These days, all of my RL naturism takes place in Spain, in the naturist ‘village’ of Vera Playa. Because I’ve got a couple of small children in tow, it makes sense to stick to somewhere we know (for now), after years of exploring many of Europe’s naturist hotspots. I’ve holidayed in Croatia, different places in Spain, and in a lot of French coastal and interior camping sites. Having spent the last 7 years exclusively in Vera Playa, we’ve got a real love of the place, and have considered buying a property there. We’ve managed to squeeze in two weeks each year (a week each time) in Vera, and have absorbed the local traditions.

What I like about it is the capacity to drive off a main road and into a little maze of streets in what is known as the ‘Zona Naturista’. Naturists walking their dogs, or coming to and from the supermarket, beach or one of several little bars. The naturists are not hidden away behind locked gates (although there are several private urbanizacions) and I’ve often wandered down a street, as nature intended, only to be passed by a police car. Wouldn’t it be great if more of the world was like this?

Sometimes, my other half will take the children to the children’s pool. I might join them, or I might wander off with nothing other than a bag over my shoulder, to the beach. I’ll set out a towel and then settle down for 30 minutes or an hour’s reading on the Kindle.

While I’m there, single males will be sitting nearby, or sunbathing, and other single males wandering up and down the beach. So I’ll read for a while and then decide to share parenting duties once more. However long I’m there, no one (the exception being people I do know already) comes up and says ‘hi, what are you doing?’.

I’m trying to read, you moron, what does it look like?

All around me, there may be other, single females who are in a similar situation. Often, when school gets out, you’ll see a few teenagers arrive in uniform, strip naked and start doing homework. Once, I even saw a more mature woman join them and, it transpired, she was their teacher. She only went ‘topless’, but she sat with a mixture of male and female students, all around 15-17, and went through a homework with them! Incredible!

Sometimes, girls flick through pop magazines and the boys will play volleyball or beach soccer, nude. And there’s rarely a time when they even glance at one another. They’ve seen each other naked a hundred times before and it’s now big deal. This is how life should be.

As the sun goes down, they’ll dress and say ‘see you in school tomorrow’. Homework complete, they’ll head off home for dinner.

What’s my point?

Oh, yes. Sometimes, in RL, I like to ‘people watch’. We all do it, whether in a naturist environment or not. And I do like to ‘people watch’, occasionally, in SL too. I don’t necessarily want conversation, much less conversation that begins ‘I like your hairy pussy’. Guys, you wouldn’t say it to a complete stranger in RL, so why do it in SL? (At least, I hope you don’t say it in RL and, if you do, your face has been slapped hard).

SL is a social tool, but sometimes we don’t want to be particularly social. Sometimes, just watching is justification enough for logging in and watching some beautiful people dancing naked or sunbathing. Perhaps it is time to establish a clear SL naturist protocol in that an avatar set to ‘busy’ is just that. In those circumstances, maybe people should respect that the avatar is busy, in IM, incommunicado, whatever, and respect them being ‘solo’ at that particular moment. Maybe we need a third button, alongside ‘set to busy’ and ‘set to Away’, to reflect this. Has anyone any ideas on what the wording should be?