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Byron Shire
March 27, 2024

Tyagarah residents pleased with response to nude-beach policing

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Tyagarah residents at the beach. Gwen Gould, far left, says she still gets hassled going skinny dipping, even though she’s about to turn 77. Photo Jeff Dawson

Tyagarah residents told a meeting on Thursday they are pleased to see the change in behaviour at the area’s clothing-optional beach, which they say had become a hotspot for sexual predators.

But activist Dean Jefferys, who organised the meeting with police, residents, naturists and Byron Shire Cr Sarah Ndiaye, said the police needed to show more tolerance towards people skinny-dipping outside Byron’s only clothing optional area.

Skinny dippers hassled

Tyagarah resident Gwen Gould, herself a skinny dipper, told Echonetdaily, ‘I’m 77 in two weeks and I get hassled.

‘The police presence and actions have improved things majorly. We as locals all feel really grateful to the police for the job they are doing. People are asking for discretion – but then that makes [the police] judge and jury,’ she said.

‘Nude ain’t rude but sexual harassment is unacceptable.

‘Since becoming ‘clothes-optional’ Tyagarah beach has become a parade ground of overt aggressive sexual display and harassment, unsafe for ordinary folk just wanting to enjoy time at the beach.

Ms Gould said police were now ‘making every effort to make it safe again and have the support of the Tyagarah residents’.

‘We want our beach back again free of predators.

‘As locals we need to respect what the police are doing for us,’ she said.

‘Right now they have to come down hard because of the history of the area and even thought it is so much better there are still sexual predators there.

‘It will take time to resolve all these issues and make the are safe for everyone again and the police are doing a great job,’ Ms Gould said.

Mr Jefferys said police indicated they had to come down hard early on to make an impact.

‘We’ve heard they don’t want to be arresting people naked on the beach but they want to create the biggest possible impact, letting the perpetrators know that they won’t tolerate it anymore,’ he told Echonetdaily.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if they back down a little bit.’

Tyagarah – worst spot

He added that declaring Tyagarah as the shire’s only clothing-optional beach 20 years ago was a big mistake.

‘Tyagarah is the worst spot – nobody wants to spend $8 for parking. So we’ve ended up with a beach just for Queenslanders.

At the meeting Cr Ndiaye mentioned that council was planning to put more signs up around Tyagarah and one at the southern end of Brunswick.

According to Mr Jefferys she also ‘suggested we apply for a designated clothes-optional area just south of Brunswick.’

‘Yet staying with the original idea from 20 years ago I said we don’t want a designated clothes-optional area we just want the police to back off and just fine the real criminals.

‘We need to have an understanding with council and police that only people who are actually behaving offensively would be hassled by police.

‘There’s quite a few people calling for a nude rally but I’m trying to convince people that we wait and see what happens, see if the police will respond to our request.

Police training needed

Mr Jefferys said he though police needed extra training ‘to deal with the community they represent – we see this with the bashing of the naked teen in Byron Bay. It’s the same officers doing this.’

‘Policing this area is a little bit different to the western suburbs, and should reflect the nature of the local community.

‘Another thing I’m keen to see is that when these charges go to court, I hope and trust that the magistrates express the change in community values around nudity. What may have been offensive 200 years ago is not necessarily the case these days,’ he said.


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11 COMMENTS

  1. To go naked does not entail moral entitlement and the word naturism is misleading when used to suggest moral superiority. Indigenous peoples traditionally wear body covering for cultural, communal or spiritual reasons or for warmth or hygiene for example in Papuan, Pacific Islanders, South American, African, Arctic, Maori and American Indian cultures. In many contemporary indigenous communities people have an elevated sense of decency and dress. Locally Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Maori peoples have high dress standards and for a man to expose himself inappropriately to a woman or vice versa is considered a cultural misdemeanour. Human nakedness cannot be assumed in a historical sense to carry moral entitlement and imposing nudity on others is disrespectful to those who find nakedness unhelpful towards the better health and safety of the community.

    • There are still indigenous peoples that are not traditionally clothed at all times despite the enormous pressure from outsiders to adopt unsuitable clothing and mores. Historically the proportion where nudity was perfectly acceptable was much higher than it is today.and included at least the bulk of Indigenous Australians. It is worth reading the journals of the early explorers and settlers, preferably a version that has not been bowdlerised to avoid mention of nudity.

  2. Oh Richard don’t be a prude
    Let people have their own nude beach
    It was designated years ago
    If you don’t like it go to one of the many beaches
    Where you can only swim in suitable gear and when sun baking stop looking where you should not be..

  3. What about those who want a mutually agreeable and discrete shag in the undergrowth. I don’t think these people are sexual predators but maybe they are considered such by the community. I think there is a difference. I really don’t mind what people do as long as others don’t have to watch.

  4. Oh come on .. a carrot can be used to be offensive .. are we going to ban them next?
    Or remove people’s middle fingers??
    The human body is natural and beautiful, in every shape, size and stage of life.
    Please .. focus on the behaviour, not the carrot.
    I’ll be at a nude rally if that’s what it takes.

  5. Dear Ron the word prude is subjective just as are the words ignorant bully. The nude bathing area that was designated “years ago” remains as always legal and acceptable to the community. It is swimming outside of that zone, clothes free that the discussion is about.

  6. Justice, Sometimes it is difficult to know who is a ‘pervert and/or dirty old man’. Maybe they could carry some signage (perhaps a Bunnings hat), so they can be easily distinguished from other ‘non-perverted and clean’ males.

  7. There is nothing obscene about the human body, people who claim there is are the ones with the issues. I stopped using tyagarah beach a few years ago because of the continual accusing stares and finger pointing of a few people who considered any single male on the beach to be a pervert. So many times I found a nice quiet spot with no one near me only to have couples or women arrive, set down their towels and then treating me with suspicion just because I was male. In all the years I did use the beach it became very evident that some couples do go to tyagarah for a public sex and that’s what attracts some of the people who go there. Most of the gay men tend to move much further down the beach and away from the masses. So it’s easy to blame single men but remember most of us are not perverts and it’s the m/f couples who like to put on a show who are attracting force for the perverts.
    It’s a fact of human nature that on the outskirts of any population there will be at least one place that people go for discrete adult fun so maybe we need to accept that and start allocating Adult Areas for them.

  8. My gf and I regularly go to this beach and discreetly cuddle in the dunes. Early one morning there was a group of high school girls obviously wagging. We didn’t notice them until it was too late. They had been watching us for an hour or more possibly. So they had enjoyed smoking a joint and had a free sex education lesson in all that is tantric and at least half a dozen karma sutra positions. Shock horror quick call the police some people were enjoying coitus in a natural wild setting. Please.can the council stand up and declare this area a wild cultural precinct and stop calling us perverts. Laying naked on a beach is one of the most exhilarating enjoyable things to do.oh did I mention the hundreds of beautiful backpackers sunning their young lythe bodies who are made to feel like perverts when at home it is perfectly natural.

  9. If a male goes to a beach where the girls are wearing tiny bikinis,is he branded a pervert?It’s one of the great pleasures of going to the beach.Why is it any different on a nudist beach?I’ve had the pleasure of going to the beach in St.Tropez in the south of France.Everyone is naked,thousands of people.Not like here.

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