This again, perhaps, will be perceived by some as an opportunity to bring out their preconceived opinions in front of an audience. "See, I told you this was an orgy". Far from it. A desire that is overindulged soon ceases to be felt, like any other hunger. But a demand to undress will often be felt by a member of the opposite sex as if it were an act of sexual aggression, and not without reason. More often than not, it would be.

Let me pose you with a completely non-sexual story, which, while referring to a must less widespread experience than the previous one, illustrates the point.

Once, back in undergrad, I wished to pull a practical joke on the residents of one of the floors in my dormitory. What I proposed that we would do, would be to clear out everything in their floor lounge. We would put one item here, another item there, and it wouldn't be obvious where anything had gone. (Freshmen do things like this). An anonymous message to the campus police about what had happened, after the fact, would keep this from being viewed as being something more serious than what it was.

To follow the "philosophy" of the "all or nothing" crowd, I would have said something like "you shouldn't come along on a prank, unless you're willing to take part". And if I had done that, I would have missed out on a fun memory to look back on. Yes, at first, the people with me just watched, hesistant to take part. But as time passed, they got more and more into the spirit of the moment, and their hesitation gradually went away. It gets easier and easier to do something, when you're around other people who are already doing it.

A little patience, and a willingness to compromise will produce far more interesting results, than the belligerent stubborness of the "all or nothing" philosophy.

So, what is our solution? How do we solve the problems raised by requiring the men at the ritual to be nude, while not requiring this of the women? Keeping in mind that this is a heterosexual group, one might ask other men what would bother them about such a situation. One answer that you might get, would be "well, they can see us undressed, but we can't see them". In other words, it feels unequal, and they feel a little violated by the inequality.

An obvious solution to this difficult, is to offer the female participants in the ritual the following choice : you may attend skyclad, but if you are uncomfortable with this, you have the alternative of attending blindfolded. What, after all, is the function of clothing in a warm environment, but to obstruct the gaze? If the woman is blindfolded, and she isn't looking out from under the blindfold, functionally speaking, for her you might as well be dressed.

Again, the solution raises fresh problems, but fewer than before. We may be onto something. When we set policy, we do have to think of the society we actually live in, not some idealized fantasy. There are woman who think that it is funny to "tease" the men, by making a promise and then breaking it. There are women who will sneak a peek or two out from under that blindfold, and think that they're being "cute" and "mischievous".

The politically incorrect reality is that a breach of one's word does not carry the same social stigma for a woman as it does for a man, especially among Pagans (2). If you doubt this, ask yourself this. If the woman is angrily confronted by a man for taking that peek, who will the onlookers side with? Let us be honest. The man will be told to calm down, to be quiet, and to try to be a "better sport" about it.

This leaves the man without the expectation that the promise to remain blindfolded and not look will be honored at all. Until we act to restore that expectation, it will be as if those blindfolds weren't there at all, especially given how "mischievous" acts of unthinking defiance tend to encourage more of the same. So, how do we take care of that problem?

Click here to continue.