Going Au Naturel on Martha's Vineyard

Martha's Vineyard magazine explores the future of nude beaches on the island.

Aquinnah police chief, Randhi Belain, has repeatedly raised with selectmen the problem of “inappropriate behavior” on the beach. There has again been talk about putting a stop to nudism.

“Let’s just stop it,” he says, noting there have been “incidents over recent years.”

What sort of incidents? He cites reports of men masturbating, women complaining of having been ogled. How many incidents? Fewer than five, he concedes, and just one serious enough to require action. But he fears the prospect of “a rape or something.”

When it is put to him that such things might equally occur on a clothed beach (or anywhere, for that matter – consider the Catholic priesthood and the Congress), he demurs: “I think the nudity just raises it [the possibility] to another level.The Cliffs are a national landmark. I just don’t think there’s any need of nude sunbathing.”

Be sure to read the entire article, which is a broad and comprehensive look at nude sunbathing on the island, and how a grand tradition is being threatened by voyeurs, prudes, and money, which saddens those who wish to uphold the naturist tradition.

Also somewhat saddened is Stephen DiRado, who has spent twenty-one years photographing clothed and unclothed people on Vineyard beaches...since the late 1990s, people have become more guarded, and the beach crowd has become, on average, older. He sees three reasons: The first is the same thing Stan Hart complains of: the rich-ualization of the Island.

“I have,” he says, “noticed a trend throughout the years of less and less groups of younger adults. But this is an Island-wide problem, thanks to the prohibitive costs of staying on Martha’s Vineyard.” The second is the threat of the voyeurs, the outsiders “who come about walking down the beach with a concealed camera, snapping away.” The third, opposite threat, is the anti-nude forces.

To many nude bathers, to threaten to “take this part of tradition away...means the end of their history, an Island summer ritual. Many have been coming for decades, and tell me if the day comes that the town stops nude sunbathing, they will not return. This is the only time in a year that they can shed clothes, thus shed any identity in order to release stress and rejuvenate,” Stephen says. He would like to see nude bathing “protected by the Island” for its cultural and historical importance. But if he’s thinking that the likes of Chief Randhi Belain might come to see that nudists need to be protected from others at least as much as others need to be protected from the nudists, he’s being very wishful.

It’s all very sad, for as Stephen says, ultimately the only difference between a nude sunbather and one with clothes is that one applies more sunscreen.

Tags: nudism, naturism, nudist, nudists, naturist, naturists, nudity, nudes, bare, au naturel, nude, naked