Catherina

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John Rasmussen's avatar
John Rasmussen
Jan 2

Hello, Catherina. I believe this is the first time I've commented on one of your posts.

I've been going to naturist events and places for 22 years now. My favorite places are Mountain Air Ranch and Valley View Hot Springs, both in Colorado. I've observed the gender imbalance firsthand. It's real. I've also observed that the women who engage in naturism are, almost without exception, very passionate about it. Some have expressed to me how safe they feel, even surrounded by naked men.

And the naturist men I know are deeply committed to creating safe events and spaces for every gender and sexual orientation.

That's not to discount your bad experiences. I moderate several online groups, and inappropriate behavior is always an issue in them, to put it mildly!

But I've always felt that social nudity, consciously practiced, is one key to tearing down sexist attitudes and power structures. Once we feel in our bones that we can be naked together without doing sex or thinking about it more than at, say, the average workplace or church service, we stop seeing it as an invitation to gratify our lusts. And when we get used to being naked and seeing all types of bodies uncovered, it changes for the better how we look at anyone, naked or otherwise.

This is one of the strongest reasons I've stayed with naturism: It holds one antidote for many societal ills.

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Hein's avatar
Hein
7d

*Dear Catherina,*

*Thank you for writing this with such honesty and courage. Soul-searching in public is not easy, and you have done it with grace and intellectual fairness. You explicitly invited feedback and criticism, so we hope you will receive ours in the constructive spirit in which it is intended.*

*My wife and I are committed naturists. We live on a naturist farm resort, alongside fifty other couples, and we have travelled extensively to naturist resorts and beaches across Europe and Asia. We have lived by the INF ethical framework for many years and we would like to offer you some perspective from that experience.*

*First, we want to genuinely validate your core observation. Gender imbalance at many nude events is real, documented, and a legitimate concern for the naturist community. You are right to raise it and right to find it uncomfortable. But we think the most important insight in your entire article is one you actually arrived at yourself, without perhaps fully realising it. The difference between your deeply uncomfortable museum experience and your warm, relaxed beach encounter was not the presence of men. It was not even nakedness. It was culture, intention and ethics. The man on the beach — open, honest, making genuine eye contact, communicating respectfully — was behaving exactly as a true naturist should. What happened at that museum event was something else entirely.*

*This distinction is absolutely central to any honest discussion of naturism. A loosely organised nude event open to anyone without vetting, community culture or a code of conduct is not naturism in any meaningful sense. The fact that the only mixed-gender couple at that Amsterdam event identified as swingers tells you a great deal about what kind of crowd it attracted. True naturist communities, governed by INF principles, have explicit ethical frameworks built around mutual respect, non-sexualisation and human dignity. In decades of naturist living across multiple countries and cultures, we have never experienced the predatory staring, the following, the creepy whistling you described at that museum. Not because men are different human beings in naturist spaces, but because genuine naturist community culture does not attract or tolerate that behaviour. The environment self-selects for people who actually understand what naturism is and what it is not.*

*We would also gently but firmly point out that sourcing statistics through ChatGPT is a significant methodological weakness in your argument. Language models are not research databases. They are well documented to generate plausible-sounding citations that may be partially or entirely fabricated. Some of your figures may be directionally accurate, but they cannot be relied upon without independent verification of every primary source. In a serious debate about naturism and gender, this matters.*

*There is also a fascinating contradiction in your hormone section that is worth examining. The testosterone research you quoted actually supports naturism's central argument rather than undermining it. Your own source states clearly that in naturist and sauna cultures, men typically show initial arousal followed by rapid habituation, and that after a relatively short time nudity stops being sexual altogether. This is precisely what the research on habituated naturists consistently finds, and it is precisely what we experience in our own lives. After years of naturist living we genuinely do not look at people more, less, or differently whether they are clothed or naked. The same relaxed, curious, respectful awareness you might have people-watching at an airport or a shopping mall is exactly what happens in a genuine naturist community. The body simply stops being a charged object.*

*Your fear-of-rape argument is understandable and we do not dismiss the reality of male violence against women in society. But this fear operates in every public space women inhabit — gyms, streets, workplaces, public transport, beaches where people wear minimal clothing. It is not specific to naturism. And the evidence from well-run naturist communities suggests they are in fact among the safer and more respectful mixed-gender environments available, precisely because the ethical framework around body respect and human dignity is so explicit. Applying this fear specifically to naturism while accepting comparable or greater physical vulnerability in other public settings is not an entirely consistent position.*

*We also think it is worth acknowledging, with care and without criticism, that your experience as a lesbian woman shapes your response to male-dominated nude spaces in ways that go beyond cultural conditioning alone. You raised this yourself but perhaps did not explore it fully. A heterosexual woman with years of genuine naturist community experience would very likely describe a completely different emotional landscape in the same setting. This does not invalidate your feelings at all. It simply adds important context to why your discomfort may be particularly acute in male-majority nude environments.*

*Your frustration at organisations that require opposite-gender registration pairs, effectively excluding you as a lesbian woman, is entirely legitimate. That is a real inclusivity failure in some clubs and it deserves to be challenged directly. But it is a criticism of specific administrative policies in certain organisations, not of naturism as a philosophy or a way of living.*

*What we can tell you from our own lives is this. Naturism lived as a complete lifestyle — not as an occasional nude event but as a genuine community with shared values, daily rhythms, mutual respect and an ethical framework — is where the gender imbalance, the discomfort and the misunderstanding largely dissolve. Our community is proof of that. Fifty couples, a natural gender balance, years of shared living, and a culture where nobody thinks twice about whether anyone is clothed or not. It simply becomes normal. Human. Unremarkable in the best possible way.*

*Your beach encounter gave you a genuine glimpse of what that feels like. That sense of ease, openness and simple human warmth is not the exception in true naturist communities. It is the norm.*

*We would warmly welcome you to experience it properly sometime. We think you might surprise yourself.*

*With respect, solidarity and a genuine appreciation for your honesty.*

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