The closing of the nude beach at Tyagarah can be seen as another step in the long decline of nudism. In the ‘60s and ‘70s naturism flourished in Australia but several factors have diminished it.
In those days of people working mostly in factories and offices, getting out into the sunshine was seen as a healthy thing. Hence a nudist magazine was named Australian Sun & Health.
But then people began to perceive, quite correctly, the dangers of lots of sun, especially skin cancer. Australians were particularly prone to skin cancer, and nudism began to diminish.
Another factor was the decline of caravan parks. Once it was almost a standard practice in Australia in summer to head for camping or caravan parks, and most nudist resorts catered to this. Camping and caravanning are still popular, but many people nowadays head for more deluxe and expensive holiday trips and places, like Byron Bay for example.
The sharpest blow to naturism, however, was the growing belief in the ‘90s and after that it was somehow bad for kids to see naked adults, or for kids to be naked in the company of adults.
It didn’t matter that hundreds of thousands of kids had happily been naked for weeks in naturist resorts all over Australia, and even more in Europe and America. The kids loved running around naked in the warm summer air. Indeed many studies indicated that the kids were better off, since they were not bedevilled with body image problems. But the historical evidence, it seems, was trumped by righteous conviction.
Indeed, nakedness itself went out of fashion. In the ‘60s and ‘70s nudity was seen as an expression of one’s resistance to the Vietnam War, or one’s support of environmental causes and civil rights. Hugh Hefner, Marilyn Monroe, and Woodstock were icons of the time, and all were associated with nakedness.
Now very few young people see nakedness this way. Nudism itself has become seen as something done by peculiar old people. TAN, The Australian Naturist magazine, went out of business last year.
Nude beaches have a special problem in that they are always forced into isolated spots, like Tyagarah. Thus they are bedevilled with sexual weirdness, behaviour which would never occur if Clarkes Beach, for example, were a nude beach.
But look on the bright side. Tyagarah attracts many people who drive down from Queensland, which has no legal nude beaches, a drive of 50 kms or more each way. The amount of CO2 produced must be huge.
So the nudists may not be happy, but at least the atmosphere will be smiling.
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