Some Thoughts on Women and Nudism

Why aren’t there more women in nudism? And what can we do about it?

Consider the following scene which might take place in a nudist setting:

A young, beautiful, completely nude woman approaches a pool. She gracefully performs a swan dive into the crystal clear water, penetrating the surface with barely a splash. Her lithe body moves elegantly beneath the surface. Water flows freely around the curves of her bare skin as she swims to the other end. She reemerges on the shallow side, where she stands and wades the rest of of the way to the pools edge. Goosebumps cover her body. Droplets of water fall from the tips of her hard nipples. Warm sunlight makes her wet bare skin glisten. She smiles and looks up at a young man, himself also completely nude, standing near the edge. “The water is beautiful,” she says to him. “Join me?”

This could very easily be the opening scene to a porn movie. Most people would view that scene and assume she wanted to have sex, and was inviting that young man to have sex with her. Most young men would certainly assume that’s what it was and react accordingly.

But at a nudist club or resort? None of those assumptions get made, not least because none of those assumptions are true. That young woman wasn’t thinking anything sexual as she dove into the pool, and she wasn’t inviting the young man to anything sexual when she invited him in. She doesn’t worry that the young man will think he can have sex with her, even though she’s attractive and completely nude. And in fact the young man doesn’t think anything of the sort. He’d probably get in the pool with her to cool off, and they’d share an amicable conversation there and nothing more.

In a nudist setting her nudity is not seen as an invitation to be ogled or groped. She’s certainly not nude for the sexual benefit of the young man in question. She’s nude because she wants to be nude, for herself and no one else. And having made the choice to be nude, she’ll be treated the same as if she were fully dressed. Anyone who encounters her at a nudist venue will make no assumptions about her sexual availability just because of her state of undress.

This is the power of consent, discussed at length in a previous essay.

The only winning move is not to play.

Meanwhile in the outside world, women are still routinely cat called on the street for wearing… well, pretty much anything. Their nipples are deemed too obscene to be displayed in public or on social media. If their outfit is deemed too immodest at school they’ll be sent home for distracting the boys. If they show too much skin they’ll be shamed as sluts. Women are still disgustingly asked what they were wearing when they were sexually assaulted, as if certain articles of clothing mean she was “asking for it”.

Nudists understand that by disrobing, a woman is not consenting to anything other than enjoying a nice day. They don’t think a woman is asking for it by showing skin, they don’t think a woman should be treated differently based on what she’s wearing, they don’t hold ridiculous notions that a woman should dress modestly to avoid tempting men into raping them.

From a fantastic photo series by the artist Rory Banwell. https://stillnotaskingforit.org/

Men in a nudist setting are held accountable for their own behavior, and are expected to control whatever urges they might feel at all times. And countless nudist men do this every day without thinking about it.

Further, the scene above described the woman as young and beautiful. What if she weren’t? What if she were instead overweight? Old? Scarred? Transgendered? Mainstream society deems some bodies too ugly to wear revealing clothes, let alone be completely nude. Women with those body types are regularly mocked and derided and called gross.

An entire industry exists trying to convince even the beautiful woman described at the beginning that her body isn’t perfect enough and can only be made so by buying their products. Regardless of a woman’s body type, she’s made to feel bad for it. She’s too short or too tall, too fat or too skinny, her breasts aren’t big enough, or they sag too much, or they’re so perky they must be fake.

Thankfully, someone added appropriate commentary to this ad, which somehow got approved and run in 2017.

Yet any woman in a nudist environment can expect but one reaction to her nude body no matter what she looks like: acceptance.

Her mere presence in that setting is a powerful rejection of the sociocultural messages that she’s failing to meet an impossible standard of beauty. The acceptance of all ages and body types by nudists is a clear repudiation of the idea that only the young and beautiful should be valued.

In few other environments is a woman’s autonomy so highly respected and her physical appearance so irrelevant. Social nudism is the antithesis of the sexist bullshit that most women face in their day to day life. It’s hard to imagine anything that could be more woman friendly than that, and the appeal of it should hardly need selling: “Here’s a place where you’ll be valued no matter what you look like and respected no matter what you’re wearing.”

And yet the nudist world has trouble attracting and retaining women. Men are simply far more likely than women to become active nudists. Resort owners and managers are mostly male. Club members and visitors are mostly male. Our leaders are mostly male. I, the author of this essay, am a male. As a result of all this, the gender ratio at most clothing optional venues range from having men as the majority to having men as the overwhelming majority. In light of everything I just wrote that seems a little weird, doesn’t it?

Before I go much further, I’d like to add a disclaimer. I’m a man. As a general matter, I don’t like to speak on what women want, or need, or feel, because I believe they’re more than capable of speaking for themselves. This essay is based in large part on many conversations with numerous smart and capable woman who have been good enough to share their thoughts and opinions with me, and I’ll strive here to represent their views as accurately as I can. Nevertheless I’m still a man speaking about women’s thoughts and feelings. So let me be the first to observe that any accusations of hypocrisy that might get lobbed my way are at least somewhat accurate.

Nonetheless, I’m choosing to write about this because it’s an important topic for the nudist community, as well as one of the most commonly discussed questions among nudists themselves. “How do we attract more women to the lifestyle?” And it’s a good question to ask, regardless of our gender.

The first answer most nudists will commonly come up with is a fairly obvious one. Women face much greater pressure with regards to body image and sexual objectification than men do. The fact is there are an array of sociocultural factors lined up to make women feel insecure about their bodies and less than enthused about the prospect of spending a day nude around other people. Men simply aren’t subjected to this to nearly the same degree. They have less to fear from being objectified, and there’s much less pressure on them to look a certain way.

This explanation has the benefit of being completely true. And nudists do their part to address these issues. The nudist community promotes messages of body acceptance and against objectification at every opportunity. These efforts are important, and good for nudists to talk about. While negative body image is indeed a barrier to trying nudism, nudism itself offers a cure to the men and women who are made miserable by this culture of body shaming. It’s one of the great things about this lifestyle and one of the best reasons to participate and support it.

But I think that because these societal factors offer such a powerful answer to the question “Why aren’t there more women?”, many nudists basically stop there and assume that’s the entire explanation. However, I don’t believe that’s the the case.

At issue, we’re not just failing to get women who feel too insecure with their bodies to try social nudity. We’re also failing to attract many women who’d otherwise be open to the idea to try it, and we’re failing to make sure the women who do try it want to come back. Which suggests that the nudist community itself isn’t living up to the ideal described above.

While there are undoubtedly a great many powerful social factors that stop women from considering social nudism, those factors are completely external to nudism itself. We as nudists can and should do our part to change that, but it’s ultimately something we have no real control over. What we do have complete control over is what women experience within our clubs and resorts, and we should ask ourselves if that experience is as inviting and welcoming as it possibly can be. So before we try to change the culture outside the gates of clubs and resorts, we should first take a hard look at the culture within them.

So let’s ask the question. Why don’t more women participate in nudism?