Rantz: Seattle sued over nude park as city considered ‘public masturbation deterrent infrastructure’
Apr 23, 2025, 1:29 PM | Updated: 2:16 pm

Neighbors are suing over public masturbation at a local Seattle park that they say has been allowed to continue. (Photo: City of Seattle and lawsuit)
(Photo: City of Seattle and lawsuit)
Seattle neighbors who live near a park favored by LGBT nudists are suing the city over a rash of sex perverts who are allegedly driving to the park in order to publicly masturbate. It’s gotten so bad that the city of Seattle is seeking Requests for Proposals (RFPs), with initial consideration to build “public masturbation deterrent infrastructure.”
The neighborhood group Denny Blaine Park for All is filing a complaint against the city of Seattle and its Department of Parks and Recreation “to abate public nuisance and for breach of fiduciary duty” in King County Superior Court. The legal complaint hits the city for its “failure and refusal…to protect the public interest.”
The park drew attention statewide after neighbors were angered that the park has become a nudist attraction. But it was politically tricky for the city because it became favored by Seattle’s LGBT community. Last May, the city announced a plan to build a playground at the park as a way to deter the nudity that upset local neighbors. The playground was donated by a neighbor. After the city was accused of targeting the LGBT community by seeking to alter the park from what it had become, Mayor Bruce Harrell backtracked and did not intervene.
Neighbors allege the park attracted public masturbation; city hoped to deter the behavior with ‘public masturbation deterrent infrastructure’?
Neighbors said there’s a new problem: because of all the news coverage, voyeurs from around the area, primarily men, have come by to stare at the nude beach and parkgoers while masturbating publicly.
“It is now a regional venue for criminal and uncivil behavior that includes public masturbation, public sex and other types of indecent exposure, drug use, unlawful public nudity, environmental damage to the shoreline, and scofflaw parking that prevents fire trucks and ambulances from reaching neighborhood homes,” the legal complaint, obtained by “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH, alleges.
The city of Seattle has been aware of the complaints from neighbors for at least the last year.
In May 2024, the Parks Department for “Access improvements and Plan for Denny Blaine Park.” According to the city document, it asked for plans to build “public masturbation deterrent infrastructure.” It’s unclear what that means. The total project budget is $500,000.
“We have scoped the project from the initial Park CommUNITY Fund submission and will begin broader public engagement effort for the project in late 2025. We anticipate improvements occurring in 2027,” a Seattle Parks spokesperson explained in a statement. “Currently, there is a stair improvement project at the park, which involves installing a railing and landings on the south stairs.”
The spokesperson says the city removed the “public masturbation deterrent infrastructure” from city project documents, but left on the submission online “to show how the projects developed into more informed scoped proposals.”
Ongoing indecent exposure
The complaint details several incidents鈥攃aught on video鈥攐f “public masturbation, public sex, and other acts of indecent exposure (that) are happening not just in good weather but year-round.” It also says a naked man, who drives a red truck, repeatedly visits the park to masturbate with his car door open.
“In the past 15 months, a woman who works near the Park has witnessed 13 different men masturbating in the Park, with several of these men repeatedly visiting the park to do so,” the complaint reads before detailing several incidents in March 2025 showing that public masturbation is “increasing in frequency as the weather improves.”
There’s plenty of video evidence
“The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH obtained video evidence compiled by neighbors. It includes nine minutes of footage and photos of indecent exposures. The faces of the people in the video and photos have been blurred.
“Nudity at the Park is often aggressively directed at other Park users and neighbors so that it constitutes the crime of indecent exposure. For example, a naked man was seen confronting and attempting to intimidate a middle-aged woman, a Department employee, who was collecting garbage after a busy weekend,” the complaint alleges. “A man was seen alternatively lying naked on his back and kneeling naked on the hood of his car exposing his genitals to passersby for at least six hours.”
The complaint says the behavior is conducted in front of kids, as well. It says two teen girls who live with their family nearby “were accosted by a man coming from the Park who exposed himself and started to urinate on the street in front of them.”
“When he got into his car, which was illegally parked so as to block the driveway of this family, he spit in the face of a family friend who had seen his behavior and attempted to talk to him about it,” the complaint alleges.
The complaint alleges the city and Seattle Parks have known about the issue since 2017 but have declined to act, forcing the group of neighbors to file the complaint. They are represented by Foster Garvey PC in Seattle.
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