Gender Balance

Story by R.U Nude

16th October 2009

The notion of "gender balance" or "sex balance" in naturism is commonly accepted by various quarters in our lifestyle. The women who have spoken on this matter have cited feelings of being 'comfortable' in a gender balanced mix. This thus indicates that they feel uncomfortable in an environment with an unbalanced mixture of sex (ie: more males than females). More directly, and taken literally, many women are saying that they feel uncomfortable around single males. Understandably this leaves single males feeling isolated and ostracised by the general nudist community, being clubs, retreats and resorts. Many of these establishments still defend their policy of "gender balance" today despite common knowledge that any form of artificial segregation is immoral, unethical and illegal.

What is more surprising, perhaps, is the fact that most of these people who defend segregation see nothing wrong with it. Now I might be drawing a long bow here, but there have been many instances throughout history where the idea of "feeling uncomfortable" around certain types of people have led to some of the most barbaric human behaviours. Feelings of discomfort around blacks has led to apartheid, segregation and slavery, feelings of discomfort around homosexuals has led to gay bashings and murders, and feelings of discomfort around Jews led directly to the Holocaust and anti-Semitic feelings are still rife today. I have lifted some quotes from the net to elucidate members on those issues:

Anti-Black

• "Someone I considered a long time friend just told me that she's tried hard, but she feels uncomfortable around black people and we can't be friends at all. But she insists she's not a racist because it has nothing to do with feeling superior, it's just discomfort. I don't know what to think."

• "I feel uncomfortable around blacks. I really do, I feel like they wanna rape me or something. I know they won't but, still."

• "Many white prisoners told Human Rights Watch that they were uncomfortable with blacks and would prefer to live in a racially segregated environment. t is hardly astonishing that white prisoners should be 'uncomfortable' around blacks. Nor is it surprising that they want to get away from them, whereas blacks are less inclined to be separated from people they can rape, buy and sell, pimp out, and humiliate with impunity."

Homophobic

"Lesbian teen Constance McMillen won her day in court last month, but was still robbed of her chance to dance with her girlfriend at her high school prom."

"The girls were misdirected by parents, other teens and school administrators to a fake prom at a local country club while her classmates partied at a secret prom organized by parents. After a court told her high school they could not refuse to allow Constance to bring a female date to the prom, the district responded in a grounded, mature fashion by simply canceling the entire event."

"They encouraged parents and community members to host a privately sponsored prom, with the idea that a private event would be allowed to discriminate against gay teens. Only seven students attended the “fake prom”. Two of them are students with learning disabilities. Constance, who seems to actually be a pretty classy person, said the best thing about the devious prom shenanigans was that those kids didn’t have to worry about being made fun of at their prom."

Anti-Semitism

• "This, however, should not be so shocking, because in all honesty, pretty much everyone on Earth dislikes or feels uncomfortable around Jews, including a lot of Jews."

• "If you feel uncomfortable around Jews, no one is forcing you to go there."

• "She made a point of mentioning the Hebrew lessons a few times so I would know they’re Jews. I thought she thinks I may be uncomfortable around Jews so I pressed on but she was amazingly rude after she realised I was a Muslim."

• "I don't hate Jews, but I felt very uncomfortable and prejudiced around them or a long time. "

Disabled

• "I feel uncomfortable around disabled people... it's getting to a point where I find myself laughing nervously when I'm around them and i can't stop myself!"

• "I know it's wrong, but I feel very uncomfortable around disabled people. I do feel for them, but I don't pity them. However, I do try to avoid them as much as possible..."

• "I wasn't aware of this at all - I knew a lot of people can be very uncomfortable around disabled people, but I was really surprised to find all these cases of people being beaten up or pushed around."

Imagine, for a moment, if the shoe was on the other foot. If you were in the unfortunate position of being a single male and you were excluded from joining a club or attending an event, how would you feel? If you were a genuine nudist and had been for all your life, your nudist wife had died and you were now in the position of being a 'single male', how would you feel to suddenly be a stranger among your own people? Many of our senior nudists are in this position. Now imagine you are a married male nudist, love nudism and long for acceptance among your fellows, yet your wife looks sideways at you and says, "Put some clothes on! You look disgusting!" The imaging you are a newcomer to naturism, you have the misfortune of being single and male at the same time, want to get involved but no-one will let you. Then you search the net for clubs you might join and find:

1. "Something" caters for genuine nudist couples & families;

2. "Something" Nudist Club for families and couples;

3. "Something" Network is a family orientated networking website, designed to allow, couples and families to find other genuine nudist couples with whom to attend outings;

4. "Something" is a family oriented naturist club for all ages;

5. "Something" is a family nudist club that has been operating since... ;

6. "Something" is Australia’s oldest Nudist Club (est ... ) catering for families & couples;

7. The "Something" Nudist Club is a family orientated club with strong family values;

8. Membership to "Something" is available to families, couples, single parent families and some singles for the same price.

Why do we ban single people for the simple fact that they are single? If you look at the above statements, it would seem that single males do not represent 'family values'. Therefore they are implying that single people are immoral, trouble-makers, not to be trusted and unworthy of membership. And all of this is decided BEFORE meeting the individual or considering their circumstances. Purely and simply, it is discrimination of the highest order, perpetuated by many women, and supported by their spouses. And yet we completely ignore the two main reasons why we have come to this generally accepted state of affairs:

1. Past transgressions by single men at nudist venues have not been followed up and dealt with on an individual level. There is no facility within the Australian Nudist Movement for the reporting of offensive behaviour at nudist facilities. Reasons for this extend largely to peoples perception of an individuals rights. However, I believe that if a person breaks the law they forego certain rights of protection that the rest of us enjoy. I see no problem with banning, punishing, prosecuting or imprisoning people who do such things, as they invade our rights to exist in a decent and moral manner. The nudist movement's only response to this issue is to presume all single nudists guilty, and NOT give them the opportunity to prove otherwise.

2. In most cases women's insecurities have been sited for reasons of enforcing and maintaining 'gender" or "sex" ratios at venues. This, in and of itself, condones all the tragic events in history where people have felt 'uncomfortable' in the presence of others. But it is not a good enough reason! What we should be focussing on is WHY DO WOMEN FEEL INSECURE? We cannot hope to change the world for women by removing the source of their insecurity, any more than we can stop the fashion industry for printing air-brushed images of ideal women. What we need to do is remove the reason for women's insecurity itself - and only women can do that. In a previous discussion a member stated something along the lines that "To say that body image is all in the mind is ludicrous". Well, if it is not in the mind, where is it? 'Body Image' is an 'imagined' image of the body, and in being imagined, it occurs ONLY IN THE MIND.

Definition: Body image is a term which may refer to a person's perception of his or her own physical appearance, or the interpretation of the body by the brain.

Many would argue that a person cannot change their mind, but I will argue emphatically that a person is totally in control of their own mind, and there are two reasons why they cannot change it: a) They did not realise they needed to; b) They refuse to. This again harkens back to the reasons for Apartheid and the Holocaust. People were educated to believe Blacks and Jews were inferior, and had no reason to question this. Others just likes being superior. Propaganda (or in our day, the media) lay as the root cause for these pandemics. So ask yourself, do I buy the magazines that promote figmentary bogy images? Do I purchase the cosmetics aimed at reducing or removing the blemishes and imperfections which are perfectly normal on a human body? Do I alter my appearance regularly by colouring my hair, doing my nails, or whatever means possible? And when all else fails, do I consume comfort food to make me feel
better about myself?

Why do you think that 95% of all Television commercials are aimed at women? Why are 99% of all shops in shopping centres specifically for women? Why do we have a new shampoo and/or conditioner, cosmetic, mascara, lipstick or foundation every single week of every single month, of every single year? It is quite simple really! The manufacturers know that the product doesn't work, so they have to make another one to continue to make money. And they know they YOU will keep bying it based solely on the false promises made in advertising. Deep down in every woman's heart, they know this. But by continually buying these expensive and useless products you feed the monster. Or you could simply say "Enough!" and stop. You could do what I did many years ago and force yourself to look at yourself in the mirror. You could change your life and like what you see. You could stop walking down the street and looking at other women, judging them for what they are wearing, or wishing you looked like that. You could stop dressing to impress - since women have admitted that they don't dress to impress
men, they dress to impress other women.

Let us first stop treating single men like lepers and ostracising them from the nudist lifestyle. Let us accept and embrace them, and learn from their courage to be nudists despite adversity. And let us realise that, if they look at our naked bodies for perhaps a moment longer than they should that they are paying us a compliment AND following a natural human instinct.

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