TWELVE
Honestly? San Diego: I Went to a Nude Beach and Lived to Tell About It
By Kieran Doyle
Look, I’m not saying I’ve made questionable decisions since moving to Encinitas, but I am saying that yesterday I found myself stark naked on a public beach, legs spread toward the sky, while a stranger explained the alleged health benefits of “perineum sunning.”
Let me back up.
For those of you who don’t know, Black’s Beach is San Diego’s most famous clothing-optional beach. It’s accessible only by a hiking trail that should come with a liability waiver and a priest for last rites. I passed a man on the way down who said, and I quote, “The nudity is the easy part.”
He was right.
Here’s what no one tells you about nude beaches: they’re aggressively normal. I expected chaos. Debauchery. At minimum, some light pearl-clutching. Instead, I got retirees doing yoga and a man reading The Economist while his entire scrotum enjoyed the coastal breeze.
Basically, it was a regular beach, except everyone had accepted that swimsuits are a conspiracy by Big Lycra.
Also, there were powered paragliders. Constantly.
Zooming back and forth, a slow-motion surveillance system.
Nothing says “embrace vulnerability” like a stranger with a GoPro floating past at fifty feet.
I’ll spare you the full arc of my courage journey.
Just know that it took me roughly an hour to go from “fully clothed coward” to “naked on a towel, wondering if seagulls judge.” The progression was: shirt off (revolutionary), shorts off (terrifying), and then lying there realizing that no one gasped, no one pointed, and I was another human body on a beach full of human bodies who’d all signed an unspoken peace treaty with the concept of shame.
It was weirdly...freeing?
And then someone introduced me to perineum sunning.
Yes. That’s a real thing.
For the uninitiated, perineum sunning is the practice of exposing your taint to direct sunlight. Allegedly, it boosts testosterone. Increases energy. Aligns your chakras or whatever.
But I tried it anyway. Because when you’re already naked on a beach, what’s a little more vulnerability?
It was warm. Vaguely medical. I lasted about thirty seconds before I started laughing at myself, which is hard to do gracefully when your legs are in a position usually reserved for childbirth.
Character growth? Questionable decision-making? Both can be true.
The hike back up was brutal. I passed a family on their way down and nodded with the solemnity of one soldier acknowledging another soldier.
“Good luck,” I said.
“Thanks,” the dad replied, looking terrified.
But I will say this. I spent most of my life trying to be less visible. Trying to shrink. Trying to fit into spaces that didn’t make room for me. And yesterday, I stood on a beach, naked, deeply aware of my own ridiculousness.
And no one cared.
Not in a cruel way. In a liberating way.
Because here’s the truth they don’t tell you. Your body is just your body. It’s not a statement. It’s not a project. It’s just the thing that carries you around while you figure out how to be a person.
And sometimes, that thing deserves a little sun.
Even the taint.
Honestly? San Diego is a weekly newsletter about moving to a place you don’t know and trying not to embarrass yourself too badly. Subscribe if you want more stories about poor decisions and occasional personal growth.
Next week: I joined a book club and they’re reading a memoir about competitive cheese-making. Send help.
Twenty-four hours later, Emory’s face filled his phone screen. Kieran had already dissected the conversation in the truck from every possible angle and invented three new ones, pacing the length of his small living room until his floorboards groaned.
On screen, Emory propped her chin in her hand, her kitchen in Roseville blurred into a haze behind her.
“Okay,” she said, her eyes bright and unblinking, pulling her curly hair off the back of her neck and twisting it up off her shoulders, the way she did whenever she was about to enjoy herself at his expense.
“Before you say a single word, I need you to know I cleared my schedule emotionally for this.”
Kieran groaned, sinking onto his sofa and propping the phone against a stack of books on the coffee table. “I haven’t even—”
“No,” Emory said, pointing a manicured finger directly at the camera. “Absolutely not. You went to the nude beach. And got naked. You do not get to ease me into this.”
“I sent you the Substack post!” Kieran said, crossing his arms and trying to look detached. “You already know everything.”
“I know the sanitized version,” Emory snapped, leaning so close to her screen that her forehead went out of focus. She squinted at him. “I want the real version. The hot neighbor version.”
Kieran’s ears tingled, a sudden prickle of heat rushing up his neck. “His name is Rory. And there’s nothing to tell.”
Emory’s lips curled into a slow, victorious smirk. She leaned back, tapping her chin. “You’re blushing.”
“I’m sunburned.”
“You’re full of shit,” Emory said, a loud, delighted laugh escaping her. “Spill.”
Kieran sighed, tipping his head back against the sofa cushions and staring up at the ceiling. “Okay. So. We went. It was a lot. But also kind of amazing? Like...normal.”
“I gathered that from the perineum sunning,” Emory said, her expression shifting to one of pure, unadulterated pride. “Which, by the way, is now my favorite thing you’ve ever written. But I want to know about him.”
“He didn’t bat an eye,” Kieran said carefully, bringing his gaze back to the screen. He rolled his shoulders, remembering the easy weight of Rory’s presence. “Comfortable. Made the whole damn thing seem normal.”
“That’s good,” Emory said, her tone softening, her maternal, protective streak poking through her usual chaotic energy.
“Yeah,” Kieran said. He dropped his voice, his thumb aimlessly tracing a pattern on the fabric of the couch. “And on the drive back, I asked if he was seeing anyone.”
Emory sat up so fast her phone wobbled on whatever surface it was resting on. “You what?”
“I couldn’t help myself.”
“No, that’s good!” Emory’s face lit up, a genuine, wide smile breaking across her features. “That’s progress, Kieran. What did he say?”
“He’s single.” Kieran paused, letting the weight of the next sentence hang in the air. “And he invited me to Taco Tuesday.”
Emory clapped her hands together, a sharp sound that echoed through the phone’s tinny speaker. “Kieran. That’s a date!”
“It’s not a date,” Kieran insisted, pulling the phone closer to his face to narrow his eyes at her. “It’s tacos with his friends.”
“He invited you to meet his friends. That’s date-adjacent at minimum.”
“Except.” Kieran rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers catching on the sunburned skin there. “There’s this woman, Meg. They used to hook up, casual, a friends-with-benefits thing a few years ago. They work together now. Professionals, apparently.”
Emory’s animated expression froze. She processed this, her eyes darting sideways as she ran through the calculations. Finally, she gave a slow, deliberate nod. “So he’s a bi king. We love that.”
“We don’t know that he’s…”
“Kieran. He took you to a nude beach.”
“That doesn’t mean…”
“And now he’s inviting you to tacos.”
“With his ex-hookup,” Kieran said flatly, his eyebrows leveling into a deadpan stare.
“Slight roadblock,” Emory admitted, waving a hand dismissively as if she could brush Meg out of existence. “But still. Bi king behavior. I’m calling it.”
“You can’t call it.”
“I just did.”
Kieran let out a long, defeated sigh, slumping lower into the cushions.
“Have you even told him you’re gay?” Emory asked, her voice dropping into a firmer, more grounded register.
“No.”
“Kieran.” The single word was loaded with an old, familiar exasperation.
“He’s my neighbor, Emory. I wasn’t expecting any of this!”
“Okay, but does he know you’re into him—not just ‘my body betrayed me at the beach’ into him?”
Kieran went quiet. He looked away from the screen, focusing on a patch of sunlight shifting across his living room rug.
“Exactly,” Emory said, her voice gentle but unyielding. “So here’s what you do.”
“I’m scared already.”
“You go,” Emory said firmly, her face straight with absolute conviction. “You show up. You’re charming. You see how he acts around you versus how he acts around her.”
“What if it’s awkward?”
“Then it’s awkward,” Emory said, shrugging a shoulder. “But you’ll know. And knowing is better than spiraling.”
Kieran rubbed his face with both hands, his voice muffled through his palms. “What if she’s amazing and I feel like an idiot for even thinking…”
“Stop,” Emory commanded, snapping her fingers near her camera to get his attention. “You’re catastrophizing.”
“I’m being realistic.”
“You’re being anxious,” Emory corrected, her eyes narrowing in a look that meant she wasn’t taking any excuses. “There’s a difference.”
Kieran exhaled slowly, letting his hands fall. “Okay. So I go. I observe. I don’t make it weird.”
“Exactly,” Emory said, her expression instantly lifting back into a cheerful grin. “Also, one margarita. Maybe two if the vibes are right. But not three.”
“Why not three?”
“Because that’s when you start telling people about your childhood,” Emory said. “And we’re not there yet.”
Kieran laughed despite himself, the knot of anxiety loosening slightly. “Okay. One, maybe two.”
“And text me during,” Emory added, pointing a warning finger again. “Bathroom updates. I want live intel.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m invested,” Emory said, an affectionate look overriding her bossy demeanor.
They had a quiet moment, smiling at each other through the hundreds of miles of fiber-optic cable. The silence between them was comfortable, the kind built over a lifetime of shared secrets.
“Do you like him?” Emory asked, her voice dropping into a quieter place. “Or do you just like the idea of him?”
Kieran looked at his hands, then back up at his best friend’s face on the screen.
“I don’t know yet,” he admitted, the honesty heavy in his throat. “But I want to find out.”
Emory nodded, her expression warm and entirely devoid of teasing. “Good boy.”
“And what if I go and it’s obvious he’s not interested?” Kieran asked quietly, the underlying vulnerability finally surfacing.
Emory’s gaze softened completely, her eyes reflecting nothing but fierce loyalty. “Then you know. And you move on. But at least you tried, K.”
Kieran swallowed. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Also,” Emory added, her expression shifting instantly into a comically dark glare, “if he turns out to be a dick, I will personally fly out there and slash the asshole's tires.”
“Comforting.”
“I’m nothing if not supportive.”
Kieran laughed, finally, really laughing, the remaining tension draining out of him.
“Now go put aloe on,” Emory said, shooing the camera with her hand. “And for the love of god, wear something that makes you feel hot. Not like, trying. But confident.”
Kieran groaned, burying his face in a throw pillow. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Wear something that shows your arms, and your ass,” Emory said, her voice full of absolute certainty before her finger hovered over the disconnect button. “Trust me.”
The call ended.
Kieran set the phone against the sofa cushion and sat there in the quiet rental, still smiling. The nervous buzz in his chest had turned suspiciously close to anticipation.