Wizard, thank you for your response. And my apologies for making this reply to your response a rather long one.

First, please understand that the point you are arguing against is NOT a point or opinion which I hold. (I have instead sought to get DCHS users' support on a point I DO hold, and I believe it is one widely shared not only among naturists but hot springs users in general, especially female ones.) The point you are arguing against is not merely different from the one I hold but very different, fundamentally different, different in the central particulars. One thing that is a bit frustrating, at the moment, is that I have taken pains over and over again to explicate that I do not hold the points/opinions you are attributing to me.

Respectfully, in standard debate terms, what you are presenting in your latest reply is a type of false argument known as "building a strawman": The debater sidesteps his opponent's actual point and instead builds up a "strawman" point (a point that is materially different in critical particulars from the opponent's actual point) and then proceeds to knock down the strawman. It is easy work knocking down the strawman rather than the actual point, and if the audience is not paying attention the actual point gets ignored.

Really, though, we should not even be debating.

So let me try to delineate yet once again the sharp lines dividing what I am saying versus what I am not saying. Perhaps this further attempt at clarity can help us agree about some basic things.

So here goes. As I say, I do not hold and have never held (nor do I believe I ever expressed) the strawman point you attribute to me in your latest reply here: I.e., that the "Rules" at DCHS should involve "romantic couples forcing single men to leave DCHS Hotpools"; that "single men should leave a hotpool if there are other hotpools available [nota bene] 'just' because the couple ( in your mind ) have more of a right to enjoy romantic time in that particular space"; that "romantic couples exist[] on some tier of importance above others"; or that the single guy exists "on some lower rung of 'rights' as far as using the hotpool".

Nor, similarly, are single guys the "bane of existence" at DCHS. Far to the contrary, I have taken pains to express that I am only talking about a small percentage of unaccompanied men at DCHS, "a few bad apples." I myself was often at DCHS solo several years ago, as I explained to you in a private communication. I will undoubtedly go there solo from time to time in years to come.

What makes your strawman vastly different from the actual point I was trying to get some public DCHS support on, are four critical particulars: (1) I am not talking about legal or other "rights" but about common courtesy and etiquette; (2) I am not talking about the majority of unaccompanied men who go to DCHS but about the perverts we all can recognize there (like porn, as the U.S. Supreme Court has said, we might not always be able to define it, but we know it when we see it), whose sole or primary purpose, including their purpose in being in a particular pool at the time, is not the "happenstance" of being partial to a particular pool or area but being in that particular spot solely or primarily because he wants to view (or exhibit himself to) the naked woman or woman who happen to be there; (3) I am not talking about such a pervert spending just a few minutes or even an hour or two hanging near a couple but the better part of the day, or at a minimum several hours, refusing to leave the single woman or couples' presence for even a few minutes; (4) I am not talking about times when DCHS is crowded but only about times when there are other empty pools and areas available. And to be sure, a couple can and should leave a bothersome single guy for one of the empty pools at such times -- but likewise, the single guy should not follow them in there, and, in fact should not be bothersome in the first place.

It's just a matter of basic courtesy and etiquette. And yes, it goes in all directions.

And also to be sure, women might ogle or "gaze intently upon" nude men at DCHS, or couples might do so to men or women, or men might do it to men, and so on. But those situations hardly disturb anybody anything close to the extent that the "few bad apples" of unaccompanied single men do this at DCHS to women or couples. More pertinently, I was asking what people thought proper etiquette should be from a single guy toward a couple under the specific circumstances described. Anyone else can post a question asking what a couple's etiquette toward a single guy should be under other circumstances, and so on, but that would neither answer nor affect the discrete question which I posed. Anything else is just beating around the bush.

And as far as a particular guy's real purpose for staying near a couple all day is concerned, let me anticipate an objection and concede that no, we cannot read other people's minds. But the kind of behavior I am talking about, and their energy we can feel, gives this kind of guy away. We all know it when we see it.

If my prior words somehow lent themselves to anyone overlooking those four critical conditions and distinctions about the point I was trying to make, I hope that I have now explicated them strongly and clearly enough, at least enough that I do not have to repeatedly keep fending off the strawman viewpoint which is so different from the viewpoint I do hold. But more than that, perhaps we can agree that we do agree as to the actual point I have been making.

Wizard, since you are one of the people who incorporated the Naturist Society's "Rules" of Etiquette to "Rules" for DCHS, I appreciate your input about how you interpret "privacy" etc. Perhaps the other members of the original group share your (restrictive) interpretation, perhaps they don't. But no matter, really. What I do know, from talking to regular nudists at Black's and googling other people's thoughts about etiquette at hot springs and nude beaches, is that "a few bad apples" can sit too close to couples, invade their space, etc., and because of this, from regular nudists the message gets sent loudly and clearly that such behavior is unacceptable. (See the Black's Beach Bares website, www.blacksbeach.org, for example, under the topic "Good Guys and Bad Guys".) It is a well-known and well-recognized problem.

As another prominent example, www.soakersforum.com (www.soakersforum.com/3/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=11), present what they claim are the basic rules of etiquette recognized in Japanese Onsen baths. The forum incorporates those rules for hotspring use in the U.S., and they include the following as part of Rule #3:

"Be extremely respectful of couples and family groups. The protective urge comes to fore when an unaccompanied male appears, strips and slips into a pool with young children or wives and girfriends. Again, ask. Or seek another pool if possible.
"Keep sexual innuendo, sexual banter, gawking and displays to a minimum and everyone can relax and enjoy."

The foregoing are not "laws" passed by the United States Congress. They merely reflect some common views of hot-springs etiquette that seem widely shared with me.

And though none of the responders to my post here explicitly supported the insensitivity or bothersome behavior I am talking about, there was scant condemnation of it either. It was that virtually complete silence from the responses which, unfortunately, seemed to lend tacit support to the problem I have been seeking shared condemnation of, for DCHS.

So that's about it. In your latest reply, Wizard, you do offer some of your shared condemnation of the behavior I have been talking about. I appreciate that.

As a side note (and here I am merely defending whether my prior words were or were not clear as to what I meant), I really do think I was clear enough previously as well as now, so as not to be as misunderstood as I have been. I refer you first to the first three sentences of my original post on this topic, stating the specifics and conditions of my question. As a few further instances where I have explicated these distinctions and specifics, in my 8-31 post on this topic I reiterated the "distinction between a pervert's "right" to oogle women or bother people and whether it is courteous to do so. And [that] yes, we are only talking about a few bad apples, certainly not men in general, or couples, or anyone else."

Similarly, in my private message sent to you [Wizard] and a few other responders (also on 8-31), I reiterated that "I was not denying that DCHS is a public place, I was not suggesting that couples' rights to the pools should "trump" that of single men, and I certainly was not casting aspersions against all unaccompanied men at DCHS (in my first trips there many years ago, by the way, I was also by myself). Rather, I was merely hoping to send a message to the few bad apples that we all know are at DCHS from time to time."

Similarly, in my 8-30 post I wrote: "When I am asking for a modicum of courtesy and consideraton (Golden Rule etiquette) from single guys, I have reiterated over and over again that I am not talking about situations when DCHS is crowded, couples "trumping" single guys rights to equal access to the pools, or any such thing. I am talking about single guys not respecting couples' (or single womens') privacy, monopolizing their time, and not recognizing when they are not welcome (the three principles of the Rule/Bullet Point) at times when there are other empty pools for the single guy to go to. The starkest example, yet once more: Four pools, one couple, one single guy. Should the single guy chase the couple into every pool they get into? How about if DCHS is a little more crowded than that, but there is still at least one empty pool left, yet he hangs around for hours in the presence of the couple anyway?. Would it not be courteous for him to leave the couple alone just for a few minutes? How about if he is hanging around in the creek by the shower all day, or leaves but returns to it every time a single woman or couple get under the shower? Can't he find an equally comfortable part of the creek? How about the guy perched all the damn day on the rocks? Sure, if you asked him, he would have claimed he just likes to sit there all day, and was not even paying attention to the fact that some women were nude. But it would have been patent B.S., obvious to anyone." (Some emphases added.)

I reiterated these specifics and distinctions in numerous additional places in my posts on this topic. Regardless, if anyone misunderstood me previously, I hope they are not still misunderstanding me now.

So, what'd ya all think? -- Can we agree in this public post that etiquette at DCHS should frown on such discourtesy? That is all I am seeking -- just some public support for the idea that such behavior is not cool.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2010 05:42PM by mellowguy.