Your Voyage…

Do you remember that feeling when you first took the plunge and shed all of your Earthly barriers to become one with all of your natural surroundings? The sun, the air, the water, the sand (maybe mud!)? Was it not a spiritual experience? Of course it was! You were communing with the Sun Spirit, the Air Spirit, the Water Spirit, the Earth Spirit. You were connected with your natural surroundings like never before. You were connected with Mother Nature. You were appreciating the life forces that surround you, the life forces that reside within you, the life forces of all the ancestors who came before you, and all the descendants who will come after you. You were an integral part of all of the life forces here on Earth and within the Universe, and you were ALIVE!!!

History

On National Nude Weekend 1997, members of Tampa Area Naturists (f/k/a Tampa Bay Free Beaches) were interviewed by Kathy Unruh of Fox News on the beautiful west-side beach of Fort De Soto County Park. The interview covered the serious cause to establish a small portion (1,000 ft) of beachfront for Naturist use. A small area was cordoned off with large signs reading “FLORIDA NEEDS NUDE BEACHES”, signatures were gathered on a petition, and a poster-size blown up copy of the Florida Supreme Court case McGuire v. State was displayed which concluded,

“Nudity, not in and off itself constitutionally protected activity, is protected as speech only when combined when some mode of expression which itself is entitled to First Amendment protection.”

Discrimination

The Tampa Bay area has an enormous Naturist community (often referred to as “The Naturist Capitol of the United States”). A one-block stretch of beach is a minimal request considering the extent of the local Naturist population. Of course, Pinellas County has provided a similar section of beach there at Fort De Soto County Park for dogs to defecate and urinate on, but the county cannot see to afford Naturists similar beach use rights (and we use toilets!). In Pinellas County, dogs have more rights than Naturists.

Coup

In 2019, Tampa Area Naturists faced its biggest challenge to date: a coup from within. Two new Board Members, having moved to the Tampa Bay area from Miami’s Haulover Clothing-Optional Naturist Section of Beach (founded in 1991), orchestrated a pre-meditated and well-planned coup to overthrow Tampa Area Naturists and eject co-founder John Palm from the Board of the Naturist organization he helped to co-found. Mr. Palm gladly wished to step aside from the role of President (having held the position unwillingly, but by popular demand, for many years), This was not good enough for the coup leaders. They had been promised the return of a former female TAN Board Member under the condition that Mr. Palm must be ejected from the Board. Their grounds for his dismissal? His activities from 1997 & 1998 with Free Speech activism on the beach. Yes, you are reading that correctly. After 21 years of changing course (and following the close advice of Miami Naturist leaders), Mr. Palm was ejected from the Board of the Naturist organization he helped co-found in 1996 based on events from 21 years in the distant past. It gets worse. The leaders of Naturist beach organizations throughout the state of Florida all sided with the coup leaders. Even the leaders of the national Naturist beach organization sided with the coup. After 30 years of what Mr. Palm understood as building trust, respect, friendship and networking with the Naturist beach movement, they all betrayed him. They betrayed him because they were driven by greed and power in the race to lay claim that they were the ones who, after all these years of activism, finally secured a Clothing-Optional Naturist Section Of Beach {CONSOB) for the Tampa Bay area and the first such beach for the entire Gulf Coast of Florida.