Sad to report the death, today, of Esther Williams, a former swimming partner of Johnny Weissmuller. A very beautiful woman. RIP.

It would appear the partnership of Williams and Weissmuller shows how much swimming champions were seen as celebrities of their time, easily moving into movies. It’s doubtful any of our atheletes today would so easily make the transition. And if you’ve seen a movie by OJ Simpson, Arnold Schwarzenneger, (English soccer player) Vinnie Jones or (French soccer player) Eric Cantona, it’s difficult not to argue with my assertion. For blanket coverage of ‘soccer stars acting badly’, you need look no further than Michael Caine/Sylvester Stallone vehicle for not only soccer stars acting badly, but acting stars acting badly 😦

Wiessmuller was an Olympic champion, and went on to play Tarzan in several movies, and crossed the divide from the era of ‘full one piece male swimsuits’ (in the 1924 Olympics) to ‘one piece, topless male swimsuits…or loincloths’ by the time he starred in the ‘Tarzan’ movies. Of course, he didn’t have the glory of being the first male ‘topless’ actor on the silver screen. That honour goes to Clark gable, in ‘It happened one night’ (1934), a year before New Jersey was arresting and fining topless males, and two years before male ‘topless rights’ were enacted in the US. By the time Weissmuller concluded the Tarzan series he, too was reduced to a loincloth.

Anyway, in my imagination it’s Weissmuller, much more than Clark Gable, precisely because of the nature of Weissmuller’s roles and his history in swimming, that breaks through the glass ceiling of ‘topless males in movies’.

As I’m on a little bit of a ‘vintage’ kick today, and heading off in the opposite direction of naturism, I nipped over to the ‘Brasil Avatar’ freebie store, picked up their (female) Devil Girl one piece swimsuit and…lo and behold, I’m Weissmuller in 1924! (well, I would be if I didn’t look like Prince in this new skin, lol). I’ll legitimise this post by saying that the next edition of SLN is (I guess) almost done. At least, I think all of my work on it is done. And it deals quite a bit with the history of naturism, so these little landmarks on the path to publicly accepted public nudity are important if we’re to understand and contextualise naturism. And I do like to imagine how SL might have looked if it had existed 50, 60, 70 years ago.

Harry

There have been many occasions in the history of art and photography where pubic hair has been strictly no-go. We’re currently in a similar phase of that, but it is now a decision made more by women for women (or by their partners for the benefit of their partners).

Bare breasts, in art, have always been largely seen as ‘OK’, whereas the pubic region, pubic hair and the vagina itself, have often been left firmly off the artistic agenda. In artistic history, the male genitalia has always generally managed to be on the agenda. Strange, as the advent of photography would have strictly seen male genitalia ‘disappear’ in a manner of speaking, or lurk behind posing pouches after centuries of being visible to all who witnessed great art.

Live, I seem to recollect that the girls who performed at cabarets such as the Folies Bergere (Paris), the Ziegfeld Follies (New York) and the Bluebell Girls (Paris Lido) appeared nude, or almost nude, and were instructed not to move. Motionless, they were passed off as statues. If they moved, they were deemed human and thus their nudity offended public sensibilites.

I’ve not been able to confirm this by research, so perhaps someone with a greater knowledge could either confirm this or reject what is (currently) a recollection of mine through either text or aural format.

I also seem to recollect that the pubic area was shaved, in order to make it appear there was nothing ‘down there’. Despite this, many of the Ziegfeld girls photographed are resolutely hirsute. You can check out many photographs of the Ziegfeld girls through a simple web search.

What I can tell you, for certain, is that there have been times where naturist magazines airbrushed out genitalia, a fact referenced in the following photograph

Typically, then, we had odd looking photographs appear in the likes of 1950s and 1960s copies of (British naturist magazine) Health and Efficiency which looked a lot like that (below)

I guess for generations of schoolboys, for whom H&E was a regular source of nude photography, there was maybe the curious notion of what women actually did have in the way of genitalia. Or was it just a lot of nothing?

Pookes pointed me in the direction of Ella’s post about Prism design, and told me that one of the free gifts on offer was a tintable crotch cover that could be matched to the skin. I’m not entirely certain what the purpose of it might be in general SL existence, but I immediately connected with the historical ‘airbrushing’ on nude photos, in and out of the nudist realm.

I decided that I should utilise this gift, with one of my models, and attempt another of those occasional ‘replicating real life’ things I do on occasion.

To begin with, here’s the model wearing the crotch patch in its original, white, state.

After that, the model and I spent time tinting it to match her skin. I didn’t, quite deliberately, make it an exact match for the purposes of this shoot, just so it would be a little bit visible, but we did experiment enough to make it pretty much invisible without careful scrutiny, and I may utilise it in future ‘vintahe’ shoots.

The ‘crotch patch’ is just barely visible in this sepia tinted photograph, set in a vintage sim to creature the impression of it being shot in the past.

And since we were there, I got my model to pose, in the same setting, in a 1940s vintage dress.

And here’s a photo of us working on the tinting process. We tweaked this for ages, and when I took this snap we were probably 

only about half-way through the tinting experimentation. With further tweaking it would be possible for you to give a female

(or male, for that matter!) an airbrushed, sexless, look. I guess there may be several ‘Barbie’ type avatars who will

readily embrace this look! 🙂

Harry

Don’t let it be said we don’t read each other’s stuff, lol.

Popping onto SLN over lunch, I spotted Ella’s post about the Car Wash cart sale, and just had to log in to see/buy for myself. 🙂

Look, we’re naturists, we play with beach balls, OK? Or so the media would have you believe, more so in the past than now, but they’re still taken to be something of a naturist staple.

I don’t know if Ella saw this sheer bodysuit. I did, however, and bought it. Nice, don’tcha think?

The same bellychain Ella blogged earlier, but in greater detail. It’s a bunch of little skulls hanging off the chain.

The same sheer tank Ella blogged earlier, but showing the back in detail. Not sure I intended to strike such a coquettish pose for this, though! 🙂

And finally one of a set of three rezzable hoppers. We need to have some sort of naturist Olympics where we can race these on the beach!

I love the little fella painted on the front. So cheery and happy, perfect for a summer’s day.

Pookes

Shine (skins) have a new group gift out.

It’s the ‘Ogg’ skin, a nice tanned skin, perfect for summer. Joining the group is free, and you can pick up this current group gift on the back wall of their store.

You can see the full effect of the skin in the photo below.

Nice, isn’t it? However, I want to draw your attention to the fact that the gift also includes numerous tattoo layers, for teeth, cleavage, freckles and…pubic hair!

As pubic hair (yes? no? Sculpted?) is an issue that vexes naturists, I thought I should highlight the three different pubic hair options available in the pack. There’s a ‘full’ pubic hair (although Shine’s concept of ‘full’ and mine differ substantially 🙂 ), a sculpted heart version, and a landing strip version. The three are shown below.

These close-ups should also draw attention to the fact that the skin is superbly detailed by fact of the presence of a couple of ‘moles’ in the skin. Incredible detail! I like this skin a lot. I like the variety of tattoos available a lot, allowing the owner to tweak the look a little while remaining in the same basic package. This is, all told, an excellent skin package. Hopefully other designers may also think of extending the ‘add ons’ in the same manner. I think we know, girls, that how we look ‘down under’ varies with the seasons, and an even fuller ‘bush’ would, in my opinion, finish off the Shine skin package superbly.

Pookes.

Fab Free has a cart sale going on until the 19th, and it includes a lot of L$10 items, plus the odd L$50 item, on the carts.

I haven’t seen it all, but you can read about it all here on their own wordpress page.

Anyway…these all generally fall into the ‘naturist accessory’ category, items you may wish to pick up to enhance that SL naturist experience. Yes, even the dress! A sun dress can be part of a naturist’s wear between, for example, apartment (or hotel) and beach, don’t you know? You do? Oh, yeah, I keep telling you this! 🙂

The highlighted links on the page link I’ve given will follow on through to a url and tp you to your favourite designer as a starting point. After that, simply wander around.

This sun dress comes with a hud so you can select one of eight different colours. The dress is mesh.

This ‘overkini’ is lovely. Sheer, as you can probably see! 🙂

I do like a belly chain. I think they add a little…hmmm…decoration to a body and are a particular favourite amongst RL naturists.

Finally, I picked up this cute rezzable sandcastle. I will certainly being doing some of this with my children on my forthcoming naturist hols.

Remember: children need factored to the max in the summer sun, need to wear a hat, and need to have their time in the sun limited. 

Ella