Playing Mermaids: Finding Community at Jacob Riis Beach

Written by Leah (Bunny) Overstreet

Photo features Lesbian Hands Zine

I’ll be insufferable and quote my own poetry:

“This summer I’m taking my ass to Jacob Riis Beach

Where top-surgery scars and butch-tits are flaunted up and down the shoreline 

And girl-fags and boy-dykes smoke Newports and collect seashells

I’m going to admire and flirt with the tattoos you can’t see with clothes on

And eat mangos and nectarines the only way I know how: sloppy”

And this summer I’ve been doing just that — taking advantage of my little girly pop barista job and going to the beach on random Tuesdays when the heat is a bully that drives me to New York’s shockingly accessible shoreline. More specifically I’ve been taking two trains and a bus to Jacob Riis — the gay, topless, and occasionally nude beach that my friends and I refer to as“ the hottest club in New York.” 

I’ve been crisping up my tanlines and gossiping and eating ice cream and bumping into everyone I know. But more than anything, I’ve been playing mermaids! Yes, seriously. I’ve been convincing friends and strangers alike to go splashing in the water with me, demanding to know about their mermaid fursonas. As silly as it may have felt at first, I’ve yet to meet a single baddie who didn’t want to play mermaids. 

In fact, every time, their eyes light up and salt-water grins spread across their faces as they tread water and describe in intimate detail the color of their imaginary tail (mine would be opalescent pink on pink with a purple, heart-shaped tail fin if you even fucking care. Someone else calls dibs on an iridescent, aquamarine ombre tail and another boasts about a full gold luminescent tail with glittery dorsal fins. This sparks a unanimous agreement that there are important distinctions between opalescent, iridescent, and luminescent as well as shimmery, glittery, sparkly, and glimmery. 

These childhood games come back to many of us instantly while those of us more recently acquainted with girlhood are quick to learn that the whole game is about designing your character and coming up with waaaay cooler mods and powers than any of the girls who spoke before you. 

I recount my childhood crush on the mean mermaid from “ Barbie Mermaidia” and go back and forth with my new friends, talking about our favorite moments from the“ film.” Everyone, ages ranging from 21 to 35, feels a wave of nostalgia and their voices volley over each other in order to shout their favorite Barbie movie first and debate which ones were like so totally queer coded. 

No one is trying to be cool and no one is being mysterious, we are all just giving into the silliness and allowing ourselves to play, even at our big ages. There is just something about the beach that makes everyone game. 

My friend has broken out the“ Sexy Jenga” tiles that they hand painted and wrote sexual dares onto at age 15. And just like in high school, everyone jumps at any opportunity to kiss. I watch my friends three-way-kiss because they were triple dog dared while I giggle and squeal at the performance. And when it’s my turn I give a sandy-cheeked lap dance for my salty-skinned spectators. 

This summer I made it my mission to make beach trips a more casual endeavor with no need for an occasion or extensive planning. I’ve been to the beach 7 times this summer and have two separate beach plans on the books as of writing this. And while the ocean has always been and will forever be my girlfriend, it’s really Riis Beach specifically that has inspired me to make the trek nearly once a week. For reference, Jacob Riis is approximately one hour and thirty minutes from where I live and no more than 3 blocks of shoreline with only half of it being gay. Doing the mental math, that’s only one and a half blocks to squeeze in all of your exes, current lovers, and friends into this little slice of paradise. It’s essentially the place to run into anyone and everyone in the queer scene of Bushwick and beyond. I remember being initially surprised by how small the actually gay part of Jacob Riis is, once tiptoeing my way through a labyrinth of beach blankets and sandy toes and doing a horrible job of concealing my utter horror at the amount of straight people there were. White, nuclear families and boy-girl friend groups that could have been the cast of Love Island for all I know stared back at me and my gaggle of tatted up fiends in mutual terror. Until suddenly my jaw unclenched and my shoulders relaxed as we cross the invisible line separating the two worlds. Past this threshold, the nipple is freed and bears in bright pink speedos oil the backs of their new lesbian gal pals. Everything was right in the world as I entered this queer oasis for the first time since last year. 

I find these worlds existing so close to each other to be so amusing, and I’m more than a little smug that we get primary custody of the singular ice cream truck on the boardwalk. And I love how tiny our little gay stretch is, because it almost forces us to mix and mingle and bump into“ who all there.” It’s a concentrated area that attracts people who are no more than one degree of separation from each other, so it feels natural to adopt one another for the day. On the beach where boys wear bikinis and two dykes who used to date sisters can have a date babysitting their friend’s gayby (true story btw), anything feels possible. 

Everyone belongs to you on the beach. Beach babes barely acquainted with you will wave wildly for you to lay your blanket next to their island until an archipelago of friends of friends is formed. Maybe we’re all just a bunch of commies, and maybe we are just eager to make new friends, but on the beach we are all suddenly so much more accessible to each other. Merely being neighbors on the sand strikes up conversations and what’s-mine-is-yours mentalities. Following one game of mermaids, a large tent full of sexies once offered a friend and I snacks, sunscreen, a full tent, and even a ride home. And the energy is contagious! I even offered one of those babysitting dykes a scoop from my full tub of leave-in-conditioner, a soft brush, and some edge control when she was hesitant to dive into the water for fear of ruining her natural hair. 

I get something out of the beach that I haven’t really gotten out of a“ third space” maybe ever : permission to be a community. It strips away the awkwardness that sometimes hangs around in other social spaces and makes it really feel like a home away from Bushwick.

This all might sound unremarkable to an Angelino who has the chance to hang ten and kowabunga all year long but one of the things I love most about New Yorkers is their ability to make each season feel utterly remarkable. We’ve had plenty of time to miss the heat and now we are back in a full-fledged honeymoon stage with summer — running through sprinklers (fire hydrants) and frolicking in the meadow (Tompkins Square Park). I think this excitement for the season is part of what makes the beach feel so communal here. 

It feels sort of like being at a public playground as a kid where it doesn’t really matter that you don’t know someone, you’re all just there to have fun and the whole concept relies on us getting over ourselves. Our hair is a mess, we are all covered in sand, we’re stuffing our faces with homemade sandwiches, and eating fruit in the sloppiest way possible. We all schlep to Jacob Riis to have fun in spite of ourselves and how could we possibly resist a good game of mermaids?