Here in LA, I've know of 3 different trans nudists, one of whom shows up for hot spring hikes regularly. I also know one who is not a nudist but is nude friendly and quite happy just to hang out. Obviously, I only know a small fraction of the LA nudist community.
One can't say that nudity isn't sexual or even that it isn't inherently sexual. About all a guy can say is, "For me, nudity in a social setting is not sexual." You can't speak for the other guy, even if he says he's a nudist. The only evidence for the statement is your behavior when you're in the socially nude setting. Nothing else you do or say is at all convincing.
And here is where men who are evangelical about nudism fall flat on their face. Suggest to a textile female that they ought to take up social nudism and you will raise all kinds of red flags. The bigger the enthusiasm, the bigger the flags. The only male who can safely broach the subject to a textile female is one who already has a high degree of trust with the female in question. (If they approach you, that's different.) Just accept it and move on.
Even men who are married or otherwise pair bonded do a great disservice when they try to coax their partners into social nudity. They are interested or they are not. It doesn't matter how badly you may want it, if they aren't interested and you keep applying pressure, you are disrespecting them. Just accept it and move on.
OTOH, females can talk to other females about the joys of nudity without coming across as a creep. They can even make it into a feminist issue. But a guy? A textile female will always assume its just an excuse to get her clothes off to see her naked. And as often as not, she will be right.
I can't help but wonder if clubs that are obsessed over gender balance are adding an implicit layer of sexuality. I have been in a fair number of male dominated organizations that did not obsess over trying to coax women in. The activity was the focus and if women joined that was fine and if they didn't, that was fine too.
Letting in all men and then expelling misbehavior isn't workable.. I belong to several naturist / nudist groups, most try to prevent the male % from exceeding 60%. If it's more, the women shy away. I have also attended an all gay men campground and found it worked very well, very kind and welcoming, without the heterosexual male behavior. I do wonder if my main naturist club would do better by breaking down male membership into % gay, %hetro males. That might reassure women attendees that the pool of potential predators is below the 60% de facto limit. Maybe even below 50%. But that info might also cause alarm for the "family friendly" set.
I am interested in why you think managing poor behaviour is unworkable. Is that because there are no processes in place, or is it because managers are too scared to confront poor behaviour? Every organisation has to deal with behavioural issues, and there is a whole industry built around performance management in the workplace. Membership-based organisations usually have clear rules about behaviour and outline the consequences for breaching those rules, which often include cancellation of membership and expulsion from the group. Why are naturist clubs any different?
A newbie woman goes to a club and is shy and nervous. Everyone is fine and welcoming but there's a couple of guys who give her the creeps. Maybe just looked at her a little too intently or she was sitting and a guy stood next to her with his crotch too near her face. She won't report them. She won't try to adapt. She just won't return. You've lost a female member because of issues she may not even be able to articulate.
Even when there is overt behavior that gets reported, it is too late and the damage is done. An old timer might take it is stride, even congratulate themself on making the club a better place. But the ones you lose are the ones who say, "I'm never taking a chance on that happening again!" They won't care that the miscreant is gone because where there's one, there may be more.
Enforcement after the fact does not prevent the violation. It is the violation that will stick in her mind and not the consequences. Not everyone has thick skin.
I don't even think the threat of expulsion is a deterrent. Men too often think with their little heads instead of their big heads and scramble to conceal or explain things later.
One way to reduce the problem might be to pair a new female up with an old timer female for the first few visits. Kind of like a mother protector until she feels secure.
agree, managing poor behaviour is the responsibility of the host and can be done. What is unworkable about the accept lotsa guys then discipline approach is that you just wont get many women feeling comfortable with that scenario. IMO, women being 40% or so of the membership is enough for women to feel comfortable and attend. If your club event starts out 80 or 90% men, there just won;t be women joining, IME.
If there is such an imbalance in attendees, maybe there is a demand for single sex events. I evangelize to fellow club members, single or couples, about the lengthy naturist beach I go to each winter in Cuba. The first question from women is always about the male female ratio. I express my answer in terms of the apparent hetros, apparent gays, and women (subjective for sure) and this assuages their fears.
But while this is 100% correct, it gives me no revelation. While liberals are trying to eliminate the difference between male and female, evolution had a different idea.
A Female has several hundred eggs in a lifetime and just a few dozen capable of developing. The Female is looking for the male that wields the biggest club and will bring the biggest bear home to feed the brood.
I do not agree with the description of the situation in the 2 subjects.
The first one, the male has several million cells spread around the world every day.
Therefore this explains why the male always acts in accordance with how evolution made him. The socially acceptable aspect is a different story. Here the behavior is modified in accordance with the mix of the hormones in the blood, empirical experience of what did work in the past, and geographic location on the planet, in other words, what is the norm or acceptable behavior in the society at the place.
The second is welcoming single males. Of course, there are clubs that do it, they are called gay clubs. Even if the intent at the beginning was just to accept everyone, as soon as the imbalance necessarily and rather quickly tips in favor of the male the females stay away.
I do not believe that it would make any difference if the female will spend time in a single-male company. Females cannot get conditioned to be comfortable in such a setting. She will need other females around, and preferably gender-balanced numbers. Look at the birds. Blackbirds sit with blackbirds. Evolution is not something we can legislate or condition against.
The male in nudist parks are very well-behaved, more educated, and generally at better economic standing than males in a golf club or similar. But this is not enough to overcome the negative influence of gender imbalance situation.
I do not see that this will change ever. At public nude beaches, we will see mixed groups enjoying the sand and clearly separate areas where the single male will roast.
Perhaps there are other ways to address the imbalance. Make the place more welcoming to women in other ways, have a women-only day for recruitment efforts, hold women's health workshops, give discounted membership rates to women, any one of many options to encourage more women to the group. Simply banning males because of a numerical imbalance would seem to be a brutal and exclusive tool. Surely the message is to encourage the lifestyle rather than limit growth because there aren't enough women here.
The last time I was out at Olive Dell for the Naked Beer Mile, it was probably a 70-30 split. However, at least 10% were gay males. That brought the straight male to female ratio down to 2-1. It could still have been there, but there was no discernibly separate population of gay females. This might also be a cause for gender imbalance.
I often freehike down to a place known as Deep Creek Hot Springs. It is a well known nudie haunt. When I go with a group there may be a dozen nudists split 3-1 male to female. However the population of people who visit are almost entirely nude-friendly textiles. There is about a 50-50 gender split, many of whom go nude. I notice that of those who choose to go nude, maybe 90% are males. A lot of females go topless.
No obvious sexual exhibitionists. They would not be very popular.
It may just be the nature of humans, that males are inherently more willing to take 100% of their kit off. And maybe we shouldn't be so concerned about it. Allow women that bikini bottom. Eventually they may feel safe enough to drop it. Why should we care?
Naked or clothed, at the hot springs nobody seems to care. Everybody shows up with their group of friends so misbehavior is not an issue. There are also families with children who come down. Tourists from all over the world visit. I saw a similar situation at Saline Hot Springs the various times I've visited them. Everyone wears what they want, nude is just another option. Even if full nudity is a minority, nobody cares about the other person's state of dress.
This is probably what happens when we don't try to make people choose sides.
Here in LA, I've know of 3 different trans nudists, one of whom shows up for hot spring hikes regularly. I also know one who is not a nudist but is nude friendly and quite happy just to hang out. Obviously, I only know a small fraction of the LA nudist community.
One can't say that nudity isn't sexual or even that it isn't inherently sexual. About all a guy can say is, "For me, nudity in a social setting is not sexual." You can't speak for the other guy, even if he says he's a nudist. The only evidence for the statement is your behavior when you're in the socially nude setting. Nothing else you do or say is at all convincing.
And here is where men who are evangelical about nudism fall flat on their face. Suggest to a textile female that they ought to take up social nudism and you will raise all kinds of red flags. The bigger the enthusiasm, the bigger the flags. The only male who can safely broach the subject to a textile female is one who already has a high degree of trust with the female in question. (If they approach you, that's different.) Just accept it and move on.
Even men who are married or otherwise pair bonded do a great disservice when they try to coax their partners into social nudity. They are interested or they are not. It doesn't matter how badly you may want it, if they aren't interested and you keep applying pressure, you are disrespecting them. Just accept it and move on.
OTOH, females can talk to other females about the joys of nudity without coming across as a creep. They can even make it into a feminist issue. But a guy? A textile female will always assume its just an excuse to get her clothes off to see her naked. And as often as not, she will be right.
I can't help but wonder if clubs that are obsessed over gender balance are adding an implicit layer of sexuality. I have been in a fair number of male dominated organizations that did not obsess over trying to coax women in. The activity was the focus and if women joined that was fine and if they didn't, that was fine too.
Letting in all men and then expelling misbehavior isn't workable.. I belong to several naturist / nudist groups, most try to prevent the male % from exceeding 60%. If it's more, the women shy away. I have also attended an all gay men campground and found it worked very well, very kind and welcoming, without the heterosexual male behavior. I do wonder if my main naturist club would do better by breaking down male membership into % gay, %hetro males. That might reassure women attendees that the pool of potential predators is below the 60% de facto limit. Maybe even below 50%. But that info might also cause alarm for the "family friendly" set.
I am interested in why you think managing poor behaviour is unworkable. Is that because there are no processes in place, or is it because managers are too scared to confront poor behaviour? Every organisation has to deal with behavioural issues, and there is a whole industry built around performance management in the workplace. Membership-based organisations usually have clear rules about behaviour and outline the consequences for breaching those rules, which often include cancellation of membership and expulsion from the group. Why are naturist clubs any different?
A newbie woman goes to a club and is shy and nervous. Everyone is fine and welcoming but there's a couple of guys who give her the creeps. Maybe just looked at her a little too intently or she was sitting and a guy stood next to her with his crotch too near her face. She won't report them. She won't try to adapt. She just won't return. You've lost a female member because of issues she may not even be able to articulate.
Even when there is overt behavior that gets reported, it is too late and the damage is done. An old timer might take it is stride, even congratulate themself on making the club a better place. But the ones you lose are the ones who say, "I'm never taking a chance on that happening again!" They won't care that the miscreant is gone because where there's one, there may be more.
Enforcement after the fact does not prevent the violation. It is the violation that will stick in her mind and not the consequences. Not everyone has thick skin.
I don't even think the threat of expulsion is a deterrent. Men too often think with their little heads instead of their big heads and scramble to conceal or explain things later.
One way to reduce the problem might be to pair a new female up with an old timer female for the first few visits. Kind of like a mother protector until she feels secure.
agree, managing poor behaviour is the responsibility of the host and can be done. What is unworkable about the accept lotsa guys then discipline approach is that you just wont get many women feeling comfortable with that scenario. IMO, women being 40% or so of the membership is enough for women to feel comfortable and attend. If your club event starts out 80 or 90% men, there just won;t be women joining, IME.
If there is such an imbalance in attendees, maybe there is a demand for single sex events. I evangelize to fellow club members, single or couples, about the lengthy naturist beach I go to each winter in Cuba. The first question from women is always about the male female ratio. I express my answer in terms of the apparent hetros, apparent gays, and women (subjective for sure) and this assuages their fears.
As always an excellent article by BOP.
But while this is 100% correct, it gives me no revelation. While liberals are trying to eliminate the difference between male and female, evolution had a different idea.
A Female has several hundred eggs in a lifetime and just a few dozen capable of developing. The Female is looking for the male that wields the biggest club and will bring the biggest bear home to feed the brood.
I do not agree with the description of the situation in the 2 subjects.
The first one, the male has several million cells spread around the world every day.
Therefore this explains why the male always acts in accordance with how evolution made him. The socially acceptable aspect is a different story. Here the behavior is modified in accordance with the mix of the hormones in the blood, empirical experience of what did work in the past, and geographic location on the planet, in other words, what is the norm or acceptable behavior in the society at the place.
The second is welcoming single males. Of course, there are clubs that do it, they are called gay clubs. Even if the intent at the beginning was just to accept everyone, as soon as the imbalance necessarily and rather quickly tips in favor of the male the females stay away.
I do not believe that it would make any difference if the female will spend time in a single-male company. Females cannot get conditioned to be comfortable in such a setting. She will need other females around, and preferably gender-balanced numbers. Look at the birds. Blackbirds sit with blackbirds. Evolution is not something we can legislate or condition against.
The male in nudist parks are very well-behaved, more educated, and generally at better economic standing than males in a golf club or similar. But this is not enough to overcome the negative influence of gender imbalance situation.
I do not see that this will change ever. At public nude beaches, we will see mixed groups enjoying the sand and clearly separate areas where the single male will roast.
Perhaps there are other ways to address the imbalance. Make the place more welcoming to women in other ways, have a women-only day for recruitment efforts, hold women's health workshops, give discounted membership rates to women, any one of many options to encourage more women to the group. Simply banning males because of a numerical imbalance would seem to be a brutal and exclusive tool. Surely the message is to encourage the lifestyle rather than limit growth because there aren't enough women here.
The last time I was out at Olive Dell for the Naked Beer Mile, it was probably a 70-30 split. However, at least 10% were gay males. That brought the straight male to female ratio down to 2-1. It could still have been there, but there was no discernibly separate population of gay females. This might also be a cause for gender imbalance.
I often freehike down to a place known as Deep Creek Hot Springs. It is a well known nudie haunt. When I go with a group there may be a dozen nudists split 3-1 male to female. However the population of people who visit are almost entirely nude-friendly textiles. There is about a 50-50 gender split, many of whom go nude. I notice that of those who choose to go nude, maybe 90% are males. A lot of females go topless.
No obvious sexual exhibitionists. They would not be very popular.
It may just be the nature of humans, that males are inherently more willing to take 100% of their kit off. And maybe we shouldn't be so concerned about it. Allow women that bikini bottom. Eventually they may feel safe enough to drop it. Why should we care?
Naked or clothed, at the hot springs nobody seems to care. Everybody shows up with their group of friends so misbehavior is not an issue. There are also families with children who come down. Tourists from all over the world visit. I saw a similar situation at Saline Hot Springs the various times I've visited them. Everyone wears what they want, nude is just another option. Even if full nudity is a minority, nobody cares about the other person's state of dress.
This is probably what happens when we don't try to make people choose sides.