Being Lesbian and Nudist: Is it compatible?

Guest post by: Angela de la Cruz

Angela is a promoter of naturism and organiser of naturist events in Mexico. Angela is also lesbian. Not that this matters to us, or should matter to you, but it does to her. In this guest blog post, she will share her experiences of being a lesbian nudist, the good and the bad.

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I have been in nudism for about 5 years and during all these years I have seen male couples, male and female couples but I have never seen a female couple, and I have often wondered: why is this so strange?

This is a question my fiancé and I ask ourselves regularly. Is it because other women feel unsafe? but on the other hand, I have seen more and more participation of females in nudism here in México.

Probably I don’t have the answer and is it a mystery we will never find out, but at least I would like to share my experience as a nudist lesbian in a relationship, how this has an impact on our relationship and the benefits that it has brought us. So hopefully, in the near future more, female couples can join nudism and break this taboo once and for all.

Let’s understand the problem.

Okay, first let’s talk about being a female as an individual. There’s a huge social problem facing our nudity in public because of all the objectification that we have been through decade over decade. TV has shown us that if we don’t have the perfect body, we must hide it, and if we do have the “perfect body” then it’s only for the pleasure of men. So we grow up with the idea that our body doesn’t belong to us. To be honest, this is something very difficult to change but it’s not impossible.

On the other hand, feminism has gained so much strength during the last years and little by little, we have gained power over our own bodies and, as a consequence, also our own decisions. If we consider the context of this huge social problem, then we can also understand why there’s much less participation of women in nudism.

Now, as a lesbian in a relationship, I can confirm that we’ve been harassed many times by men for being a nudist couple. They start asking us inappropriate questions, “invite us” to be part of their sexual fantasy, and pose more other stupid questions that you can probably think of. So imagine, if being a nudist woman is exhausting, now having to deal with all those jerks who don’t understand anything about it and keep harassing me and my fiancée, is really annoying. By saying all of this out loud, it made me think. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there are more female nudist couples, but they prefer to remain anonymous just to avoid all these uncomfortable and awkward situations.

The truth about a nudist community.

To be honest, nudism has been one of the most safe spaces I can be without being objectified. But also, there’s this problem of wolves who dress up as sheep and join nudism just to get closer to women. (It’s important to make clear that these people aren’t nudists, they’re just pretenders). Although this is something very easy to identify once you’ve found your way into nudism, for a woman who has just started to experience nudism, can be a little more difficult.

This is not something that happens frequently, but I do believe that it’s important to talk about these things and not pretend that negative experiences can’t happen. So we can learn from this and take precautions to avoid bad moments.

Probably, from hearing all this, you might be worried about joining a nudist community, but don’t be. Honestly, nudist leaders have done a great job protecting the safety of their community, so you don’t have to worry and when you join you can just enjoy life naturally.

My experience in nudism as a female couple

In the beginning, when I joined nudism for the first time I was single. A few years later, I experienced nudism a couple. The advantage of my relationship was that both of us were nudists before, so that helped our relationship to go smoothly.

I can say that this has brought some benefits to our relationship. For example, communication-wise, to better express our feelings and what may be bothering us. It also improved transparency, allowing us to be transparent with not only our feelings but also our fears. Remember that at the beginning I said that we grew up in a culture that dictates that your body only belongs to your partner. Well, we have learned the opposite, that our naked body doesn’t belong to our partner but only to ourselves. By going against the cultural cliché, and letting more people see your naked bodies without a sexual context, we’re breaking many mental barriers as well.

So nudism is a safe place?

This is definitely a yes. Social nudism is such a beautiful thing for all couples, singles, and families, and it’s something that I love. There’s no label, if you are gay, lesbian, trans, or heterosexual, you can be yourself and no one will point you out. That’s the beauty of nudism.

But on the other hand, in social media, well… that’s another world, as for me and Caro, social media is our work media, so we publish our photos on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and sadly it is very common for others who don’t understand the philosophy of nudism to immediately see us as two sexual objects. But as I said above, there’s something with the nudist community that they protect their own, so believe me, even though you are on social media and you see creeps, your community has your back and they will be there to protect you and make you feel safe.