Diving with men

[divemistress]

dear bacardispice,

you are 100 percent correct. completely and totally. your first paragraph is right on the mark.

to those who didn't see the joke and offered sincere advice, i apologize. i didn't imagine anyone would miss the similarities to this and "diving with women".

to those who didn't see the joke and got steamed....whatever.

me, i try to read an entire thread before i respond. check out the no. 1 response, by zen, who started "diving with women". he saw through my post. heck, a few posts later diversauras spells it out: "cute, You ought to reel in a bunch with this story line..." then several others....

bottom line: both threads are FILLED with generalizations about both women and men. examine them. hold them up to the light. see the holes, cracks and tears? wouldn't it be great if we could abandon preconceived notions and treat each other as individuals?

surely it's worth thinking about.

dm

p.s. most of my dive buddies are male. simply because i don't know many female divers.

BacardiSpice once bubbled...
Ah - being new here, and without knowing much about the personalities involved, I took the initial post as a joke...a response to the thread earlier down titled 'Diving with women' and posing a question or two about women divers that females found amusing and perhaps just a bit insulting (even though, to the poster, they were honest concerns). I didn't think that the 'concerns' raised about diving with men were in earnest, but were rather a lighthearted way to respond to the aforementioned thread. But perhaps I'm wrong on all that, and the person that initiated all this could clarify it?

I don't consider gender issues when diving. I've had some fantastic dives with buddies of both genders. Where I did my initial training and the outfit I continued to dive with after certification, I was pretty much treated the same as the blokes were - and, if I'd stopped to think about it (which I don't think I did), I would have appreciated it. Sure, it meant I was hauling all my dive gear out the end of a loooong pier to the boat although my upper body strength, by virtue of my physical make up, was not the same as theirs. While the blokes on the boat were fantastic fun, they never offered assistance (although they were very obliging when asked for help). We were happy enough to let each other get on with it. If I didn't have some measure of self-sufficiency for the physical part of diving, what would I have been doing out there in the first place?

I've heard the usual gender stereotypical breakdown - that men want to dive deep and have a competitive edge in this (ostensibly) non-competitive sport, seething with machismo, whereas women get the vapours over a broken fingernail and do the tragic femme thing, a helpless act. The groups I dived with locally were pretty serious divers, and the divers I spent time with on liveaboards had travelled half way around the world to do some serious diving. The men weren't the type to fiddle around with proving their masculinity, and the women weren't the type to do the 'gurley' routine. It's not to say that folks of both types don't exist, but I wouldn't say they were remotely representative of their genders.

People are individuals. They should be judged on the content of their character, their abilities, their intersts, their skills. Not race, creed, colour - or gender.

I look forward to the day when discussions like this seem hopelessly old fashioned, and we can all just get on with it.

 

[BacardiSpice]

Ta for clearing that up, Divemistress! It seemed clear to me on reading your initial post that it was a bit of "sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" (turn about is fair play) sort of a thing, but after reading some of the responses I started wondering if I'd completely got the wrong end of the stick. :rolling:

 

[nessum]

Wow. I can't even believe this is an issue. Perhaps because most of my instructors were male & I've been diving with them from the beginning (though my dive buddies have been about 50/50) I never considered it an issue.
Personally, I think it's great diving with the boys. They don't expect less of me because I'm a female, & when it comes to diving, most seem to leave testosterone issues in the parking lot. Besides that, I've met many cute guys diving.

 

[etype]

Wow! I realize i’ve been had....in a cool way though..... slick divemistress...very. I like it.

But seriously ...as a gullible male...and there are a few of us......there isn't enough female divers ...and single ones are even fewer. Anytime i dive with a women is great, more is better...even fantastic...tremendous....good. It would be weird to go out on a charter, with say....5 or so woman divers and be the only male. Imagine if you noticed even the skipper was a woman...wow.... on the dock you notice everybody was female...there were no males...awesome....but i think i would find that curious....and so on....but still good ...but strange. Has anyone ever experienced this? Of course i can't help, as a gullible male, imagine a beer ad scenario....that's what beer does to you. Nonetheless..has anyone experienced this? What was it like? C'mon tell us please...spare no detail.

 

[hnladue]

....that men dive NAKED!!!!

Then there would definately be something to see!!! (ya ya I know about shrinkage, but it would still be fun!!)

Then there's the question...how wuold the guys enter the water??? Oh no....there's my mind, going in the gutter again!!!:tease:

 

[dlegros]

hnladue once bubbled...
....that men dive NAKED!!!!

Then there would definately be something to see!!! (ya ya I know about shrinkage, but it would still be fun!!)

Then there's the question...how wuold the guys enter the water??? Oh no....there's my mind, going in the gutter again!!!:tease:

Never mind shrinkage - what about the effect of a ginat stride on the 'little diver'?

Dom

 

[divermasterB]

Sorry, but I would be more worried about Hungry fish!

 

[PhotoTJ]

divermasterB once bubbled...
Sorry, but I would be more worried about Hungry fish!

Huh. It'd have to be a BIG fish!:wacko:




Oh, c'mon, I couldn't pass up a set-up like that!

 

[6474286]

I have read the thread about Male/Female with quite some interest, mainly as I do not understand the point at hand. Maybe this is because I am a man....

However underwater we all breathe the same way, we all rely on each other and regardless of Male/Female when the S*&T hits the fan, your buddy needs to be there, and thats all that counts.

Paul

 

[VaScubaGirl]

I love diving with men. I think they make great partners. They do tend to use more air, but not all of them. But then again, in general I get along better with men...I'm a tomboy so maybe that's why? The women I have dove with just don't seem to be together as the men divers and they stress out about every little thing and let it ruin their day of diving.