All the news that’s fit to print…

As a real life naturists I like to keep…ahem!…abreast of what’s going on in the naturist world out there, so I’ve a few sites bookmarked.

Clothes Free International has a news page, and I follow it regularly, as it gives a round-up of naturist news and events from around the globe. Some of it will have a direct interest to me, such as the status of free beaches here in the UK which I can, or cannot, use, according to decrees from local councils. And some of it informs the content of ‘SL Naturist’.

It’s a news aggregator, so stories I might otherwise miss, and which might make for interesting SL Naturist posts, are read, digested and then replicated inworld. This one, of full moon skinny dipping in New Zealand, will certainly make for a future SL Naturist item.

Another one I follow is i-naked, a UK based website with a lot of ‘relevant to my parish’ items. It also links to CFI’s news aggregator page, and its gallery page links to global events we, as naturists, may be interested in. One such gallery features Femen activities, which we posted on earlier.

We are a SL naturist blog, not the real world, so in the main I avoid using pictures from RL, or even mentioning issues pertaining to the RL naturist lifestyle. But occasionally events in the real world inform our blogging, particularly with regard to body consciousness. So we shall keep you informed of RL naturist events and activities in a roundabout sort of way, with posts here reflecting events and attitudes there.

Femen in Paris

I’ve picked up a report from French TV channel TV5 of another Femen ‘happening’ or protest in Paris yesterday.

Femen, in case you didn’t know, are a Ukrainian group who stage topless protest to highlight various feminist and political issues.

As one of their taglines suggests, ‘smart people are inspired, dictators are horrified’.

Normally, I’m appalled at the continuing sexualisation of breasts. I would have imagined in the 21st century we should have been over such things, and the continuance as a method os selling daily papers here in the UK (and in Germany, as far as I remember, too, and possibly other places) is disgraceful, with the models reduced to being nothing more than a pair of breasts.

But I suppose the other way of looking at it might be that who, exactly, is empowered by this? Maybe the models, using their own peculiar talents, are controlling a male dominated media. Maybe they’re sending a powerful message that ‘with these, I control your world’. Or maybe they’re just idiotic, dumb blondes (and brunettes) seeking a way in which to scale the giddy heights of ‘Z’ list celebrity and hang around with football stars. Who knows?

What gives Femen the opportunity to make such a powerful message is, of course, exactly because breasts are still seen in a sexual manner. Their exposure, whether in the centre of Paris, or from a breastfeeding mother on a bus in your town, still has the power to shock, in a way, despite our over familiarity with them in the media.

Concerns over political issues (Russian energy company Gazprom, the patriarchal system of Islam) are some of Femen’s targets, as well as objections to being ‘objectified’.

In solidarity with their aims, partly to diminish to sexualisation of breasts, or the exposure of the naked female form in a patriarchal society, we grabbed a model, tp’ed over to the Eiffel tower, and shot off a few pictures.

We’d have liked to have got a ‘flash mob’ of semi naked protestors if we could, and maybe even had them wave placards. Unfortunately the shoot was done in a hurry, so you’ll have to make do with Pippa posing here. Not remotely ‘naturist’ in its intent or delivery, it is however an opportunity to highlight body issues in RL, and how the attitudes are sometimes reflected (‘wow! you have lovely tits’) within SL.