Say it ain’t so!
Located in the heart of New Orleans’ Bywater neighborhood, the iconic Country Club is ending it’s clothing-optional policy.
The nude pool and bar is (or at least was) an absolute must for any gay traveler. It first opened in 1977 and boasts a large saline pool, hot tub, sauna, deck, garden, two bars, and a restaurant.
Despite allowing nudity, the business has maintained a strict “no sex” policy, with signs posted all around the property.
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The club was a not-so-secret oasis for gay men for many years. Over time, particularly after Hurricane Katrina, it started to attract a more mixed crowd, but it still held onto it’s gay-friendly identity. Then last summer, a woman was drugged and sexually and assaulted while relaxing there.
31-year-old NOLA native Maria Treme visited the bar on June 30. She spent several hours sipping margaritas and sunbathing by the pool. At some point, she blacked out. Hours passed. And the next thing she knew, she was back at her house, naked in bed and next to a strange bottle of lube she didn’t recognize. She was bruised and her car was gone.
Sounds like a bit of a nightmare.
She contacted the Country Club to see if it might be able to help her figure out what the hell happened. The concerned owner showed her surveillance videos of herself having sex with a man in the pool, then having sex with a different man in the sauna, then leaving the bar wrapped in just a towel with a third man, who she presumably had sex with back at her house.
Treme was horrified.
She decided to go to the media and release her identity, she said, to empower other victims.
“You’re always told you need to talk about your feelings,” she told Vice. “You’re told that talking is the only thing that will make you feel better—except in cases of sexual assault, then people shame you into silence.”
Conservative groups and neighbors who were morally opposed to the bar had been campaigning for it to end its clothing-optional policy for years. Seizing the opportunity, they used the Treme’s assault to lobby the city’s Alcohol and Beverage Control Board, which offered the Country Club an ultimatum: Make its patrons cover up or lose its liquor license.
Rather than put up a fight, the Country Club caved to the request.
As a result, Treme has found herself the target of a smear campaign. At least one person began hanging posters around the Bywater with the woman’s face and the words “No evidence of rape!”
“They’re upset that they can’t nude sunbathe and so they decide to attack a rape victim and that’s disgusting,” Treme’s attorney, Aubrey Harris, told The Times-Picayune.
The Country Club was quick to denounce the fliers.
“We’re very upset and oppose the fliers,” it said in statement. “Under no circumstances do we support personal attacks and hateful language. Never. Especially in this circumstance. Those actions violate the very spirit of The Country Club and the people here.”
Treme says she never intended for the bar to end its clothing-optional policy by going public with her story. In fact, she wishes it hadn’t.
“Rape has nothing to do with being naked or the clothes you wear,” she told The Times-Picayune. “I feel like them going after the nudity policy is further sending out a bad message.”
Of course, there are many County Club patrons and supporters who don’t blame Treme, but who are still sad about what they see as an end of an era.
Otis Fennel told Vice, “These gay spaces are important … One of the greatest benefits you could offer to a visitor to this community is something different, something unusual, colorful. People loved that it was a little risqué. Now, I feel there is a void there.”
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Graham Gremore is a columnist and contributor for Queerty and Life of the Law. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
Sammy Schlipshit
See what happens when the str8’s are allowed into our world…..?????
While not shaming the woman, just how did she get so unconscious? Will alcohol really blank out so much?
Why the hell did the club allow her and the men to have such open sex which was obvious to the security cameras?
demented
@Sammy Schlipshit: She was clearly date-raped. Someone slipped something in her drink.
And really, that could have happened to a man too. Gender and orientation don’t matter when it comes to rape.
jwtraveler
@Sammy Schlipshit: Ever hear of rufies? (roofies? sorry I don’t know the spelling). Don’t blame the woman. But the question of how the sex (consensual or not) was allowed to go on if there’s a strict “No sex” policy is a good one.
darkanser
I’m still smarting that they had surveillance cameras at a clothing optional resort!!!!
IcarusD
That is absolutely horrifying. I feel very sorry for the poor woman. It definitely sounds like Rohypnol (roofies) or something similar.
I didn’t know that straights were going there now. I’ve been several times in 2001-ish and 2009-ish, and had a nice time both times. Got naked (which I rarely do as such things) and did not have sex. Given the place’s “no sex” policy, I’m surprised someone working there didn’t interrupt and tell them to stop.
But as she herself said, the clothing-optional policy had nothing to do with her rape. It’s sad that (a) the neighbors even cared, since they can’t see in, and (b) the ABC used this as a pretext to threaten their liquor license. People get roofied fully clothed at bars all the time. It’s terrible, but it has nothing to do with how much skin is exposed.
joshsd816
I don’t know what happened, but based on the article, it sounds less like rape and more like she drank too much, blacked out, and then made some decisions she didn’t like when she sobered up. How is it rape when she had sex with three different people there? And they should use the word alleged until someone has been prosecuted and found guilty.
Cam
I’m still confused about all of that happening out in the open there when there is a no sex policy. Where was the staff???
stranded
It’s disgusting to see conservatives use this woman’s terrible ordeal for their agenda. I’m also quite impressed that she’s still a nudist and has publicly spoken in favor of clothing optional, it’s just too bad the Club owners didn’t have the backbone to fight.
Ummmm Yeah
The heteros ruined the place for sure. On top of this some idiot straight employee was posting cell phone video of two straights breeding in the driveway of The Country Club. They used that against them too. The bathhouse in the Quarter was also sold recently so I’m sure it is going to be shut down and turned into tiny million dollar apartments like everything else in the Quarter. The French Quarter is being ruined by breeders and corporations just as fast as San Francisco is.
Ummmm Yeah
@jwtraveler: The policy doesn’t mean they babysit you every second you are there.
Cobalt Blue
A drunken whale in a gay fleabag. LOL.
scotshot
@joshsd816: If a person is drunk or on drugs they are unable to give consent, therefore it’s rape. If it was one person or fifty, rape is rape if the person did not give their consent. The three rapists could have been friends and passed her around, or they were opportunists. The victim has made a claim of rape, if the perps are found and tried they are alleged rapists until proven guilty in court.
scotshot
@Cam: @Cam: It’s pretty easy to have sex in a pool or sauna if there’s no one close or around. Been there.
stanhope
@Ummmm Yeah: Now this is true. It is nice to have an oasis that is just out’s. While I don’t condemn this woman, it seems that she drank too much, evident from what the story says and made poor choices. I agree about where was the staff is there is such a ‘strict no sex policy” and that there were cameras. If not to ensure this rule was not broken, why have cameras? It is regrettable that one such incident turns back a nice tradition in the Quarter.
vive
Jeez. She wasn’t raped because of the nudism.
Saint Law
@Ummmm Yeah: You sound lovely.
Saint Law
@stanhope: I guess your ‘dates’ couldn’t tell you this but you don’t make choices when drugged.
Damich
That’s BS. What does the places’ nude policy have to do with it? She could of been date raped anywhere. It’s just conservatives pouncing on a chance to yet again trample of people’s freedoms.
mark511
For years this place was fine until all the young straight girls started coming in 2010 because they thought it was cool. Then all the drunk rednecks followed. Shorty after this, it all went to Hell. It happens over and over again at many gay establishments. The girls start coming and then demand the rules change.
To my young gay friends who think it is cute, please, please don’t bring them anymore.
I have had great conversations with Europeans ,mainly straight male and female, here at the Country Club for years. Many are just Nudist that just love to enjoy nude sunbathing. They know how to act as to some of our own but it is a shame many of our own straight drunk males starved for sex don’t.
But face it, had it happened at any Bourbon Street Bar, it would have never made the news. It was the fact that the LGBT community is associated there. So, kill yet another rare sanctuary where LGBT community once felt accepted and where, for a while, were among OUR OWN in New Orleans.