By most accounts, Los Angeles is a pretty liberal city. We’re just not the most progressive city when it comes to nudity. Don’t want tan lines? Then you’ll need a private pool, a tanning salon membership, or a lot of boldness and luck. Because it’s been decades since there was a nude beach Los Angeles residents could visit without driving for hours. But those new to the city may be surprised to learn that Los Angeles did in fact, for a very brief moment, have its own nude beach.
The Summer of Streaking
Back in the summer of 1974, working on that summer bod required a bit more… well, uh… work. That’s because nudity was all the rage… particularly in LA. And “rage” is definitely the operative word. People on one side of the fence were disrobing every chance they got… and several chances they didn’t get. Those on the other side of the fence were rabidly against the exposed flesh, viewing it as the fall and decline of traditional American values.
This taboo tipping point was perhaps most evident in a sudden national obsession with streaking. Most of this can be credited to the antics of Robert Opel, who infamously interrupted the April 2, 1974 Oscars broadcast by streaking across the stage. Soon, streakers were blasting their goods all across the Greater Los Angeles area.
A trio of Pasadena joggers, clad in tennis shoes alone, were arrested but let off with a warning. Stripper Liz Renay was also apprehended following a high noon streak down Hollywood Boulevard. She was found “not guilty” by a fully clothed jury.
The streaking mania was so absolute that novelty musician Ray Stevens released an ode to sudden public nudity, fittingly entitled “The Streak.” It rose to the third position on the Billboard 100 after selling five million copies.
Venice: The Nude Months
Smack dab in the middle of this was the opening of the first nude beach Los Angeles residents could enjoy. Or vehemently protest, depending on whatever floated your boat. Long before the street magicians, skating guitarists, and boardwalk hucksters, Venice was that nude beach.
Who knows what made Venice a hotspot for the nudist movement. But during the summer of ‘74, as if some au naturel fairy godmother waved her wand, the birthday suit became the unofficial dress code for Venice Beach.
Yet, this beach attracted more than innocent sunbathers wanting to be rid of the shackles of swimsuits. Men in full suits appeared, clutching cameras in sweaty palms. Women gawked in brow-furrowed outrage. Helicopters hovered for uncomfortably long periods of time. And then the news crews showed up.
Pandemonium at the Only Nude Beach Los Angeles Offered
Everyone from models to aspiring actors to naturalists to garden variety perverts showed up to Venice in the wake of the media coverage.
Nude bathers were enraged that the only nude beach Los Angeles offered was being taken over by voyeuristic deviants. In desperation, they turned to the lifeguards for help who soon found themselves fighting more battles on the shore than in the waves.
Turning up the heat even more, a gubernatorial race found one candidate, the Peace and Freedom Party’s Elizabeth Keathley, campaigning nude from the Venice shoreline.
Venice’s Final Days as a Nude Beach
By July, the clothing-optional clamor had reached the LA City Council. The scheduled hearing attracted so many people that they spilled out from the 400-seat chamber with half that number loitering outside. Initially, the council opposed an aggressive ban on nudity by a decent margin. Those opposed to a ban outnumbered those in favor by nine to four.
Then, Bob Opel showed up. Still riding the high from his streak across the national stage during April’s Oscars, he performed an encore for the more intimate audience of 400 crammed into the chambers.
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If Opel had been lobbying in favor of nudity, his approach needed some work. His interruption swayed the city council to vote twelve to one in favor of a citywide ban on public nudity. Mayor Tom Bradley, fed up with all of the attention the matter garnered, quickly signed the ordinance into law. And just like that, the first nude beach Los Angeles boasted also became its last.
Fines or Tan Lines
In the decades since Venice’s heyday as a nude mecca, Los Angeles has endured a much tenser relationship with public nudity. It’s still here. It’s just mostly relegated to the occasional screaming Skid Row marauder or those who have clearly relinquished their grip on reality.
There was a brief push to halfway return Venice to its scantily clad past. In April 2015, the Venice Neighborhood Council voted 12 to two in favor of legalizing topless sunbathing for all genders.
Yet, since Venice falls under the greater city of Los Angeles, this vote signals more of an intention than anything. It is still very possible for a topless woman (and, for that matter, a bottomless man) to get arrested for public indecency on Venice Beach. Still, the vote was enough for some daring sunbathers to take their chances.
Going Topless for the Aliens
Along those lines, Venice has become the defacto spot for national Go Topless Day. Unfamiliar? Well, you probably won’t believe us, but here we go.
National Go Topless Day was started by a religious organization called the Raelians. Their chief belief is that extraterrestrials will contact the human race once we’ve established a global peaceful existence. And according to the religion’s founder, Rael, that means being down with nudity.
So, while Venice may no longer be the nude beach Los Angeles naturalists counted on, it still gets about a third of the way there one day out of every year. This year’s event falls on Saturday, August 26 and is bound to exhibit lots of skin. And, according to the handful of religious protesters that attend every year, lots of sin.
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LA’s Conservative Approach to Nude Beaches
Oddly, the rest of California is significantly more laissez-faire about public nudity. Just about 100 miles down the coast, you’ll find the largest nude beach in the country: Black’s Beach. It’s not that nudity is necessarily legal at the San Diego adjacent beach. It’s that officials have chosen not to prosecute nude sunbathers without the express complaint of an offended party. And with Black’s Beach being rather remote, most visitors don’t wind up there by chance. They have every intention of being at a nude beach.
Venice Beach, on the other hand, is in a highly developed area. Plenty of opportunity for offense. So, though the rest of the state doesn’t have an explicit ban on public nudity like Los Angeles, maybe the rest of the state didn’t need it.
Yet, if the ban were to be lifted today, we’d no doubt have another nude beach Los Angeles residents struggle to enjoy while gawkers and protesters stormed the dunes. Perhaps this is why we can’t have nice things. Or naughty things, again depending on whatever floats your boat.
