[Paddlewise] FW: Gay bladers

>>
Our company culture is such that employees of both genders and both   gender
preferences mix and match to go on trips, choosing one another on the   basis
of skill, compatibilty, and ability. In this environment, going touring   with
someone does not neccessarily imply you're sleeping with them. When I met   my
wife a few years ago, it did take her awhile to be convinced that there   was
such a thing as "platonic touring" with some one of the opposite sex.
>>

I used to lead a lot of trips for the singles division of the North Star
Ski Touring Club, many of them long weekend and week-long wilderness   trips
in the Boundary Waters. It was so common for men and women to share tents   
on these trips that it never caused comment aside from an occasional
ribald remark about shadows on a tent wall. As far as I know, most of
these arrangements were platonic. (Considering how thin tent walls are,
it's hard to have any other kind of arrangement on a group trip, though
some people do manage it.)

So used to these arrangements was one fellow I knew that, during a
whitewater class in another club, he suggested in all innocence to his
female paddling partner, whom he had met through the class, that they
share a tent. As he told me later, it wasn't till he saw the expression
on the woman's face that he realized that it sounded like a proposition!

>>
PS: there's a gay hiking club here in Vancouver with a great name: "Out   and
About".
>>

Pronounced "Oot and Aboot"?

Chuck Holst


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