One of the issues we have with this topic, is the whole idea that anyone who remotely brushes with true naturism, very soon learns that naturism is a none sexual activity. It is clearly written into just about every aspect of the naturist world, and is a regular discussion point everywhere you go, because that is pretty much the focal point of our greatest battle in the world today, which is trying to get that message across to the general public.

We have said many times now, the problem with naturism, is naturists, and here we are again discussing an issue because somehow, within naturisum, there is this idea that the moment there are too many men, naturism becomes sexual, because the women are naked, so we will ask the question, why suddenly does naturism feel that it becomes sexualised because women are present, and where is this idea coming from?

Is this the reason there is a cull on numbers of men within naturism, are we really supposed to think they cannot be trusted?

This issue of percentages appears to only be a problem within naturism, we do not see it in the textile world, football matches, concerts, opera’s, ballet productions, or any other kind of club organised for a past time. Does the sailing club or golf club cull the numbers of men allowed to sail or play golf?

 Where is this issue of sexualisation coming from, and who is spreading it, because we have seen no sign of it at all within gatherings of actual real naturists, so why do women feel they are at threat? Is there any data on this issue, because we would love to see it, and comb over it, we have seen reports of women being offended on a beach by someone acting inappropriately, or tales of couples and singles being sexual in the dunes, but where are the reports from clubs and societies that show that women are harassed in organised clubs? We have seen nothing to remotely suggest that a well informed real naturist has suffered these sorts of behaviours, to remotely suggest that men should be segregated from the rest of the female naturists community.

Is the weirdo in the dunes really a naturist, or a perverse member of the public lurking in the dunes, which is after all a public place?

When our national organisation recruited an LGBT officer we asked why? We fully understood the need for one in the swinger community, after all they are sexual, but we questioned as to why was there a need for one within naturism, after all, LGBT is in reality a sexual preference identity label, so therefore should have nothing to do with naturism, because as well all know, it is “None Sexual.”

When the officer was placed, we were told it was to ensure that naturism is fully representative, and low and behold, out of the woodwork came hoards of naturists who identify as LGBT to welcome the new officer. It appeared, Naturism was fully representative already, but because it was a none sexual past time, the LGBT community had not mentioned their sexuality on the site, which they now do, bringing the topic of sexuality and preference into Naturism, the one place it does not belong.

It appears to us, (And maybe we are wrong) that whilst naturists spend all day talking about how bad it is to see the internet filled with pretenders who are sexualising naturism, giving the general public a very bad view of naturism, that within naturism, we are actually doing the same thing.

If we look back through history, it is abundantly clear that segregation has never worked, if anything it has created a back lash that had led to more hate and problems, why have we not learned yet?

If we want the public to trust naturists, surely, we need to start trusting ourselves, and actually open up to all and welcome them in in whatever number they appear in. To date we have never encountered anything other than appropriate and respectful behaviour towards Rin and our daughter within naturism, because we attend events that are always run properly, and respectfully by true naturists who completely understand the rules and the right way to behave in such settings.

The simple truth is, men statistically outnumber women, and that is not a fault of naturism, not even our national organisation. It is a fact that more men enter naturism and a lot of women are slow to join up, and maybe that is simply because they have more pressure on them from society as a whole. It does feel at times like we are flogging a dead horse, looking for something that is not realistically possible in our world of equality and diversity, and just maybe, the numbers will never balance, statiscally they shouldn't if we wish to be a real reflection of society, and maybe that should also be considered.

We feel this subject comes down to one thing, we either trust that we have educated all members well, and have clearly defined rules, or we don’t, and naturism really does need to make its mind up, and stick with the narrative, we have enough issues outside of naturism, we do not need to encourage more division within it.

I have just pondered over a message I sent someone a few days days back an thought it may be of use in relation to the idea of encouraging women in naturism, the internet and ANW. It was in response to why there are more men than women on ANW. 

"I think there are patterns and habits at work here that include naturism but also go beyond it. 

Less women use the internet as it is. This is partly due to access and safety issues. More women are pestered and abused by men on the internet - I think the figure is 40% of women do not use the internet compared to 20% of men - I would imagine social media has an even higher ratio. Also more men are naturists - an estimated 2/3 of naturists are men. So we have two a statistical issues before we even get going. Which would suggest that around 70-75% of all naturists on the internet will be men. Other websites: like our national body's Forum is very male orientated showing that these figures make sense. 

Then there is the way naturism is treated. We have always fronted our social media work using myself, so we can get the full picture. The behaviour that has been sent my way has be dreadful. Not just unsolicited images of penises, flirting and sexual suggestions, but personal insults, threats of death and rape, and worse! So it is hardly surprising that there has become a habit of naturist women staying away from naturism on the internet. Many of those female profiles that do share naturism/nudism/nudity, are doing it for other attention seeking reasons. Both for kicks and money. And even more of the "female" profiles are not even women but men - fake accounts are a big problem within naturism and the internet. When genuine naturist women see all of this going on it puts them off even more. And some of the remaining few can often appear exhibitionist - and maybe they are - and this doesn't help. Would be female naturists see the behaviour, and the comments and think - well that isn't for me. 

On top of that we have the male/female relationship/balance within couples. You will often see that couples share the men's name first, men are the more vocal and often take the driving seat. It is another reason why I often take the lead in activity both here and elsewhere on the internet. Women - and this is still often the case - have less free time anyway. The old stereotypes of men not helping (or at least doing less) with children, housework, cooking etc still plays out in many households. We are trying to go against all these patterns. 

So ANW is really having to work against some ingrained ideas. How do we get women to trust ANW when they simply don't trust the internet? How do we get them to be more vocal and visual when they are used to hiding, and fear that if they don't they will be pestered? It is slow work, and we are pleased that we have a growing number of couples and women on the site, even if the women still remain relatively quiet. It is a little like topless equality. It can be recognised legally, but it doesn't mean women will believe in the equality and feel safe to follow up on it. We just have to keep ANW feeling safe and welcoming and hope in time to inspire more women to be more active."  

The encouraged segregation is just feeding into this and making it worse. And look at the way people view it on the survey. https://www.anaturistworld.com/article/46489/2023-member-survey There is a want to show a willingness to support anything that may grow naturism. Our own love of naturism as naturists actually makes us a little desperate. We almost hero worship anyone who puts themselves out there without even considering whether what they are doing is good. So there is a want to say - if it brings more women, adults, young adults,  the LGBT community to naturism it has to be good, but actually when people were asked to think about it and answer questions their logic pulled through. That simply isn't the naturism they bought into and it isn't the naturism they love and understand. 

The wonderful positive response towards ANW on the survey was partly based on the work Steve and I do, partly based on the information and the features, but what really mattered was the community - people love the safety, the friendliness, the lack of woke fakery, the easy going respect, the open honesty and the truth that you are not going to be judged simply for being a human or a naturist. Young, old, rich poor, black, white, male, female, your sexual leanings...who cares. There is an idea that has permeated into our society that unless a supermarket puts up a sign saying "we sell to the LGBT community" that they don't - but who really would think that? Why wouldn't they serve as many people as possible? It is crazy. Sexually also has nothing to do with supermarkets  and food shopping, and anyone can see that. 

It is the whole idea of ensuring no one can suggest you are not supportive. You get an officer in and it creates an impression that you care, but in reality you should care about everyone. It would occur to us to treat anyone differently because of their gender, colour, age, race - we welcome everyone because naturism is like that. Everyone matters and everyone should be included. When we start segregating we lose the bonding, we lose that connection, we lose that equality and reality. Suddenly we become fake, we start to separate and differentiate. We make some people feel special and others not. We have positive discrimination that simply offends everyone.

The example RnR shared above is so telling. Everyone was happy going along just being them and considering naturism, and the an "officer" is introduced and suddenly people feel obliged to connect with the new label. To not connect feels false, there is a need to show support and a need show solidarity. But wasn't it better before when it was just one large accepting group of mixed people with out the need to brand people "this and that." It create an issue where there was not one and breaks up the unity. Naturism is about removing uniforms - both real and emotional - why would we then want to find new ways to introduce mental uniforms and segregate people again? 

I would love there to be more women in naturism, but I don't believe women being segregated will help. That isn't naturism, if I sometimes want to chat to a bunch of women I can do that without having to keep men away. You simply chat to people you want to connect with and most women my age will probably have a husband and children around too. I am sure that LGBT naturists or black naturist must feel the same. I am sure they probably want to see more become naturists - why wouldn't they - we all want more of everyone to become naturists  - but at the same time they simply want to enjoy naturism with everyone and feel respected and welcomed as individuals not as a political correct "quota filler."   

The lack of opportunity for families within naturism is really starting to bother me. It shouldnt , I suppose , as I dont have children, but it does. Its not like families are being obviously excluded but they are simply not mentioned. Its like they dont exist as far as some reciently announced organised naturist events in the U.K. 

When I was growing up , pubs were for adults. I never went into a pub with my parents, it just didnt happen. This week , amongst other jobs , I fitted baby changing facilities in the Brewery and Taproom ( that's 21st century speak for pub ) that I built last year. It shows how things in that industry have changed to become more inclusive to families and get away from the idea that they are places for men to go and escape from the house ! 

There are those that disagree with the idea that naturism will die out without younger people experiencing what it has to offer. They think that new blood will come along in the shape of more middle aged people discovering that taking your clothes off is a good idea , most of who are going to be men if the current situation continues ( like me , to be honest) . That prospect doesnt fill me with joy. I have nothing against middle aged men , I am one , but if everywhere I go everyone is like me , I think I'll stay at home.

Exclusive events for different groups within naturism will certainly encourage some in taking their first steps , but ultimately we are a minority. We really do need to stick together. 

Segregation within naturism needs to be killed dead, be it age, sex, or gender. We have seen and written a lot about how when you open naturism without limits to everyone, it thrives. 

Like the rest of the world today, it does feel like almost activists like minorities want to take over and rule naturism, and we simply cannot allow that to happen, every naturist is special, and also required, and it matters not who they are, what sex they are, or how old they are. Last year as organisers, we made a big deal out of promoting that the only qualification for entry to our events was a love of naturism, and we saw the results.

Firstly we attracted people from every walk of life, and secondly, we were inundated with messages from people who had an interest and wanted to get involved with naturism by visiting our events, and we welcomed them in with open arms. It is sort of surprising now as we look back how many people new to naturism we met, and that included young couples, families and both sexes as singles, and the seniors. It worked, and it created such a wonderful happy community, and we honestly believe the reason it worked, is because it replicated the textile community perfectly, the only real difference was, our community was naked.

We can understand why people would be led to believe a female only event would work, but we do not agree they serve a purpose for several reasons, some of which Anna has mentioned, namely Husbands and children are excluded. Our biggest issue is that if females develop the habit of female only events, will they not just simply stick with that, and how will that then help them transcend their same sex community gatherings into a wider mainstream that involves men? If the reason for female only naturism is fear of men, then they will never adapt to any situation that contains men, and yet as far as we know, Male only events are shunned, it really does comes across as inequality to us.naturism is not about age sex or gender, as Marc very nicel;y shows, it is about respect, and understanding what naturism is, and how it works for you in an indivdual, and also group setting, and the same rule applies right across the board, be it sex, gender, creed or culture.

So true Matt and RnR - naturism will not move forward with the current attitude. 

I think everyone under a certain age must remember pubs being an adult only thing. A few decades back they commonly segregated the genders with men in the main room and women in the side room. They have moved forward because it makes financial sense and because the world has changed. Men no longer work in male dominated environments and have a few drinks on the way home, find dinner on the table and then head out again later. They also no longer walk home and drink with fellow workers in the factory, mine etc. The world is a different place, most couples both work, people move around, they change jobs, they don't work with - and hardly know their neighbours - and often don't trust them. Less people treat pubs like their second home, but when they do go they tend to go with their partners or family. Drinking in pubs is also hugely expensive, so many people must have a reason or an event to do it and many pubs have become a franchise owned by a few large businesses with landlords scraping a living from what is left after the owners take their cut. The whole pub culture has changed. Some things are better and some things are worse - it all depends on a point of view.  But there is no doubt about it that segregation is a thing of the past. Go back a bit further and genders were segregated in schools. Most older state schools still show signs of being split down the middle with stone gateway showing where the girls and boys entered separately. Hospitals had male doctors and female nurses. In industry women worked in rooms as secretaries or book-keepers while men worked "on the shop floor." Cross the Atlantic and some of the members of ANW will surely remember segregation based on colour in restaurants, buses, military camps etc. 

The world has moved on, and has recognised that segregation builds mistrust and breeds contempt. When taken to extreme it becomes very dangerous on a global scale. The iron curtain was basically an attempt to segregate one part of the world from the rest of the world. 

Yet despite all historic evidence society is still turning to segregation, and it is being done for negative reasons, dressed up as positive. If a politician stirs up the voters over gender, colour issues it is about getting noticed, getting votes and gaining followers. That politician doesn't care about stirring up social unrest and actually making people more prejudice and bitter. Industry does the same, advertising does the same, celebrities do the same and internet influencers do the same. Angry thugs who used to be the honest cause of social trouble  (womanisers, racists and homophobes) do the same. I cannot speak for all countries, but certainly in the UK there was a period during my life time of social balance and a feeling of equality. It was pushed to far by attention seeking do-badders (disguised as do-gooders) and it is actually making things much worse. The fine balance has been lost. It is like a work of art, the painter gets to a certain point and it is great, the next day he decides to try and make it even better, but loses something natural, and then he just fiddles and fiddles until eventually he has the portrait of Dorian Grey in front of him. 

The problem is that once society has start fiddling past it doesn't know how to stop, it has entered into a Bosch-like nightmare and all attempts to move forward can not take us back. That is how the world works - our inventions can not be un-discovered - we we have reinvent and find a way of living with what we have done. At the moment the world is too scared to admit that they have opened up a Pandora's box because the whole premiss of the problem is one that relies on denial. People fear saying positive discriminiation is wrong in case it makes them appear racist, sexist, homophobic...and the whole situation is one that is based on that being the last thing people want to be branded with (and rightly so). So we have a chicken and egg situation that doesn't get better and feeds itself and with almost every month all minorities are giving more positive attention, which then creates more negative attention and more bitterness on all sides - and no one can sensibly argue about the issue because of the fear of being hated. Social media and the internet has become a living proof of our dilemma with an unreal balance of woke attitudes on one side - with all the anger and hate it breeds - and the actual bullying, cruelty and prejudice on the other. Schools are a breeding ground for this. Segregating and placing people with special labels and giving special attention, while showing a great inequality. A girl can call a boy ugly and say everyone hates him and that is fine, but if a boy calls a girl fat then he is severely punished. "The girl has issues about here weight!" Does the boy not have issues with his looks? Certain children are beyond punishment, they naturally have a get out of jail free card. It doesn't matter what they do, they are allowed to do it because of their "label" and yet other children are severely punished for much smaller mistakes because they are fair game. This new inequality is leading to new levels of unfair anger that never existed when I was at school. Reasonable people who have spent decades not being prejudice are having negative feelings they have never felt in their lives because of sheer frustration with the way the world is shaping. Brexit was a direct result of these feelings. We all have to fight this urge and see society without the craziness that is being placed upon it. Sadly many don't and many internet influencers show a need to pander to these idea - because it gets them followers and cash. 

It is being taken into all aspects of life when it can be. The growth of MeToo style attitudes is another example of negative attention being sought after 
by internet users. Abuse is a positive attention label and people will lie to have that label and attention. People seek pain, and hurt and damage because it brings them "respect" and likes. It turns abuse and mental health problems into a circus, and like all of this makes actual problems harder to deal with. Real social issues are lost in the parade of attention seeking. 

Naturism has recently cottoned on to all of this and has fallen into the trap without consideration that naturism is actually a perfect life choice to defy it. We even show a want to be recognise as a special minority and given rights and protection - not long ago there was talk of naturism being seen as a religion, to be protected under that guise. The big thing to me is that we are not a minority. We are a majority. Everyone has naturism within them, everyone can remove their clothing, everyone was born naked, everyone felt right and free and natural naked, everyone spends some time naked. Only a minority may understand naturism, but the majority have access to it, can appreciate it and have it inside their human nature to enjoy. 

As Matt says it is worrying that families are being ignored - and it seems to me that it is because families are not a cool minority and there is no "thumbs up" to be gained from considering families.  There is no credibility to be gained by saying naturism is for families. There is attention and money to be made by pandering to modern preoccupations - both in attracting attention through minority plaudits but also by not attracting the attention of the stranger danger/child safeguarding movement - which is just as vile as all the others. This is what is really tragic - people who protest against naturism do not believe naturism is dangerous they are just after attention - and will use any means they can to get it. One day protesting against naturism and the next day protesting against something equally as innocent, They are cashing in on trendy issues to give themselves credibility. Naturism (in the UK at least) seems to be doing the same. According to government statistics roughly 80% of women in the UK have children by their forties, 60% of people live in a home with children under 18, 3% classify themselves as LGBQT.  Yet we ask women to enjoy naturism without their families and we seemingly devote 97% of our attention towards 3% of the population. There is no logic. Pubs can see the logic and they used to not be family friendly. Naturism has always been family friendly so it is not just not seeing logic - it is working actively against it! I feel even writing this that I have to underline that I am not against selling naturism to minorities - of course I am not - the LGBQT community should be more very welcomed to naturism. I just don't see the logic of failing to promote to all of society and also encouraging segregation. 

As RnR write encouraging women to enjoy naturism with other women is not helping them find real naturism. It is not Get Real! It could very logically only make them less likely to embrace real and inclusive naturism, encouraging a habit and also a mind set. Men are not to be trusted, it is nice to just be around other women. So what do we have - naturism becomes an old fashioned pub 66% of naturists (men) in the big room and the women in the side room, building a mistrust of each other and where does that leave those that dont feel they should be classified as either? Some one on the survey said that women only events "have to include transwomen." And where does it leave the children? Out in the street, unwanted in the "naturist pub" because their is no room for families in this pub. So them what? The vast majority of men and women will have to leave the pub to look after their children. Leaving only those people in the pub who have no children, but many of them are couples, they miss each other so they leave too. And so we have a few older individuals left and a few younger people who haven't found partners yet. But the young look around and think I want to meet a partner not an old person so they leave. And so only old single people are left and they look around and think - naturism is dying. And the naturist landlord looks in and thinks "I don't want a bunch of old single people in my pub- it isn't good for trade. So he point at the old "No single males allowed!" sign behind the bar and usher them out. Then the pub is empty, so he look outside and all he see left are the LGBQT naturists that were still wondering where they fitted in, so he puts a sign up at the naturist pub door saying "We love LGBQT naturist" - so they come in but what about everyone else? What went wrong? Segregation! 

How does he then change things - he could decide to no longer segregate - men, women, children, old people, young people - everyone welcome - the naturist pub is now fully inclusive. Yet each individual that comes to the door feel minoritised because they ignored they are now the first there and only the brave few will cross the threshold. So the landlord thinks OK I will try again, and starts to entice them in with segregating again. Women only nights! Couples Nights! And so the whole depressing circle starts again.  And sometimes he even falls into the trap of allowing these segregated events to be exactly as they sound - sexualised! And of course that just makes more people stay away, and attracts the completely wrong crowd. And before you know it the naturist landlord has a choice to make. Does he close shop altogether or does he rebrand as a sex club. He already has the windows blacked in because of the shock of nudity to passerby- lets face it most of them already wonder what is happening behind those doors, so why not just let it happen and guarantee a bit of trade. And the naturist pub descends into oblivion and is lost forever. 

Of course there is another solution and it is so easy because it is what naturism has been doing for years. The naturist pub of the UK should never consider segregating at all, and then no one ever feels unwanted and the pub has mass appeal. As long as everyone behaves suitably for the universal cliental - but that is easy enough - as that is why people are there - so the odd person who doesn't get it can just be bounced out - and all is wonderful.