Let's say you're a gay guy in Cali for the first time while taking summer courses at one of the University of California campuses, like UC Irvine or UC San Diego or even UCLA, and you're looking for sex, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. Where to look? Well, what's Cali famous for, besides earthquakes and shallow people? Nude beaches, of course! So, based upon my experiences in this area, here are some tips for practicing safe beach, a short list of things you should know about proper nude beach etiquette, not that I ever needed this kind of advice :-)
First of all, Black's Beach isn't all that easy to find, it's not listed on any maps I've seen, but if you can find the Salk Institute or the San Diego County Municipal Gliderport, (yes, San Diego has an official airport for hang gliders) you can find Black's Beach. It's on North Torrey Pines Road, just north of UCSD and just off I-5. It's not very well marked, but you just have to turn like you're going into the Salk Institute, then follow all the other cars. And don't worry about the warning signs telling you not to park on the sand dunes because of their instability. If they collapse, the least of your worries will be your car; if you're on the beach when they collapse, you'll probably be dead, anyway :-) I think those signs are just a scare tactic to keep tourists away; San Diegans probably want to keep this place for themselves. You should also know that there's a golf course right above the beach, so you may have to watch out for flying balls - of all kinds ;-) And it's very near, by jet anyway, Miramar air station, home of the "Top Gun" school, used by the USMC. (It seems a lot of Marine pilots enjoy spending their days doing flyovers of Black's Beach, as do some tourist planes. Can't figure out what the attraction could be. A whole bunch of naked guys and girls, maybe?)
Anyway, after you park your car, you gotta get down to the beach. There are a couple different ways you can do this: first, you could follow all the cute surfer boys down the unofficial, and slightly riskier, paths. Or, you could go down the official unofficial path which has steps, macadam, and handrails, at least till you get to the bottom where you have to climb down shifting sand and rock. If you're confident about your skills at dune climbing, or just too horny to miss a chance to scope out cute surfer boys, follow them; otherwise, take the safer way down. Oh, and don't forget to take along all the necessities, like sunscreen with the highest SPF you can find, especially if you're planning to actually get naked - wouldn't want to end up with a peeling, sunburned, and very painful (and unusable) penis, unless you're into that sorta thing ;-) Also take along all the usual beach stuff, like a blanket, Walkman, shades, easily-concealed camera(?), and something to play with in the water. No, not that, I mean a surfboard or boogie board, or even a frisbee. One way to meet that cute guy you've been scoping out is to hit him in the head with a frisbee :-) And be sure to take along something to drink, like water, cause even though guys on bikes with coolers go up and down the beach selling cool drinks, you get a better selection at a better price if you go to the supermarket before heading to the beach.
Once you get down to the beach, there are certain things every newbie should know. First, there are gonna be a lot of naked people there, so if you're not used to seeing all shapes and sizes of cocks, butts, pecs, and other assorted body parts, don't get naked until some of the novelty has worn off. Even if you've been able to restrain yourself in the locker room, you can be quickly spotted as a newbie if, as soon as you get naked, you gotta rush into the surf to hide the fact that you've got the biggest wood of your life! Very embarrassing for everyone. And, no matter your degree of hairiness, resist the temptation to shave right before going to the beach - who knows what creepy organisms in the Pacific Ocean are just waiting for a willing host to invade through those shaving nicks and cuts.
Next, you should know that Black's Beach is divided into specific sections, depending upon the group you most associate yourself with. If you follow those cute surfer boys, you'll probably end up at the south end of the beach cause that's where they generally hang. But if you're planning on getting naked and lying on your towel to watch those cute surfers, be careful not to go too far south or you'll end up on the city-owned section of the beach where nudity isn't allowed and you risk having some buff lifeguard in a 4x4 roll up on you and tell you to get some clothes on or move to the county-owned section. Another very embarrassing situation you should avoid, especially if your ass is as white as a Connecticut snowstorm. Getting your stuff together and putting on your Speedos under the watchful eye of a lifeguard can be stressful and will make you stand out from the crowd in ways that you may not want, but it's always a good laugh for the surfers, though you've now probably ruined any chance you might have had to actually hook up with one of them :-( If you don't make this mistake, there isn't a much more entertaining way to spend a day at the beach than to watch cute guys surf. Occasionally, one might actually surf nude, but even if this doesn't happen, watching them change into and out of their wetsuits is...uhh...enjoyable. Someday, one of them will drop his towel and when he does, you (and I) wanna be there ;-) Somehow, surfers make changing their clothes in public with only a towel wrapped around their waist look easy, and if you surf it's a mandatory skill. If you took along a surfboard to try and not look like so much of a dork, it's something you'll have to be able to do, but be sure and practice this changing technique at home till you get it right or you'll give yourself away as a mere poser.
As you move north, you'll come to the main section of Black's Beach, the family section. This is the place where whole families come to get that all-over tan that's so highly desirable. One thing you should never be caught doing is staring. Don't wannabe seen by the locals as some farmboy from the Midwest who's never seen a naked body before. Bad for the image. Trés unkewl. This is the place where you'll start finding people playing games, like volleyball, baseball, frisbee, and hackeysack, all in the nude, of course. So many bouncing and jiggling body parts you might have to get back in the water if you decided, against my advice, to take a leisurely nude stroll up the beach. You'll also find bulletin boards announcing the latest naturist events happening in San Diego, everything from nude volleyball tournaments to nude holistic healing seminars. A sure sign you're not in Kansas anymore :-)
Next along your journey up the beach is the couples' section. This is where people, mostly young and buff, come to enjoy each other's company in a wholesome, nude setting. A place to see and be seen. One strange thing about this section, though, is that the girls tend to wear bottoms but no tops while the guys go completely naked. (Lesbians tend to follow this same practice, too - of the girls, I mean) This may be the only place on the beach, except for the people who are just out beachcombing, where there's even a little bit of modesty. It's also the place where, if you thought everyone in Cali was buff, tanned, toned, and cute, you'll get a quick reality check, cause here's where you'll see the fat old cigar-smoking guys with hair everywhere on their bodies except their heads and whose biggest bulges are the ones above their tan lines. Seeing these guys naked can make you question if you really wannabe gay, as if you had a choice; you might even start to think, "Girls can't really be that bad, can they?" And, "Is this what I and my bf are gonna look like in 20 years? Ugghh! Maybe 'Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse' isn't such a bad idea after all! Wish that's what these guys had done!" This is one place you might wish there was some sort of aesthetic requirement for being naked on a nude beach. Shame on you for being such a lookist!
Okay, it's finally here, the place you've been searching for all day, if not your entire life: the gay section of Black's Beach. Just past the sand dune where the last of the lifeguard stations is situated, far from the madding crowd of surfers, str8's and bears, this is where the gay boys hang. And now you're here, too! So, what do you do now? Well, if you're really cute, you just put your towel down on the sand, get out your sunscreen and start rubbing it on yourself. Faster than you can say "Peter Ian Cummings," some gay guy will come up and offer to help. Whether or not you accept that offer is up to you, but you'll certainly get the chance to have sunscreen rubbed anywhere on your body you want! But what if you're not so cute, if you're not a Nick Carter lookalike? Well, then you have to use a different strategy. First, you could try going up to some guy who isn't too busy and asking him to rub sunscreen on your back. Most guys are very obliging when it comes to helping a fellow beach-goer, even if they're with someone. And be sure to be just as thoughtful and offer to reciprocate, as if you weren't gonna do that anyway :-) If that's not your style, then now's the time to use those toys you brought along - no, not THOSE toys - the frisbee, boogie board, surfboard, hackeysack, etc. Just start playing and if somebody notices you having fun, they'll wanna join in, if only to get a closer look at the new guy and his equipment, sports or otherwise ;-)
Where this all leads is up to you. You may have just met your new life partner, or at least gotten a date for tonight. At worst, you had a fun day at the beach, saw some stuff you hadn't seen before, and have a gr8 story to tell all your gay friends back home, maybe even enough of a story for an xy cover piece, or at least a letter to the editor. But be sure to save some of your water and some of your energy, cause going back up the cliff isn't as easy as going down...uhh...the cliff ;-) If you follow this advice, you'll be a lot better off on your first visit to Black's Beach than I was. But that's another story.
See you at the beach! All of you, if you have the cojones ;-) And I do mean ALL of you ;-)