...If there’s anything I’ve learned in my eight months living in NYC, it’s that true New Yorkers abide by an unspoken social code of mutual disregard for one another (read: minding one’s own fucking business). In any other city, watching someone weep openly on public transportation is a cause for concern; here, it’s a Tuesday. But that tacit nonchalance totally went out the window at Riis, and for once in my queer life, I wasn’t upset about socializing with strangers. It felt easy—natural, even. Perhaps it was the Shocktop I’d quickly downed or the prolonged exposure to those UV rays, but between journaling, bopping to King Princess, and devouring Staceyanne Chin’s forthcoming poetry collection, I struck up conversations with multiple friendly folks. From comparing and contrasting tattoos to mulling over our shared experiences as queer women (coming out sucks, y’all, and the funny part about it is that the process never really stops), we tackled it all, chatting until the rising tides forced us to retreat further inland.

Another thing I noticed upon settling down on the beach was that nearly everyone—of every gender identity and body type, breasts or no breasts—was topless. It’s actually perfectly legal for people with breasts to be topless in public in NYC, and I’ve seen my fair share of boobs, so that wasn’t shocking or strange to me. What was shocking was the sudden urge I felt to join the party, my lifetime’s worth of body image hang-ups be damned...