‘Not about sex’: Why a Penticton naturist bares it all

Penticton resident Jacqueline Clarissa spends much of her summer at a local beach completely naked, soaking in the sunshine and connecting with nature.

The Indigenous healer is part of a community of naturists that frequent Three Mile Beach, a clothing optional beach located three miles out from Penticton on the road to Naramata.

“Naturism is important and I encourage others to experience it, but a lot of people have fear with their mind filled with negative mainstream talk of nudity,” Clarissa said. 

Public nudity can often have sexual connotations, but for Clarissa, it isn’t about sex at all, rather, getting nude is about body confidence, community and connecting with nature.

“I think that is a standard social construct that as soon as your naked it must involve sex, but it’s not about sex,” she said. “A naturist is there to respect the environment, the community and themselves.

“It’s for people to be in their body and be around other people to build confidence in themselves. There’s nothing more confidence building than being nude with other people who are nude and all shapes and sizes who just accept you for who you are.”

Clarissa embraced naturism roughly 12 years ago when she went to the clothing optional beach for the first time to meet friends and made “crass comments” about naturism.

“My girlfriend challenged me on it and said I obviously had some fear of nudity and I thought about that,” she said. “The next day I packed a lunch and lay down butt naked on the beach to find out what goes on there. I went back every day after that.”

Clarissa has seen some visitors to the beach embrace naturism for the first time.

“We had a stripper come to the beach once and she didn’t want to get naked in front of anybody,” she said. “She stripped for money on a stage but was afraid to be nude in front of everybody. She finally took her clothes off but wrapped herself up in a beach blanket. Someone tossed a ball in the water and suddenly a little girl came out of her and she started playing in the water, having fun.

“She realized she could just be herself. You could tell she’d found a part of herself she hadn’t found in a long time. It was beautiful to see.”

On another occasion a woman came out and sunbathed in her underwear for more than a month before getting comfortable enough to bare it all.

“You’re not forced to be naked, we want people to feel safe.”

Some visitors to the beach have engaged in sexually inappropriate behaviours including public masturbation, unsolicited photography and intercourse, but the naturist community is quick to remove them. 

“What people do at home is none of our business but while they’re here they have to behave, we really hold the beach to being safe,” she said. “Safe enough a family can come. The naturist community is always watching to make sure everyone is safe.”

She said families do come to the beach, along with people of all ages, including tourists.

At one point, Clarissa started a Vimeo channel where she shared about naturism while naked and attracted thousands of viewers from around the world. She hasn’t updated the channel for two years but still gets feedback.

“I still have people writing to me, asking questions,” she said. “I really try to help people break that gap between nature and commerce. We live in the city, we have to do all this work and need to make money but we also need downtime. We come to the beach, get our clothes off and become ourselves.”

Clarissa said being naked is the root of who humans are and will continue to encourage other men and women to find freedom, body confidence and community at Three Mile Beach.

“Who stopped us from being confident in the way we were designed when we were born? It’s the only body we’ve got so why not love and respect it in the environment it was designed for?”

Go here to see Clarissa’s Okanagan Naturist Facebook page.