Exposed – Monday 1st July 2024
A few days ago, I was on the return leg of a long beach walk and thought to myself “oooh, let’s go up into the dunes and walk back via the coast path”, only to be met by a man with his willy hanging out, wearing nothing but flip-flops. To say I was shocked is an understatement. I felt panic, and quickly retraced my steps back onto the beach and towards where I could see other folk. Could he see that he’d caused distress? Almost certainly. Is he likely to have been bothered? No. He carried on walking, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, in full view.
I know that some folks will find this funny, and that others will pretend they find it’s funny because they think they’re supposed to. Whenever I read defences of public nudity they’re usually written by men who say things like “I don’t see where the harm is”, and it makes me both angry and sad that they don’t understand the fear that so many women feel when out walking, and that they can’t even try to put themselves in our shoes. So no, I did not find it funny. I found it scary, and know full well the impact such experiences have on other women (and men), who’ve experienced sexual violence and abuse. We didn’t have a choice about seeing men’s naked bodies then, and when someone strips off because they’ve decided they want to, and that it’s their right to flaunt it, because ‘nature’, or they want to ‘feel free’, they’re forgetting this one thing – that in the act of doing this, we’re being denied the right to choose whether or not we see their nudity. They very much have the upper hand. And that’s not ok.
This wasn’t a nudist beach, so it’s not as if I should have expected to see that, and it’s not that I’m against nudity – if you want to do it in designated spaces then go ahead. If you want to do it in your garden, then go ahead. If you want to strip off in a remote waterfall pool where the chances of seeing other people are slim to zero, then go ahead. Am I equating nudity with violence or the will to cause violence? No, but I do think that everyone should feel safe, and that such things should be consensual, so when one party decides that what they want to do, because it’s their god given right, takes precedence over the welfare of others, well then Houston, we have a problem.
First blog post – Friday 14th June 2024
Blog number one. Where to begin? Well let’s start with why I’m doing this. Over my lifetime the wilds have helped me manage all sorts of life events and situations, some of which have been traumatic. From an abusive childhood, to having my husband Rich die at the age of 37, life has never been easy. As a teenager, walks by the sea helped me hold on to the hope that sustained me, when the situation at home threatened to overwhelm.
As a young adult, I discovered the hills, and they helped me cope with what unfortunately turned out to be a series of jobs where I was bullied quite badly – bullies always target those they see as vulnerable. But as my confidence in the outdoors grew, so did my ability to push back, and eventually demand that I be treated with respect. By the time I met Rich I was what he described as “a little firecracker”. And when he died unexpectedly, the hills and the wild waters were one of the few things that helped me keep my promise to him – to stay alive.
I will never ever use words like ‘heal’ or ‘cure’ to describe the effect of the wilds on helping to manage the impact of trauma, or in general really. But for oh so many reasons (to be discussed over lots of blogs in the future), being and doing in the wilds can help us develop effective tools and strategies, that enable us to move forward in ways that don’t cause further harm, and can also help undo some of the damage inflicted in the past. It’s about managing the way life has turned out, rather than rewriting the past. And finding ways to move forward, rather than staying put in a place that might not be entirely good either for ourselves, or others.
We all strategise, but sometimes we need a little bit of help bringing those strategies to life, and shaping them into something constructive. That’s where I come in. Using what I know, in tandem with wilding in the way that we will, and the reaction that occurs when being in the wilds is facilitated in a certain way, I can help you develop tools and strategies that will make life, particularly after you’ve experienced trauma, a tad easier to bear. Tools and strategies that you can carry forward into other areas of your life. I’m not claiming alchemy, but I am a bloody good facilitator, even if I say so myself!
