I think it is primarily safety aspects. Women are terribly treated on social media as it is, add the simple mention of naturism and it is a green light for all manners of abuse to be sent your way.
There are other factors involved. As a general rule more men use the internet and social media than women any way. Approximately 12% overall. So that has a natural effect. Then there is the fact that more men are naturists than women. Some figures suggest there are as much as 30% more men. So that pushes the figure up to.
The really big problem though is behaviour. There are too many men out there who are not really naturists who are prowling for women to pester. Steve and I have been promoting naturism on general social media since 2016, and we have experimented with who "voices" the profiles and when it has been me it has resulted in 1000's of messages, no exaggeration, from men who send abusive messages, sexualised messages, sexualised imagery. A mix of threats like murder, rape, or suggestions of things they want to do and so on. We continue to concentrate with myself being the face of general social media because it is more likely to bring up the bad behaviour so we are able to know who to block, and see exactly what we are up against, and know what behaviour we have to deal with and look out for. The vast majority of people using general social media under the guise of naturism are not naturists and are abusing naturists. It got to a point on the likes of Facebook that I gave up trying to keep up with messages because I had to wade through literally hundreds of nasty messages and penis images before finding a legitimate one to reply to, it became an impossible task.
The problem goes deeper than this. Genuine naturists have become so used to naturism being abused that they too fall into the trap, and their naturism is being blurred with flirtations, rude jokes, and following bad habits created by non-naturists, they also follow, like and approve of people abusing naturism on line, which then continues the downward spiral encouraging more people to do the same, encouraging stolen photographs and hidden camera images of strangers on beaches and creating a persona for online naturism that will put off many men as well as many women. So the question doesn't just become why are there so few naturist women on general social media, but why are there so few genuine naturists on general social media.
The female issue is also worsened by association. Because of the nature of behaviour on social media it means that the majority of women who do present themselves as naturist fall into two brackets. Those women that want the sexualised attention, often not naturists but exhibitionist after cheap thrills (and funding). One such sexualised account on Twitter and elsewhere actually got a full photoshoot in H&E a year or so back and bragged about it on her activity feed, that was full of images of her having sex with various people in all ways imaginable. And the other big bracket, probably bigger, is those that are not women at all, but men using stolen imagery of young women to attract attention of other men in some sort of fantasy and also get women to talk to them thinking they are the people in the photographs. These photographs are usually not stolen from legitimate naturist but stolen from photoshoots on porn sites. They use the softer ones to attract attention, and then the harder ones in private messaging when they pull people in.
This means that the minority of real female naturists who want to use social media, have to deal with the fact that they will be associated with fake accounts and sexualised accounts, which in turn means they are even more likely to be pestered, as well as thinking I do not want to be seen to be like these other women on social media.
Another issue is that naturism is becoming less inviting to families, and 80% of women have children by the time they are in their 40's and they find their connection to their children harder to differentiate than men do on social media, which in turn makes promoting naturism much tougher. It may seem stereotypical but men seem to have more time on their hands for social media than women. I know plenty of couples who still function in a world where men have more free time and women do not. Women are cooking, cleaning, putting the children to bed, doing homework etc, while men mooch on the internet. I am not being sexist, and I know many men would argue they are not like that, but if we are talking ratios it is still a general fact. Men traditional have more free time, go to more clubs and gyms and spend more time on social media. The problem that naturism is not acting welcoming of families, is making it even tougher for women and couples in general, so we will find less on the internet.
There is also the fact that there are more LGBQT men than women in naturism, and this will increase the perception of a larger ratio of men than women. Each male naturist couple on social media will widen the gender gap between men and women using social media as naturists.
Then there is the process of ever decreasing circles. We see this reported on beaches, and at things like bike rides, and it is something that clubs try to combat with rules that feel unfair to single men. A woman or couple heads to a beach and sees the beach full of men. They leave. We hear about this quite regularly. By doing this they only encourage less couples to be naturists on that beach, until eventually it is only ever men who use the beach. Naturism is struggling with this concept. How do they encourage more women, couples, and even families, when these couples, women and families will be the only ones at the club, venue, event etc? They feel segregation is a good answer, at least for women, give women an event that is only for women. I don't think this is a good thing, but I understand the logic, but it raises other issues and concerns and may be as case of 2 steps forward and three steps back. But general social media offers no protection, no safe space, no segregation (whether it works or not) and also offers no reliability on knowing who you are talking to. So you may think you are talking to a fellow female naturist in the UK, but may be talking to a sixty year old man in Texas.
There is another issue and that is genuine female naturists on general social media are rare and therefore get bombarded by genuine male naturists as an encouragement, this is done with kindness and welcoming support, but it can be overwhelming. A feeling of attracting too much attention, even if the attention is well meant.
Habits have formed from all of the above, and most female naturists (already a smaller group than men) have either no interest in general social media or have learnt it is not a safe and welcoming space. So even when there are safe spaces like ANW we have to realise that these habits would need to be unlearned for most women to come here, and also they are not using social media and other aspects of the internet to find out about ANW and other good naturist places where they will be treated properly, protected and meet genuine naturists.
We all have to persevere and hope things slowly get better. It is part of why we take the behaviour, rules and community so very seriously on ANW. We don't want anyone coming here and feeling that it is just a mirror of general social media, with pestering, penis profile, and fake profile using stolen images of women. It has to be welcoming to all, so when people do find us they know it is the real deal.
What do others think about my thoughts, and what would you add? Are there any good answers to solve the problem?
at December 11, 2025 6:24 PM GMT 
It is a fact, as Anna very nicely highlights that most online visuals come from the males, but that does not always mean that a site is filled with only males. ANW has a good number of couples, who like us post regularly, and we do try to keep anything we do on here as balanced as possible, so it is normal to see a good mix of both of us in single shots or together.
In the comments on this post, you say you are new to naturism and would like to encourage your wife into naturism, but feel the online aspect would put her off. Our response would be two-fold, firstly introduce your wife offline so she can fully experience naturism and become more at ease with herself naked, and enjoy the benefits. Only when she is happy and comfortable should she consider posting anything as part of an online community. We would also add that you should limit which sites you post to. ANW has an excellent reputation for online safety, which is mainly due to the high level of vigilance provided by those of us who have been on this site since its early days. All of us who wish to protect naturism and protect ANW work alongside Anna and Steve to ensure the site is safe, which does give a lot of the members including the females much more confidence in posting.
We think it is safe to say that men tend to be a little more open and laid back about their nudity, because society tends not to sit in as much judgement as it does females, so men do tend to be a lot bolder, hence most naturist sites do have a larger proportion posting.
Just to flip the situation, we do actually find when we talk as a couple to people who are not naturists, we do find that it is the women that are the most curious about naturism, and in general based on our own encounters with others, we have found that it has been the females that have talked more about naturism with enthusiasm than the males. When it came to both of them taking the plunge, men fear nudity less, and we understand that, as women do draw more attention mainly due to the way social media has framed the narrative around bodies.
It would be a mistake to compare naturism with social media, because they really are a different type of beast, naturism is far more protective of its members, and a hell of a lot more respectful to women than social media is, mainly due to the fact that naturism filters out the bad actors, whereas social media lets just about everyone to post.-
I would like to add my comments and responses, should I do it here?
