The following is an expansion of the opinion piece I sent into the naturist magazine, Health and Efficiency. It appeared in the August 2025 edition of that publication under the editor’s title ‘Fishy Business’.
To my fellow naturists and non-naturists alike, I want to draw your attention to a recent interaction I had with a textile and how it has got me thinking about the need for women in naturism, even if is a cynical take on the topic.
It was beautiful, sunny June evening in County Clare (remember those?), I had finished work and was driving a beeline for one of the less frequented beaches on Clare’s rocky coast. I was attending a nude swim that was being organised by my local naturist group at this particular secluded beach. I, a male naturist in his 30s, was joined by three other male naturists, older than myself. One of the group leaders had erected the INA branded windbreaker halfway down the beach from where we had parked our cars, so that any late arrivals would see that banner from a distance and know where to go. But as it so happened, one of those arrivals wasn’t so much late as unexpected. A local angler ambled down the beach and after seeing the windbreaker advertising our presence (though at the distance our naked selves were just as effective of an advertisement) he intruded upon on gathering and confronted us about being nude. Thankfully it was only a verbal confrontation and he had left us, no doubt smug that he made himself the most important person in his small world that day.
At any rate, after the angler angled his out of our way, one of the event organisers said he recognised the individual from an earlier visit to the same beach. On this occasion the organiser and his wife (also a naturist) were enjoying their day the naturist way, when they both observed our troublesome angler, only this time the same angler did not interfere with them. I think this goes without saying but there appears to have been some selective discrimination being carried out by this angler. On the previous instance, he was clearly okay with the sight of a naked woman on ‘his’ beach, in essence sexually objectively a female naturist. But when it came to a group of all male nudists, he displayed potentially homophobic prejudices towards us for practising naturism (not that it matters, but none of us are gay).
Now for my hot take on the matter. I have come to the cynical conclusion that the real reason we need more women in naturism is to dilute the shock that textiles may experience upon seeing the naked human form. See below the following equations:
Naked men = BAD
Naked women = not as bad
But this is putting an unfair social pressure on the potential female naturist to carry the burden of social acceptance from textiles for all naturists, and a mixed, reluctant acceptance at that. And who is to say that this ‘acceptance’ isn’t rooted in some form of sexual objectification? This is my own cynical opinion on a sensitive topic in naturism, but hopefully this can change in the future.
On a side note, I wonder should I take up naturist angling….?
