Sunday, November 25, 2018

Post #2 - Community/Platform review of Floh - A platform for singles



Location - Delhi/Mumbai/Pune/Bengaluru, India
Official link - https://www.floh.in/

Quick details



Brief background
  • Floh is a revolutionary platform for singles in India, because it has addressed one very big problem in the dating scenario - the highly skewed effective gender ratio. This is a game changer in the market, simply because the availability of an equal number of females has made the men less desperate in their approaches and this has improved the overall experience for both the genders. Floh is the only platform which guarantees a balanced gender ratio in it's events. 
  • The platform is pretty liberal and does not dictate how participants are supposed to take it forward to -
"Floh is much more than just a matrimonial or a dating website – it’s a “Singles Community”. We facilitate conversations between screened members via exciting and fun events and let things take a turn via that."
  • Members have to undergo a screening process and membership is paid.
  • All members are professionals and come from diverse fields, ranging from the very common, IT professionals to rocket scientists and entrepreneurs into organic farming.
  • There is a great variety in their events as well. 
  • Undoubtedly, there is, no close competitor of their kind in the market, as of 2018. Another platform, which comes close, and conducts events in Pune as well, is called Footloose No More


Gender ratio and other details of participants
  • The gender balance is well maintained in their events, as they claim it. No disappointments are expected. Event registrations have a fixed equal number of slots for men and women. Only if someone cancels, their slot remains empty.
  • However, do note that there are some events called Floh Pops, which do not guarantee the same. These things are generally mentioned in every event's detail section.
  • The guest list, with the profiles of all the attendees, is shared to all other attendees, one day in advance of an event date.
  • Talking about a treasure hunt event I had attended, the average age of women, roughly at around 32, was a bit higher than that of the men, which was roughly around 29–30. Talking about the age ranges, there were two ladies aged 36 and one gentleman roughly the same. The youngest, among the ladies was around 28 and among the gentlemen, was around 27. I would have really wanted to see some more women in the 25 to 30 age group. Similarly, more men in the 35+ age group could have probably balanced out the women in the higher age group.
  • The gender ratio is maintained by keeping the membership application of additional members on hold, till a balance is reached. As such, the profiles available online, via the app, is also expected to have a healthy gender ratio. Profiles are accessible without actually attending events as well.
  • It is expected to be tougher for the men to become a member, because of the higher number of men available in general. One of my dear friends, who got rejected, blames it to his lack of preparation and the noise in the surroundings, when he picked up the automated screening call. Wishing you good luck!

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Saturday, November 24, 2018

Post #1 - Pilwarren Maslin beach nude games - Nudist event review



Event - Pilwarren Maslin beach nude games.
Location - Adelaide, Australia.
Official link - https://www.pilwarren.com/pilwarren_maslin_beach_nude_games…
Review period - Jan 2018

Quick review






Brief background

Pilwarren Maslin beach nude games is a must attend, one of a kind event which is held annually during the month of January. It is an absolutely family friendly event greatly organized by David and his wife who run a naturist resort called Pilwarren in South Australia.
I attended the event in January 2018. The event was quite interactive because there were team events as well, like tug of war (Pilwarren vs rest of the world) and bucket filling competitions. There were lots of people in the audience as well, who were enjoying a clothes free day. There were kids in the audience as well and among the participants. Following are some stats, based on my observations.

Gender ratio and other details of visitors
  • There were roughly 60-80 participants and almost a 100 to 150 visitors. 
  • Event participation rules - Although the event schedule and time table was published beforehand, participants were accepted on first come first serve basis. There was a donut eating competition as well in which participants got to eat free donuts.
  • They were raising some money in a very fun way. Visitors were welcome to try their luck to be judges for the best bum competitions (yes they had these too where male bums were judged by females and vice versa) by purchasing lottery tickets.
  • Nudity rules - It is a legal nude beach, although people could be found in various states of undress. 
  • There were no "couple only" entry rules or need of any kind of membership or affiliations to any groups. Nudity was not mandatory for regular visitors. 
  • Participation in all the games, excluding the best bum competitions, allowed clothing. 
  • There were a few women wearing bikini bottoms and few with both tops and bottoms among the crowd. 
  • For some reason, the kids had to be wearing something and could not be completely naked.
  • Gender ratio was quite healthy. Just to give an idea, there were two batches of participants for men's 35+ category for the best bum competitions and one batch each for men's 18 to 35 and women's 18 to 35 and 35+ categories. The female:male ratio was roughly 1:4 (consider the bigger batch sizes of the 35+ men) among participants. 
  • On a regular weekday, on the same beach and at the same time (2 to 5 pm), the male presence was much higher. The ratio was roughly 1:10 or higher. 
  • States of undress -  By the end of the event, I think, all male participants were naked. Among visitors, I guess, 95% or more were naked. 
  • Almost all female participants were ultimately naked. One of the female participants was clothed in all the games. For the best best bum competition however, she was not allowed to participate without being naked. She did it after some encouragement from the crowd and was ultimately one of the winners. 
  • Age bracket ratio - Ratio of number of people in 18-35 bracket vs 35+ was roughly 1:2.5, considering almost triple the number of older men, as compared to the other three groups. 
  • Racial and ethnic composition - Majority of the crowd looked white. I spoke with a few Germans and Chinese. Few men, women having south-east Asian looks were present. Few men with Indian subcontinent like looks were also present.
  • I guess, roughly half were Adelaide locals, based on the number of participants in the tug of war competition between Pilwarren vs Rest of the world.

Difficulty level
  • Easy and better for beginners as compared to a regular day at the beach because of the presence of event organizers and seniors/moderators from the active nudist community. While I found the Lady Bay beach in Sydney itself quite safe for women as there were clothed as well as naked solo females present, these kind of events seemed to be more safe for beginners. A regular day on a nude beach often can be less crowded, and the basic human nature of checking out strangers  along with lack of chances of ice breakers may add to the creepiness. In such events, however, with chances to break the ice, the awkwardness factor is easily gone.
  • While you can see photos of the event participants in the official site, don't worry if you are looking to participate and are worrying about getting photographed. All the photographs with faces exposed were taken with consent of the participants. All other pictures can be seen with faces masked. Nobody, excluding the event organizers were allowed to take pictures during the event. I remember one suspicious looking man was questioned by the organizers who was looking from above. He later left. Follow the facebook page of The Gender Ratio
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