“You just feel comfortable, like there's no social expectations to even talk to people,” Lipton said. “Once you get naked, it kind of strips away all your walls,” Flannery said. They said they come often for the mellow, accepting atmosphere. Today the park is known as a safe and welcoming place for all bodies and sexualities, with or without clothing.Īnd on this particular afternoon, boyfriends Elias Darling and Will Flannery walked down the path to the beach with their friend Emily Lipton.
Warnock asked KUOW, how did this beach become a haven for nudity? But she moved out of the neighborhood in 2001, and since then (whether by coincidence or causation) the small enclave is now overwhelmingly naked and gay. Grandma would not abide the nudity-no matter that she was an ardent feminist and civil rights activist. The norm was to visit the beach with clothes – but every so often a topless woman would appear, Warnock said, and Grandma hiked up the steep path home to call police. “I stayed in the very shallows and every so often would go a little deeper and deeper until I finally learned how to swim.” “I used to be scared of the water when I was a little kid,” he said.
