(Subject No. 1)

During one of our gatherings we had a discussion about the question if there must be a balance between males and females, the discussion was not finished, thus we can continue it here.
The subject is very important considering there are nudist and naturist organizations that are based on families only, others give discount on membership fare for single females in order to keep the balance.

My opinion is that there is no place for rules in order to keep the balance between the sexes, because naturism is based on the principle "doing all what your are used to do, but naturally without clothes".
In the past, before I was a naturist, when I went to the beach or to a swimming pool, I never asked the question if there is balance between the sexes, the same when I was member of the Dutch camping club (NTKC), or later when I joined a kibbuts in Israel.
I think that if we pretend that naturism has nothing to do with sex, there is no place for such rules or efforts to achieve balance between the sexes.

Dear Pinhas,
As for your question: We still believe that mixed company is important, a female minority may be embarrassing for the ladies.
Therefor the idea of limit the meetings for couples and single women is very common abroad and we shall consider it carefully.

Congratulations for opening the discussion about this subject.
I am not convinced at all that the problem is the feeling of the women.
Always those who are talking about this question are men, or men who talk in name of their women or the ladies, "my women is ashamed", "my women feels her self not comfortable", "it is embarrassing for the ladies", it is a way to turn the problem over to the women.
But to my opinion it is much more useful if we, as men, investigate our own feelings.
Speaking about my self, I prefer to be in a nudist group with at least sexual balance or a majority of women, and feel my self uncomfortable in a group with a majority of men, I can't explain it logically, maybe, as heterosexual, I am naturally attracted by women, or is it an old "harem" mentality, I don't know.

Although I agree with Hans in some aspects, and even share his feelings, I am logically and ideologically against any discriminating rules which aim to keep balance between the sexes in naturist groups.
I must honestly say, that the discussion was opened during one of our gatherings and some women complained that they are in the minority.
I invite women to take part in this discussion and if it is truth, try to explain why they feel them self uncomfortable if there is even a little majority of men.
The possible reasons Hans gave for his own feeling is interesting, I not yet made my mind to the reason I personally feel like him.
There is place for discussion why on naturist sites it is embarrassing for women to be in the minority, and for men to be in the majority.
[Hans I did not know that the Bataviers and the Kaninefates, the ancestors of the Dutch people, had "Harems" :-).]

As for Hans v/d Ploeg's opinion: coming to think about it, it sounds quite true.
In addition surprisingly we find out that although it is pretty difficult to "drag" the women to the idea of naturism in the first place, once there, it seems that they enjoy it even more than men.
So in the end "the problem is not with the girls or women" indeed.

Dear Pinhas,
Although I read your site in Hebrew and your personal site of the Sauna, I will compose my thoughts in English.
Many clubs in the United States do have restrictions on their membership.
Single males are most often excluded from family oriented clubs. There is a pervasive feeling and misconstrued opinion that single males are predators coming to gawk, and negatively influence the club. Many clubs in the US are not singles friendly.
I belong to different clubs because of the different policies. The Rocky Mountain Naturists are very singles friendly regardless of gender.
Ultimately, the choice is one of the membership. I am sure many long hours of debate will ensue on the merits of both open membership and closed. But, take into consideration that there are precedents in other private clubs. Even, the bastion of fairness in Israel, the Kibbutzim, still have at least one year's of candidacy (mu'amadut) before conferring membership.
Good Luck with your discussions.

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