Gay farmers go naked to help raise awareness of mental health
When The Naked Farmer came to town looking for people to get their kit off for a good cause, dairy farmer Kerry Wilson was approached to take part.
He and his partner Paul Wilson agreed, though Kerry had reservations about not having the right body type.
âGee whiz, Iâm 56. Does it matter?â Kerry asked. It didnât.
The cause, which raises awareness about the mental health of Australian farmers, hit a personal chord with the couple.
Kerry and Paul are fifth-generation farmers who live and work together near Nimbin, in the northern rivers of New South Wales.
âItâs been quite a journey, to the point where I left a wife and three sons to become openly gay in the dairy industry,â Kerry said.
âYou carry a lot of guilt thereafter and even before, the 35 years before that when you know that somethingâs not quite right in your head, but you canât quite work it out. Or youâre not quite game to go and work through it with anybody.
âSo weâve have our fair share of ups and downs and the agricultural industry is a tough gig.â
Couple hopes to help other gay farmers
âOh, it was horrible,â he said.
âAt one stage we thought, OK, weâll just go to Brisbane and start a new life in the city, an anonymous life. But it was a fleeting thought. It wasnât an option because I had three sons.â
At the time the kids were aged nine, six and four.
âAnd they by default had to come on the journey with us,â Kerry said.
With the support of Kerryâs former wife, life kept rolling on.
âI donât remember ever sitting around with my head in my hands going, âOh God, what are we going to do?'â Paul said.
And, Kerry said, âwe werenât the only gays in the villageâ.
âWe used to have a joke, because we moved to Nimbin with three boys and a hundred goats, living on the side of a mountain, that we were the most normal thing in town,â he said.
Greying hair and ageing bodies aside, the couple hope that by baring it all they might become the role models they didnât have.
âIf thereâs normal, average, mainstream people out there that happen to be gay, and some kid in the bush sees that person or that couple and thinks, âOh yeah, thatâs me,â then weâve done our job,â Paul said.
Talking about mental health in regional Australia
It was his personal struggle with chronic anxiety that made him want to raise awareness about the mental health of Australian farmers.
It began on Instagram in 2017 and has expanded to include a calendar and underwear line.
âIf you scroll through [social media] and see a photo of a tractor, youâre probably going to keep scrolling,â Mr Brooksby said.
âBut if you see a photo of a tractor and somebody naked in front of it, youâre going to stop and take note and take note of the caption and read about it.
âMental health is a massive thing with me. Iâve gone through it myself, lost an uncle to suicide.
âI thought, I can really help out here, so thatâs when I teamed up with the Royal Flying Doctor Service and did a calendar.â
He said The Naked Farmer was simply about starting a conversation.
âI was actually talking to a guy whoâs 19, and he said he was having some beers around the fire with a couple of older guys who were about 50,â Mr Brooksby said.
âThey were talking about The Naked Farmer, and one of the old guys arced up and said, âI donât know how this is getting people talking about mental health. It doesnât make sense.â
âThen 15 minutes later they were still talking about it, and they were talking about mental health.
âThen this 19-year-old guy said, âWell, weâre talking about it now, arenât we?â
âAnd they were all like, âYeah, I sâposeâ.â
âABC
