A young and unnamed man arrives in a new city. There, he performs a familiar ritual: a journey to a nude beach, to bask in its adhoc sense of queer community.
“Boy on Raft” (Cropped) by Peter Hujar, 1978.You can simply scroll past—but please don't overlook the importance of an independent queer press.
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You can simply scroll past — but please don’t overlook the importance of an independent queer press.
You can simply scroll past—but please don't overlook the importance of an independent queer press.
Time is now or never.
Queer voices disappear without independent journalism to amplify them.
We document what others won't touch.
We hold power to account when it threatens our communities.
This work exists only because you choose to fund it directly.
Donate over €25/month and receive our limited-edition tote bag — a badge of resistance, a statement that you stand for fearless journalism.
We are grateful!
Can't donate? Sharing our work helps more than you think
The Sun is high in the sky, around midday, and both sides of the street are bathed in its light. Only a small sliver of shade is left for those waiting at the bus stop. Under the overhang of a Georgian bakery, people dressed for work wait alongside those in shorts. The heat pushes itself down on the city. Exterior walls and pavements soak up the heat from the sun which they will keep until long into the evening. Standing beside these people, I seem not to feel the full effect of the sun. The knowledge that I will be heading out of the city keeps me cool, so I enjoy the feeling of the sun’s heat on my skin.
On the bus, the smell of exhaust outside mixes with the stifling heat inside. My body tenses slightly against the discomfort of this crowded bus as it leaves the city, and it’s as if I’m holding my breath. When I get off, I feel my shoulders relax. In front of me is a wall of tall shrubs with one narrow path leading into it. Behind me, blocks of flats from the old regime rise up, their walls temporarily bleached by the sunlight so that their colours become chalky, inviting. Their weak colour in front of such a boldly blue sky gives them the appearance of being entirely unreal, as if edited into the picture.
The lake through these bushes is one of the first places I came to when I moved to the city. Not knowing anyone here, and being unfamiliar with how a new city works, I make a habit of coming to nudist beaches when I move somewhere new. There is a feeling of safety, of being in a place where queer people are sure to be. Although this is not an explicitly gay beach, such places have a special relationship with queer people. This is a space to relax in solitude, with friends, or find a partner. This is also the capital, so I was sure to find gays who have travelled – either to the city or here – to find similar people.
There is something special about the particular seclusion of nudist beaches. These are places people rarely happen upon by chance. They come with a purpose. I could write quite honestly about how sitting outside a coffee shop in any busy street of a given district of a city gives me a good measure of a place. I could give anyone who asked a decent run down of the kinds of people who appear in this district, if they prefer big or small dogs, if their children have scooters or bikes, if they dress expensively. I could look around myself towards the other people sitting outside. Are they taking a moment to themselves in the sun during a working day, or do they work in IT (in which case, this coffee shop is their unofficial office)? At this lake, just outside of the city, people stay for longer. What’s more, I don’t believe anyone to be here by accident. Not least because there is a fence around the lake and an older woman quite practiced in informing first-time visitors of the rules of this particular nudist beach.
In this space you find a shared intention, and therefore a sense of community. A group of women sit by the water’s edge, smoking and laughing as one of them attempts an elegant entrance into the water. Near them, a man sits under a tree with an old book. Here, my mind slows to a manageable pace. This beach is a place where I take the hint to leave by the decline of the sun into the treeline, rather than by the time on my phone. Coming to a new city, I feel that thoughts only ever come in groups, only ever at once. It is difficult to feel at ease in a place until I can sit on the grass and feel the slow passage of time through the movement of the sun, the changing of the wind through the trees, and the cooling of the water as evening approaches.
Of course, I am not alone. A book is beside me, neglected, as I contemplate the people around me. I find myself in the habit of trying to work out who is queer. This must be a uniting factor amongst all of us. I try to read the bodies and glances of the men dotted around me. At the same time I admire them; their beauty, their form. I’m jealous of those who seem to wear their bodies more comfortably, confidently, gayly, than me. Realising this, I make a deliberate effort to spread myself wider, to make a show of confidence for anyone watching me whilst refusing to check – or fully believe – whether there is an audience watching my movements. I wonder if they are aware of how beautiful they are, of how much pleasure – and unease – they give. These two sensations are so related in my head. To see elements of yourself in those you desire. To notice the pleasing curve of someone’s back before then considering this area on your own body.
That first time I was interrupted in my thoughts by a man holding up a book, my book, and asking me what it’s about. I said that it was a book about the city. A Polish journalist came here years ago and decided to write a book, essentially a love letter, to the city that stole his heart. The man, about forty with reddish hair and an inflatable donut, asked if I was Polish. I said I wasn’t, but I understood the language. “Strange”, he said.
He shared with me what food he’s brought with him – some bread and soft cheese – and I asked him why he came here. He answered honestly, perhaps because he clocked me immediately. The men draw him here, as well as the cool relief of the water against the heat of summer. The man is from a small town about two hours from the city, but he wanted to move to a place where he would find more queer people, more places in which he could feel freer in his skin. Befriending a regular, at least for a day, proved useful. He introduced me to others at the bar next to the water, to similar men who came to this place to find queer friends.
I have done the same in other cities I’d moved to. One beach, in France, had a similar orderly community feel, in which regulars mixed with new visitors. Only at that beach, there was also a cruising site just above the rocks, set apart within a thicket of dense shrubs and trees. I used to watch as men would glance in the direction of others, and if successful, would break off from the main beach. Sometimes, not even a word would pass between them, not even when they returned to the water’s edge and separated. Perhaps a kiss on each cheek as a farewell.
Watching these interactions, I found myself confronted with the familiar and distant. I was aware of such glances, having been to queer clubs and bars. I do not state this as a point of self-flattery, but rather to suggest that communication without words is a universal queer language. One of perceiving, and being perceived. I’m reminded of sitting on a train in my home city, as a teenager, glancing over at a boy on the opposite seats, wondering if a momentary meeting of eyes could give me the information I needed. Not the question of attraction, but wondering if we shared the same queerness.
These spaces are special for me, because they keep me aware of a time when stealing looks was a far more important, necessary language. These spaces teach me how older queer people interact – those for whom dating apps and social media played no role in their development as young gay people. Spaces where queer people congregate are few and far between, so I treat them as an opportunity to find community, even if that means no words are spoken. To be perceived as a queer person without the threat of violence or ridicule, which is not guaranteed even on the streets of the more liberal cities, is a desire which stays in my mind. The occasional discomfort at seeing men of my age there, my jealousy at the ease with which some wear their queerness, their femininity, their beauty, their bodies – all of this is important. It pushes me to embrace outward queerness with greater enthusiasm, viewing it as something desirable. I have in the past disregarded outward queerness as something unnecessary or which gets in the way. I am from a small, generally accepting country, yet taking off my clothes alongside other queer people reminds me that there are obstacles still in my path, as I continue to develop my relationship with my body as part of a community. Of course, beyond this desire for greater comfort in my own body, the cool water of the lake calls to me.
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