A chance email exchange recently with another Buffer stimulated me to reflect on why Tantra has become such an important influence on my attitudes. Tantra appears to have many guises - from mystic religion to wonder cure for impotence. Probably because its philosophy and practice is intensely personal it is very difficult to discover what Tantra is without experiencing it. Behind all the religious symbolism and sensual hype it is possible to find, if you are willing to dig a bit, a lot of practical advice.

In a fit of boredom I decided to experiment with just one simple aspect of it. Just by applying some simple principles I found the outcome was exactly as described. And no need at all for all the religious symbolism and fancy oriental terminology. Kolb's principles of experiential learning work just as well with Tantra as they do with teamwork.

What I have found interesting about Tantra is that its fundamental purpose appears to be the removal of gender from the power balance. Until I bring my own female and male qualities into harmony I cannot expect to create a balanced relationship with anyone else.

I am a nudist because I do not want to hide my sexuality. For a long time I was worried that I could become aroused in the company of men just as easily as in the company of women. What I have discovered is that by accepting this, I can look beyond gender and genitalia to discover what it is that I find arousing. In every case it is the mind and the ideas, emotions, wonder, curiosity, creativity that it contains. Tantra is really about harnessing our essential sexual energy by turning it into a shared creative force in our lives.

All my life I have been puzzled by the fact that so few women embrace nudism in the way men do. In my experience women are just as interested in sex as men, and just as likely to ogle another person on a nudist beach, just as likely to have exhibitionist tendencies as any man (or not, since not all men are as depraved as I am). But women very rarely admit this openly and virtually never demand the same fundamental personal privileges as men, despite a century of struggle.

I read somewhere in one of the texts that in Tantra man and woman share equally from the tree of knowledge - but wherever you look that balance is weighted most heavily in favour of the male, thanks to ten millennia of civilisation - just read Aristotle or Plato or even Homer to see how firmly entrenched male power had become by the Bronze Age, and how little it has changed since.

I used to think that all we men had to do to encourage women to embrace nudism as fully as their brothers was behave decently and respectfully. Sadly that is a bit like William and Mary signing the English Bill of Rights and saying "we'll be good constitutional monarchs and listen to the people's parliament, but we'll keep all the land, money and privileges for ourselves, thank you very much."

All these reflections have led me to the thought that nudism needs to find its Tantric heart. Since we men dominate the movement, it is up to us men to give up our desire to suppress our femininity and encourage women to celebrate their masculinity, paradoxical though that may sound, Just remember that the best games are played on a level playing field.