When I wrote for Emmanuelle’s 2EX blog (now Jayne’s 2EX blog, but sadly, apparently, defunct) there was a lot of discussion about pubic hair because Emma was a big advocate of it, making the claim that ‘women should look like women, not little girls’.

It wasn’t an issue that vexed me, but it appears the matter does enter people’s minds when reading SL Naturist too. I’ve got an email from a reader who asks why the staff are all ‘natural’ looking in the pubic area. I can’t say I’d really noticed. It’s coincidental. It is what it is. 

It’s not a discussion I’m going to countenance on this blog. People are free to wear what they wish, how they wish, reflecting a reality or a fantasy and we’ll photograph them, chat with them or whatever as the people behind the keyboard and their projected alternative look and life.

My own avi appearance reflects my RL existence, not just in that area, but also in hair colour, style, as best as I can replicate and the fact that I wear glasses. As far as my avi goes, it is what it is.

I won’t be altering my avi’s appearance for anyone other than myself. I won’t be asking the staff or any model, to alter their projected alternative life for anyone other than themselves.

I couldn’t resist this shot when I saw the sit-on lawnmower in the grounds of Eden Celebration so I asked model Tina to hop on for a moment and briefly become the Gardener of Eden! 🙂

Harry

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, but the Eden Naturopolis collection of sims is simply stunning and outstanding, both in terms or breadth and depth. There’s a keen eye to detail which means interest never fades. We’ve been out and about in Eden (again!), this time in the Eden Celebration sim, which houses the Yacht Club.

I confess that while I’ve done some sailing in SL, it’s not really my thing, so I remain a land lubber who prefers to explore the sea either up to my ankles with sand below it, or else totally immersed if it’s warm enough. Better to sit on a lounger, reading a book and avi-watching than actually putting a boat out to sea!

So, while exploring Eden Celebration we ran into a couple of avatars doing the same. I’m pleased to say that the more we publish, the more avatar awareness there is of SL Naturist, our bona fides are accepted and avis now appear more willing to pose for us!

The sim houses Eden’s Conference Centre (we’ll get to that in due course) as well as the Yacht Club, and we spent some time exploring prior to running into Bill, who was messing around in boats and also diving into the harbour, which looked a little chilly to my eyes. Still, Bill was enjoying himself and didn’t seem to feel the cold.

We talked for a little bit (he declared himself to be more of a ‘wannabe’ naturist in RL than an actual participant) and he agreed to pose for a few snaps.

He confessed to enjoying what he’d seen at Eden and said he’d return to it again, and bade us farewell as he continued on his exploration.

Thereafter we wandered around some more, taking a load of photographs, mostly of scenery, no avatars included, precisely because we do admire Elbag and Brenda’s builds so much. There’s an astonishing level of detail involved, and photos are worth taking as and for themselves. If you like to record your own SL in picture form, I recommend you try this at home too! Harry showed me some of the photos he has collected from defunct sims, and it’s a permanent reminder on how SL, its geography, avatar appearance and so on, have developed in recent years.

Then we ran into Tina, and walked and talked with her for a while as she, in turn, explored the Eden Celebration sim. She, too was willing to be photographed, so we grabbed a few snaps of her and continued to explore together. Tina was particularly taken with the open air arena, clambering onto the stage and desperate to sing a song to the empty arena, before we continued on our way and ended up bumping into Bill once more.

He had discovered a golf buggy, but unfortunately the keys hadn’t been left behind, so it was only possible to have Tina and Bill pose beside it. It’s difficult to say if we’ve captured the essence of the place. Harry feels we need to return for more landscape shots, simply to show off its architecture and landscaping.

Words by Ella, photos by Harry.

For those of you who are Beatles fans, you may be familiar with the day in July 1968 when they took a break from recording the White Album to be photographed in various places around London.

This is known in Beatle folklore as the ‘mad day out’, and the photos (above and below) are typical of the sessions that took place that day.

Well, we’ve just had our own ‘mad day out’ at SL Naturist, with all of it captured on film by Harry. The premise was the same. Assemble. Assemble the SLab four (Ella, Eva, Areola and Harry) and go mad, tp’ing all over the place and taking as many photos as possible for the files. Essentially, stock photos that can be wheeled out as and when required.

Now, the idea is to have a stockpile, so we won’t be utilising all of the photos in one or two posts, but we will be letting some of them free next week, so stay tuned for a post on our own ‘mad day out’.

Here’s a couple of outtakes from Harry’s canisters of film, showing Harry’s polaroid test prints of Eva while he fiddled with his light meter. 🙂 More to come on Monday and Tuesday.

Areola.

I’ve updated the ‘Readers’ Contributions’ page. More to follow tomorrow, Friday 30th March.

And because SLN is very much pictorial based, I’ve popped a couple more on this page, just for the fun of it.

Harry has been out today doing a couple of lengthy photo shoots (still at it, elsewhere, on line, as I type) and he’ll be posting those tomorrow, I hope, with some text (and poses) from Eva, as well as words from readers and models alike.

I often scoot around the existing naturist sims in SL with the intention of checking what’s new, updated, re-arranged and changed.

And although I encounter a lot of bald men in RL and SL, it’s a rarity in SL. I suppose there’s still something about a great head of hair representing male virility (allegedly).

So it’s something of a rarity to see a bald avatar. In fact, so much so I asked this (wishing to remain anonymous) guy, whom I encountered at Sweden Naturist if his hair hadn’t rezzed! Usually, guys will wear a shaved head (with shadow) look as their shortest haircut.

I was politely told that it was a choice to be bald, and that it reflected the guy’s RL. He’d tried hair, but it didn’t look as much like him as he wished himself to be. For the guy in question, his RL baldness had to be reflected in his SL avi.

We also got to talking about..um..haha…how shall I put this?…his luxuriant pubic region. Not the sort of everyday SL conversation I have! Apparently, his prim pubes are from Nearly Tactile (probably the best in SL @ L$250, and my own fluff of choice). I can’t recollect discussing what Nearly Tactile call a ‘man muff’ before, but our model had sized it up by 50% and achieved a particularly ‘hairy down there’ look that stretched around to his bottom and scrotum. We like this (purely in a realism sense, you understand) because it looked great! Guys, if you’re going to be hairy ‘down there’, I think this is a look you may wish to emulate. Furthermore, the addition of a ‘man muff’ seems to eradicate that awkward join between your avi’s body and the penis.

Eva.

I feel I shouldn’t tease you about this time consuming post we, the editorial team, are working on. For long periods of yesterday all of us were on line at one stage or another, sourcing ‘naturist clothing’ 🙂

Yes, that’s a contradiction in terms, but let me explain.

On RL naturist beaches you’ll find everyone isn’t nude all the time. The ferocity of the sun sometimes leads people to cover up to greater or lesser degrees. Less to do with modesty, more to do with simply protecting oneself from the sun’s rays.

To that end, we’ve been scouring the grid for hats, sarongs, baggy T shirts, bags tohold all of our sun tan oils, books, drinks, kindles etc. The usual array of naturist beach-related items, in other words, which add realism and interest to the pix we take.

Currently, the lucky board at Hudson’s Clothing is offering a bikini and wrap. I’m telling you this because a) it might not be there for long, and be gone before I manage to get the post we’re working on finished and b) wraps, sarongs and pareos are very much part of the naturist experience in RL, and are something I will wear as part of my SL naturist experience, just for added realism.

Not all sim owners like or encourage this ‘partially clothed’ idea, preferring to keep their sim ‘pure’, but the fact remains that various states of undress are part of naturist beach life.

So here’s me (again! 😦 ) modelling the set, which is L$0 on the lucky board as described above. I have to say that I’m getting a bit fed up being ‘the model’, so much so that I’m trying to get a couple of models to show off items for us on a more regular basis, leaving me to do the writing bit! 🙂 The only reason I’m in these pix is that the letter E came up first!

(above, the wrap shows its slightly diaphanous quality)

So, while we continue the quest to bring you ‘naturist related clothing’, this lovely wrap set should put you in the mood for summer, whether you’re going to be naturist or not.

(below, ‘topless’ is also a fact of life on naturist beaches)

Ella

I’ve spent much of the day writing, organising, or editing one single post. It’s not a huge posting, but it’s exceptionally time consuming, so this week’s tranche of posts will be less than usual, due to the work being put into one post. Bear with me….I might get it published tomorrow. If not, next week.

And just to show you that we’ve not been altogether languid in our approach to SL Naturist, I’ve tacked on a couple of photos we’ve picked up during the course of the day’s exploration.

Ella

I’ve added a new page, entitled ‘Vintage’.

It will essentially be Harry’s page. Although SL has only been around for a decade, there’s lots of sims that recreate different eras in history (and the future!). Harry and I talk regularly, as I do with all of the staff, to dream up new ideas for the blog and thus improve and enhance what you’re viewing. We were having a discussion, via email, about history (I’m a history graduate in RL), and decided we liked the idea of what SL would have looked like in the 50s, or 60s (not such a ‘history’ for some of you but, rather, live memories),

With this in mind, Harry rounded up one of his friends, adopted a contemporary 50s look, and has attempted to demonstrate 1950s SL naturism in the first of his photo essays. If it proves to be popular, we’ll retain it as a separate page. If not, we’ll just have Harry do the occasional posting on the main page featuring ‘naturism through the ages’. The nude is a staple of art, and many artists have shown the nude in their work. Not strictly naturism, although many of these nudes have been framed in nature through the centuries.

Have a look and tell us what you think of it.

In other Housekeeping News, I’ve deleted the ‘Mr SL Naturist 2012’ page and made it and the ‘Miss SL Naturist 2012’ page as one.

From what I can gather, there’s a SL Naked Bike Ride group, and they just may be organising a SL Naked Bike Ride. Information on the RL version can be found here, with an official UK site here, a different wiki web entry here, the San Francisco related website here and the Montpelier version here. That’s just a selection. There’s loads of web sites dedicated to the World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR).

The German word for naked ride is ‘nacktradeln’, and there’s a website here.

More rides are planned for March (southern hemisphere) and June (northern hemisphere) this year, so google to see if there’s one near you.

The object of the WNBR is two-fold. 1) to highlight the danger cars present to cyclists and 2) to demonstrate against man’s over-dependency on oil. Fine, you ask, but where does the nudity come in? My take on it is that by going nude, the cyclists suddenly become ‘visible’ in a way they aren’t, even in hi-vis clothing, and it highlights the dangers they face on a daily basis. And it’s about time we looked at alternative energy sources (pedal power, for one) where it’s viable. By highlight the dangers of (1), we also maybe create a situation whereby (2) becomes more attractive if the roads are safer.

Here in the UK we have a charity dedicated to creating cycling lanes and off-road routes called Sustrans (i.e SUStainable TRANSport). Perhaps there’s an equivalent in your country? Check and find out.

I’m a cyclist. Thankfully I live in a small village where traffic’s not so much of a danger to me, and fellow cyclists, as it is in large towns and cities, but still, I fully support the aims of the WNBR and Sustrans to make a better world for cyclists, and cut down pollution as a by-product of their crusade to get more cyclists ON and more cars OFF the roads.

Fine, I hear you say, but what’s this got to do with naturism? Or naturism in SL?

In 1974 the International Naturist Federation defined naturism a lifestyle in harmony with nature, expressed through social nudity, and characterised by self-respect of people with different opinions and of the environment.

That’s a pretty good synopsis of what we’re all about. It isn’t just casting off our clothes for no specific reason. It’s healthy to expose our skin to the sun (if we don’t overdo it), the breeze and even gentle rain. We live well. Naturism often involves a lot of excercise, one way or another. In its original form, naturism embraced a lot of physical exercise, communal gymnastics and that sort of thing within the environs of what were then called ‘nudist camps’. While that has diminished, I think you’ll find a lot of naturists doing a lot of walking, swimming and cycling. Not because they’re fitness freaks, but because the lifestyle sort of lends itself to it. If you visit a resort like La Jenny in France, there’s walks and cycle paths through the whole area, so people do (if arriving by car) tend to strap their bikes to the back and bring them along.

We’ll spend time outside eating…well, sort of healthily! BBQ’s form a big part of naturist culture, but you’ll tend to see these accompanied by fresh bread, salads and such like, so that we, as a community, live a more healthy lifestyle, if only for the duration of our holiday.

And a little wine is also good for us!!!! 🙂

I know that where I holiday regularly fish plays a major part of the diet, often cooked in olive oil, and again these are on the menu at most restaurants and enriching our omega oils, or whatever it is they’re rich in. Apologies, I should have done more dietary research prior to writing this piece!

Oh, nacktradeln! Yes, we’ll get there presently, lol.

We have our naturist sims, of course, but a German correspondent to this blog asked recently if I thought it was a good idea for us to break out, as naturists, into the wider SL world. I replied that I didn’t, in the main, think it a good idea. We have no desire to offend other SL users, to begin with. But, argued the other person, some sims are often empty, and would lend themselves to naked cycling or another regarded naturist activity in Germany, naked hiking.

So I’ve been considering this, for several weeks now, as a potential SL Naturist piece. I remain unsure. My German friend argues that he will explore certain SL sims dedicated to wilderness and, if no one is around, he’ll often explore them nude, just as he does in RL, in the German Alps. His argument is that he will keep a clothed ‘outfit’ ready to click on if anyone else teleports into the sim as he has no wish to offend either, just as he’ll hike, in RL, with a pair of shorts close at hand to cover himself up.

I’m still not sure. Some sims (Summer Dreams is one) have paths that already lend themselves to a bit of nude hiking. But I sent my friend off with the instruction to come back with photos of his naked hiking, or cycling, and explain it all a bit more.

Here’s his report…

‘Hi, I’m Christoph and I’m involved in FKK (freikoerperkultur) in the real world and also in Second Life. FKK means free body culture. In other words, naturism. You will see many, many FKK signs on beaches around Europe, even beyond Germany, where the word originates. The English version of wikipedia’s FKK entry is here.

I do visit some SL FKK venues. I like Wild Coast and Eden Naturopolis. But I do not limit myself to these places for my naturist activities. I also will visit places where clothes should really be worn and I like to do what I do in the real world and hike or cycle naked. In German, the words are Nacktwandern and Nacktradeln.

I have spoken with Ella about this and I know she does not approve fully of this, but she has asked me to give a report as it does represent, maybe, just a little different naturist activity in SL.

Because she does not wish there to be many naturists descending on a sim not intended to be naturist, she has asked me not to add links to the sims I speak of, but instead explain this little SL hobby of mine and show some photos. I am happy to agree to this and do this.

Do I wish to offend? Of course not. But there are many, many beautiful sims in Second Life which are designed for geography. Mountains, woods, deserts, lakes. Each can be used for naturism. Also, there are many walking trails or cycling or motorcycling trails too, and so I will also use these. It is me enjoying the wonders of Second Life building while also enjoying the freedom of SL naturism!

I do try to find sims where no one is around. If this is not possible I will take myself to a corner of the sim where others are not, and maybe walk a little naked. If someone is going to be close by to me I keep my finger near the button where I can ‘dress’ quickly. You know, change my outfit to a clothed avatar?

Sometimes, I get found out, yes! 

Sometimes, an avatar appears from nowhere. Men ignore this mostly. Women also. But on occasion a woman says to me ‘you are naked’ and I make excuses. ‘I do not wish to offend, I am sorry’, or maybe I blame the viewer and I show clothes on my own screen! We know it happens!

But then I may also teleport from this sim back to a safe naturist place. I do not wish to offend.

And if you look at the photographs, I think you can see that there is some beautiful scenery to be enjoyed in Second Life.

Maybe you like this idea. Maybe you do not. I only wish you to think that it is sometimes an alternative to visiting the same Second Life naturist locations and seeing new things, admiring new terraforming or landscapes’.

Ella adds: I neither condone nor condemn this ‘free naturism’. A couple of years ago I did source locations, and landmarked them, for ‘free naturist’ activity. We know that in RL people often appear beyond the perimeters of established naturist locations. Most of us, at one time, have probably skinny dipped where there was no official permission for nude recreation. My best advice is that if you do decide to adopt Christoph’s ‘free naturism’, his nacktwandern, then do understand that you may be doing so in PG sims, in places where even a cartoon, pixellated nude figure, might cause offence. Observe discretion and common sense. In RL the coppers could, theoretically, turn up and arrest you for such activity. In SL some avatars could express their displeasure with you in no uncertain terms.