It’s been 2 months since we last posted anything – just goes to show how the cold really slows the community down, with only the regular swim nights continuing to keep nudists in their natural state (although it does get quite cold in the swim centers as well!). And it’s swim center controversy behind this post as well – news in tonight that Channel 9 News ran a story about Solar West’s nude swim nights, a fascinating (and short) article that almost seemed to be Channel 9 doing some news trolling??

We’ll not do an analysis here, except to say it reminds us a bit of the beach fight we survived back in 2007 – lots of sensationalist reporting, surprise articles with little or no community consultation, lack of balance in the reporting and factual inaccuracies. You can check out the articles yourself, on these links:

Channel 9 news witch hunt? on the Solar West website;
Pool opens for nude group, although you may need to hunt for the video as a direct link does not appear to be available.

At the time of writing, the video had only had 380 views, with no Tweets or FB Likes – we suspect Solar West may have received a little publicity out of this, rather than the outrage perhaps Channel 9 were hoping for. It does beg the question though – did Jacqueline Felgate put her hand up and say “that story looks awesome, I want a part of that!!”, or was she lumped with it? She did post “Exclusive: A secret nude swimming club at a council pool” on her Twitter feed just before the news broadcast – didn’t get any serious bites though, one respondent saying “you’re funny!! Everyone is tweeting about gay Katter brother, you about nude pool! Hahaha!”, while another said “how do you know? ” – Touche!

Keep an eye on the Solar West website, as more updates are sure to be posted there!

Update: The Herald Sun has jumped on board the article, with similar tones to the newscast. You can read the article here. The comments left by readers are really interesting, with the majority in favour of the nudists – no surprises there.

Update: Apparently the swim nights have been suspended pending an investigation by the council. The Herald Sun has the article here. Solar West has been using the pool like this for years, it will be interesting to see if the council wilts under the weight of a little public controversy! Hey Maribyrnong Council, your pool is a business – and Solar West have been one of your best customers over many years. We all know the “investigation” is simply lip service, otherwise pool staff would have reported inappropriate behaviour years ago. Here’s hoping the council is sensible and can rise above a little unwarranted commotion!

As a side note, Jacqui Felgate (the original Channel 9 reporter who break the amazing “exclusive”!) has not had any other comments on her tweet since the story, but later on had a little ditty with Nicole Denton (3AW Senior Producer for Ross & John) about Channel 9 breaking the story first and not the Herald Sun!! Australian media, point scoring on the backs of minority groups and never looking back at the chaos they caused. Hey Jacqui, if the reporting was balanced you might have mentioned the nudists never wanted $45,000 in ratepayer funded pool modifications (and that story was your own network – who’s doing your research??).

Check it out, and maybe book yourself on the next flight out!

You can click here to check out the full article (and NSFW warning, the top of the page has a large picture on it!!). Let us know if this link fails to give you the article, bebaretoo.com may rewrite their links to funnel traffic to other parts of the site.

Update: We identified another article that also has a view on the decline of nudism – apparently we’re all so relaxed about nudity now that there doesn’t need to be a description for our liberal nude-ness! Or perhaps we’re more uptight than ever?? Perhaps you should go and check out the Hartford Advocate article yourself for some more insight!

You can click here and here to read the full articles.