Has the MeToo debate arrived at the naturist movement? Are we aware of the gender-sensitive questions that arise for naturists? As naturists, do we have to find answers to questions that we have shirked so far? I do believe that a new era begins. At the beginning women were encouraged to use tweets to draw attention to the extent of sexual assaults and harassments. This made it obvious that the shift of power relationship between the sexes had gotten a daily problem.

The MeToo debate has hardly been conducted among naturists. Naturism and sexuality are considered as mutually excluding each other. Some naturist fans go that far to declare sexuality being a taboo. But the aim of the MeToo activists was and is to allow the encounter between women and men at eye level. Women also want equal rights when it concerns the topless activists in the USA. They want to bare the upper part of their body in everyday life, just as men do. Simply, because they feel good that way.

But what is the acceptance between sexes when naturists are among themselves? Some women feel good when they wear a (swim) panty during their period. They do this also when they move around in a naturist resort. For some people they hereby question naturism in its purest form. They are told that they have to undress completely, otherwise they could as well leave the naturist resort.

The imbalance between the sexes is already noticeable when telling a simple situation. Women are pushed to oppose their own wellbeing. This is worrying because they are addressed by men who cannot even assess the psychosexual aspects of the monthly bleeding.

For me, the next questions arise. During the recent years it has become clear that, beyond female and male, more sexes seem to exist. For naturists as well as for the majority of the contemporary societies, this means to have to leave one’s own thinking paths. There is no longer black and white, but also many shades of grey. These shades of grey will represent many challenges in relation to sexuality and the psychosocial genesis of a person.

For me, this is currently also a task I have to deal with. I feel which forming I bring along from my life story. It is difficult to find words that are beyond my own notions of thinking and feeling. Sexuality is one of those. Women and men like it together, women and women as well as men and men like it at least as much. And now there are more varieties of sexual expressions and ways of life. Simultaneously there are more genders than we can imagine so far.

As naturists, we are invited to open up to the variety of the lived sexuality and the variety of genders

This will also shift the balance of power between the genders. There are no longer just women and men. And it will no more be that easy to tell the menstruating women how to behave, when they do not feel well in their own body and with their own soul.

An exciting time awaits us as naturists