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"Nudity and expanding one's erotic vistas was an important element of the hippie society. Peace, nudity and making love were synergistic. Sex was not a dirty word; the rally cry of the day was Make Love Not War."
Gene Anthony saw it all, the happy, the high and the humble, and his observations and wit have become the compass rose in our map of the not-so-distant past. See more of the era through Anthony's eyes in the verbal sketches he wrote to accompany some of his photographs. | ||
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San Gregario
San Gregario Beach, a few miles down the coast from Half Moon Bay, got a name for its solitude in the sixties. The San Francisco Examiner heard that hippies were running around nude in a secluded section of the beach and the gawkers came in droves. All of us were toting Nikons. Imagine! Grown men and women walking the beach nude in plain sight of buzzing aircraft, and peeping tourists. The nude beach phenomenon was additional gress for a growing protest by hippies and nightclub comedians highlighting the times. Click here to purchase. |
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Nude Party in the Haight
Nude party of the Sexual Freedom League in the Haight Ashbury, '67. I got the impression that the host tried to focus on the aspect of party fun; games people could play; body painting and spin the bottle. (A bottle of beer or what ever is laid on the floor and then someone would spin it. Who ever the bottle stopped at would have to take a drink, remove an item of clothing, then spin the bottle.) |
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A student statement
Two women stroll topless near San Francisco State College. The women were protesting the fact that people were suggesting a law demanding women wear bras at a time when hippie women were beginning to shed them Click here to purchase. |
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The Cockettes
During the waning days of 1967, I heard rumors of strange goings on in North Beach at the old Columbus Theater out on Columbus Avenue near Union Street. In the 60s the theater was showing Chinese movies. A friend told me about having seen an item in Herb Caen’s, San Francisco Chronicle column, about a group calling themselves the Cockettes, who were holding midnight programs consisting of fashion shows, and ‘Campfire’ skits, along with general all around craziness. The shows were all informal on the spot creations based on someone’s whim du jour that lasted till dawn. When I first met some of the cast, I was surprised to see what I thought were women wearing satin and jeweled gowns cut to their butts, hairy arms and backs, and sporting beards. I was able to convince one rendition of the company to pose for me assembled on a cable car. The Cockettes lasted together as a group, for several weeks, in the bay area, then drifted off, turning up again in New York at the end of the decade.
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All photographs © Wolfgangsvault.com/Gene Anthony. All rights reserved.