Last year, I let the posts at the gates from Bike Parking inhibit my going for a Nude Beach.
In fact, the Provincetown Magazine had a timely article on the Subject.
Don't let the conservative right control you.
There is something about Provincetown that makes people want to take their clothes off. Be it on the stage, in the studio, along the streets, or in the sand dunes of Provincetown, throughout history public nudity has arguably played a larger role in the cultural, and sometimes political, life here than in other communities. And the evidence is everywhere. A photo of a naked Tennessee Williams frolicking on the beach hangs in the Atlantic House. The Provincetown Art Association and Museum’s collection features nudes dating back to the early days of the art colony. Louise Bryant, feminist and lover to both John Reed and Eugene O’Neill, appeared nude in a 1916 production with the Provincetown Players. Newspaper reports from the 1880s state that elder Benjamin Lancey, the wealthy eccentric whose family built the mansion where Front Street restaurant is now, would walk to the harbor for his daily swim through crowded Commercial Street, completely naked.
Indeed, be it for high art, shock factor, comfort, or free expression, nudity has remained a very public component of life in Provincetown. Perhaps the longest standing traditional representation of nudity is life drawing classes offered by a variety of institutions as well as private instructors. The iconic image of a nude person standing in front of a room full of students sketching is as well known in popular culture as it is in fine art. The process of drawing the nude is of course not native to Provincetown, but for such a small community, indeed it seems that a large percentage of residents have posed nude for art’s sake, or to help supplement their income.
“Drawing the nude is important to learn how to draw line and form,” says artist Larry Collins, who has run several life drawing groups in Provincetown.
Models of all shapes, sizes, and ages are important so artists can learn variations of the human form. Regardless of popular conceptions of beauty, everyone is looked upon as a work of art. As home to the oldest continuous art colony, this artistic presentation of nudity has become vital in both instruction and the creative process. But there are other art colonies around the world that have similar life drawing classes, but lack the robust nudity outside the studio that is seen in Provincetown. And no, you can’t point the finger at hippies, though more on them later.
Accompanying the steady flow of artists in the beginning of the last century, so too followed writers, political radicals, and other free thinkers that cast off convention, and their clothes, in an act of rebellion against the establishment. In fact, at the famed Beaux Arts balls, revelers often arrived so scantily clad, that rules were put in place by the 1930s to ensure everyone was clothed for the parties.
Of course the concept of a nude beach, or at least sunbathing nude, is as old as time. Finding a private spot in the dunes or on a deserted strip of beach and stripping down has always been a custom on the Outer Cape, as it is pretty much anywhere where the surf meets the sand. But what is often an innocent action can at times result in conflict, and Provincetown is no different in that regard. The majority of coastline here is within the Cape Cod National Seashore, and as such under federal jurisdiction. Every summer, beach-goers who like to go nude grouse at rangers who give tickets for public nudity, which traditionally happens at the most remote part of Herring Cove Beach. Parts of Truro are also popular with naturalists, the more modern term for a nudist. And of course there is the large number of European tourists who find the whole view of nudity in America puritanical, puzzling, and amusing. There is no federal law prohibiting, or specifically allowing, nudity within national parks. According to naturalist Web sites and statements by the National Park Service itself, it largely depends on local community standards and an agreement that nudity is best left where the general public would not be able to view it easily. However, the Cape Cod National Seashore, along with the Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park in Hawaii, have the distinction of being the only federal parks that have specific legislation forbidding nudity.
“It is a federal regulation for the National Seashore and we have to enforce it,” says Craig Thatcher, a ranger who until recently had been the acting chief ranger.
Nude sunbathing was a common practice well after the National Seashore was created in 1961, with little to no complaints. Then came the hippies. After the New York Times wrote an article about the popularity of a de facto nude beach at Brush Hollow in Truro, the naked crowds grew so large that neighbors complained. But it appears that it had little to do with nudity and more about a culture clash between the flower children and the more staid Yankees of Cape Cod. The Provincetown Advocate reported in 1974 that those who lived near the beach blamed the naked hippies for “lower property values, crime, lawlessness, vandalism, hard drugs, pushers, and motorcyclists.”
Whether or not any of that is true has little to do with the crowd being naked, argued defenders of the naked beach-goers, including famed defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, who unsuccessfully challenged attempts to ban nudity. In 1975, the federal government created a regulation that banned nudity in the National Seashore, and ever since, nude sunbathers have played a game of hide and seek with park rangers, though the Seashore insists it’s not a priority for them, and that it’s just enforcing the law and responding to any complaints (their concern and focus is more on preventing sexual activity within the Seashore, says Thatcher).
In 1984, activist Nikki Craft filed a class action lawsuit against the Seashore claiming discrimination because men could be topless and women couldn’t, alas to no avail. It would take a federal action to remove the regulation, something that seems remote by the current lack of progress on pretty much everything at the federal level. However, if removed it would be possible to have a nude beach, as one currently, and legally, exists at Gunnison Beach in the Sandy Hook unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area in New Jersey.
The town of Provincetown has little say or sway over such regulations. In 1996, town meeting voted to encourage the National Seashore to create a “clothing optional” section at Herring Cove Beach. The vote was ignored. Come 2001, Provincetown, also by town meeting vote, created a nude beach at what is known as Spaghetti Strip. Then selectman David Atkinson, an ardent and outspoken naturalist, spearheaded the campaign to get the town-owned stretch of beach clothing optional, and initially succeeded. But complaints from nearby dune shack dwellers and concerns for the effect the large influx of people would have on the natural resources of the area made it a short-lived blip of free expression.
Nudity occasionally spills off the beaches and into the streets of Provincetown. Bare-breasted women or men in buttless chaps or a jock strap sporadically make an appearance on Commercial Street, but not as much as one might think. Provincetown Police Department Lieutenant Jim Golden, who has been on the force for 23 years, says that complaints about public nudity are rare.
“We want people to be free to express themselves, but still realize this is a community; it’s where people make their homes,” says Golden.
When it comes to nudity on the street in Provincetown, it is illegal, but to what degree and how it is handled differs depending on the scenario, says Golden. Exposing one’s genitals is a felony and a criminal offense. However, if it is a woman’s breasts or the buttocks of any gender, it is prohibited by local bylaws, but does not have to be handled as a criminal offense. If someone refuses to cover up, an arrest or fine may result, though. A responding officer would work to educate the person about community standards and ask them to cover up, says Golden, who adds that this is within the Provincetown Police Department’s jurisdiction and not the National Seashore, which again has different rules.
But perhaps the biggest, most recent, and best-known example of the battle to bare began in 2001 when the town tried to enforce a 1998 local zoning law that forbade “adult entertainment” within 500 feet of a school, playground, museum, church, community center, municipal building, nursing home, or cemetery. At the time, a production of the musical revue Naked Boys Singing was playing at the Crown and Anchor, which is close to Town Hall and the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House. The show continued, but the venue wracked up fines in violation and the controversy received worldwide attention. Cast member Tom D’Angora, who is now producing the current production of Naked Boys Singing at the Post Office Cabaret, remembers the kerfuffle well.
“All hell broke loose,” says D’Angora. “The public hearing was packed. It really generated a huge controversy over free speech.”
The town hall auditorium was filled to capacity with angry citizens, some of whom came dressed only in a towel to protest. After a several-year fight, the zoning laws were changed to allow for nudity in performance, Naked Boys Singing went on to become one of the most popular shows in town, and a production of Hair opened at the Provincetown Inn that summer, nude scene and all, without any repercussions. Now, be it Showgirls, the Tennessee Williams Festival, or those singing naked boys, nudity is common across the stages of Provincetown, and like many controversies, many wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place.
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