James Brickwood

NAKED ISSUES: "From time to time, someone will get an erection": Benjamin Law gives nude yoga a crack.

Performing yoga in the nude does unkind things to the male body.

The human scrotum looks miserable enough at the best of times, but I've never seen mine look as demoralised as right now.

Our instructor - also naked - has told us to stretch our right leg tightly over our left, before twisting our torsos to flex out our spines. If I was wearing underwear, this would be easy. But because I'm nude, this scissored, clamp-legged position just bunches my equipment together and mashes everything upwards, until it resembles some sort of angry offal bouquet. And I thought yoga was supposed to be beautiful.

I've come to my first Naked Yoga class to suss out its appeal. Considering these classes requires everyone getting buck naked in a group to stretch in every conceivable position, surely it can't just be about the yoga, can it?

Sessions run on the second floor of a warehouse in Sydney three times a week and, on average, attract around 15 men every session. No women are allowed. Nude co-ed yoga classes are taking off in the US and UK, but in Australia, only all-male classes exist.

Naked Yoga Sydney's instructor and founder, Steve Gee - who started his classes nine years ago - tried reaching out to women in the early days, but found there just wasn't the demand.

"I've had a few enquiries from women, looking for either women-only classes or mixed classes," Gee says, "but not enough interest to justify running a full-time class."

Nude Yoga USA in Arizona, which runs co-ed naked yoga classes three times a week, has some theories as to why women might be more shy. In their classes, men can outnumber women four to one.

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What happens at a naked yoga class