I am indebted to reader Susan Paquot, and her partner Buckeye Scorpio, for pointing me in the direction of Muirhead Nude beach. Susan asked had I ever visited it. I hadn’t and was rapidly zooming over there on receipt of her notecard. Thank you, Susan, it’s a lovely little beach which appears to be set in the centre of a non-naturist community.

And this is how RL naturism should be, and how SL naturism could be too!

What it lacks in size, it makes up for in a couple of lovely features, as well as delightful architecture around it (and reminded me of England’s Cinque Ports, a little). While set in the ‘East River Community’, suggesting a NY connection, the build reminds me of Hastings, Dover, Hythe, New Romney and Sandwich. Eagle eyed historians amongst you will, of course, know that that bread and filling you have for your lunch is named after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, (see photo below) although Montagu didn’t invent the ‘meat inside two slices of bread’ we often have at lunch, as it is recorded that Hillel the Elder, a prominent Jewish religious leader around the time of Christ, was making ‘sandwiches’ of sorts during Passover.

The two elements I was particularly taken with were the changing/beach huts and the diving board with a large selection of dives (see pics 1 and 2 above). I’ve never encountered this dive set before, and I always love to try new things in SL, so I spent quite a bit of time on the diving board. I’ll not show the pic of the less than lady-like bellyflop into the warm waters below! 🙂 )

Thanks for the heads up, Susan, and I’m delighted to include Muirhead as another naturist beach. I will be going back to practice my diving skills!

Work continues on ‘Issue 2’, and I wasn’t sure whether to include Lupe’s Magic Forest Naturist Island, a new sim to me, in the posts that form the ‘magazine’, but I feel it’s important to keep you up-to-date on naturist locations as quickly as possible, so rather than wait the two weeks until ‘publication’, I’ve opted to post this now and stick with ‘location reports’ in the magazine as planned.

I do intend that, eventually, some of the locations I feature will be re-blogged. The facilities and landscapes change in SL, so I see no problem in featuring locations again and again. If you own a naturist sim, don’t be afraid to keep me informed of developments at your sim, or even that your sim exists. I don’t believe for a moment I know of every location (as a recent notecard from a new beach, to me, makes obvious…more of this in a subsequent post) so while I promise to get SL nudist news out for SL users, it’s a two way thing, so please, I beg you all to keep me informed. Got a new balloon ride? Pool? Let me know! I’m happy to visit, report it and let the readers know.

But back to Lupe’s!

It is a beautifully landscaped sim. Wild, with lots of trees, ferns and little hidden clearings where you will encounter odd little building elements. A tiny cemetery? An old ruin? An upturned fishing boat? 

Yes, I did encounter a BDSM cross. Maybe it works, but it didn’t work for me. (No, I have no intention of using it, but I do need to research these things for you). And there were rugs that offered some sexual content. Again, they didn’t appear to work for me in terms of rezzing the pose balls, but maybe that’s linked to membership of the sim, or isn’t active yet.

OK, OK, there will be an argument that this makes it not a ‘genuine’ naturist sim, with ‘genuine’ naturist values. Maybe, maybe not. While I broadly agree with that sentiment -a lack of sex poses is generally a plus in my book- I’m not discounting Lupe’s from being a ‘genuine’ sim because the build is excellent, the sense of lighting superb, and that BDSM cross (there may be other poses around, I don’t know) was discreetly hidden away, and I wandered for quite some time before I found this (or the cuddle rugs). And it does include the word ‘naturist’ in its name, which for me is often a giveaway that the builder/owner actually understands there is  a difference between genuine social nudity (naturism) and being a nude beach (which often is SL code for ‘sex beach’). I’ve IMed what seems to be the owners or managers, so maybe we can get some input from them as to their vision of the place.

Whatever, it remains a remarkably well done build, and the photos provide some little sense of the lighting and the wild, natural look of it. Once again, a builder has excelled themselves in not ‘overcooking’ it. There’s also a small pool (with ‘sitting and relaxing’ poses, as opposed to sex balls), a teepee, and some things I’m sure I missed. Once away from the entrance, and what looks like a dancefloor (there’s also an intan on the beach), the build remains wild, and looks lovely. Go visit!