It’s usually a man who arrives with no book, no cooler, and most tellingly, no sunscreen. Clearly he intends to stay just long enough to snap some nude photos at New Jersey’s only "clothing-optional" public beach.
For years, nude beach etiquette advised visitors to leave their cameras at home.
Now, however, every beachgoer has a cell phone, and every cell phone has a camera. It’s easier than ever to take a surreptitious photograph of the nude sunbather three towels away. Once an image is captured, it might be privately enjoyed later, or even uploaded to a commercial website specializing in such shots.
"There’s always going to be some jerk out there with a camera. But cell phones make it more convenient for people who are going to do something like this," said Dale Distasio of Atlantic Highlands, who runs Friends of Gunnison, a group for beach regulars.
In Gateway National Park at Sandy Hook, photographers have the law on their side.
"As sad as it is, there’s nothing we can do to control this behavior," she said. "If someone wants to point a zoom lens at me and look up my ZIP code, well, I have decided to be naked on a piece of federal property, so that’s that. You have no expectation of privacy."
While commercial porn websites showcase only young, fit beachgoers, nudists with less-than-perfect physiques face a different threat: finding themselves mocked online. Distasio tells of three large ladies who frequent Gunnison whose group photo was posted online with the caption "Manatees."
Gunnison regulars, who are fiercely protective of their little bit of heaven, use everything from public shame to technology to fight back. They want to keep attendance robust at a beach they boast is the cleanest, the quietest and the friendliest in the park.
When the National Park Service took control of this barrier peninsula after the Army deactivated Fort Hancock in 1974, the beach tradition of skinny-dipping — begun by the all-male soldiers stationed there — was permitted to continue.
In Gunnison’s early days as a public beach, a photographer who ignored polite requests to stop could find his camera grabbed and his film canister unspooled and exposed to the sun.
"We’d pull the film out and everyone would cheer," said Lois Flicek, a longtime Gunnison naturist. ("We’re naturists," she tells visitors." ‘Naturalist’ is a birdwatcher.")
Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger
A lone sunbather on a not-so-nice beach day at Gunnison Beach, a clothing optional area of Gateway National Recreation Area on Sandy Hook.
Once the Park Service assumed a greater role in supervising the beach, rangers advised against such confrontations. "They don’t want us to take the law in our own hands," says Distasio.
Sometimes it’s enough to hand an amateur photographer a business card that lists beach etiquette, including the admonition to "ALWAYS get permission before taking photographs."
If that doesn’t work, the next step may be lending a 3-foot-high windscreen to the young women who most often draw the interest of photographers. Or one of the small gatherings that crop up around regulars — Flicek flies a Grateful Dead banner to let friends know her location — will invite a newcomer into their protection for the day.
Eric, 42, who has been going to Gunnison since high school, has found that if an intruder ignores a polite request to stop, it is particularly effective to turn the tables and take his photo.
"When we ask them to stop, they say, ‘It’s a free country!’ and we say, ‘You know what, sir? You’re right.’ Then ‘click,’ we take their picture," he said. "And they freak out: ‘I’m a schoolteacher!’ or ‘I’m just here to look!’ You would not believe how many people come here fully clothed, sit there taking pictures, and leave when we take their picture."
Lately, this retired federal investigator has added a high-tech deterrent: He posts photos of what he calls "beach geeks" — predatory photographers — on his private Gunnison Facebook page, which now has 270 followers. Sometimes he posts while at the beach, right from his iPad.
(He didn’t want his full name used out of concern someone he may have arrested would seek him out at the beach, where he’d be unarmed. Many Gunnison regulars remain semi-anonymous to even their friends there, going by beach names like "Volleyball Larry" or "Bandanna Tom.")
In addition, beach regulars use text messages to warn each other of anyone whose behavior seems suspect.
Park Service lifeguards will not intervene in such disputes with one exception: when children are involved. Flicek tells of a visitor who sat near a German family, then periodically reached into his beach bag to fiddle with something. When they realized he was filming the children with a video camera, they informed park rangers. He was arrested, she said.
Eric, the retired federal investigator, pointed out that since the incident took place on federal property, it would trigger federal charges — and perhaps federal prison.
There were few children present on a recent weekday visit. Nudists say once children get to be school-aged, parents are less comfortable bringing them along. This makes Gunnison unusually quiet — no water fights, squealing at waves, or teenage boomboxes.
Nor was there any obvious photography of strangers. Plenty of people were engrossed in their cell phones, but they appeared to be texting. Meanwhile, a few friends were taking photos of each other. Still, the regulars say the commercial websites gather images during the summer, then post them over the winter. (Such sites will remove a specific image if requested by the photograph’s subject.)
A group of three 20-something women, first-timers deciding whether to proceed past the clothing-optional warning sign, said it hadn’t occurred to them to worry about being photographed. The prospect gave them pause.
"I just want to relax, get some sun — and no tan lines," said Jennifer, who didn’t give her last name because of her occupation. "It doesn’t mean I want to be on the internet!"
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