Here’s something of a naturist perennial we’ve not covered before. Bodypainting.

From naturist clubs to the WNBR, bodypainting contests are a regular occurrence, and even show up in mainstream media.

The first instance I remember of it is former British Olympic heptathlete Denise Lewis bodypainted (top half) for a magazine. Of course, there may have been many, many instances of that sort of thing being done prior to that, but that’s the first photo that I recall in the style.

Since then, the practice has just ballooned out of all proportion, from the sublime…

…to the ridiculous (and amateurish!)

although I’m pretty clear in my mind that the photo below is probably the one that made me laugh most during the course of researching this post.

Not, obviously, the same body painter as the one who did the following (or maybe they just practiced?)

The time was when you could find anything that existed in the real world in Second Life, but with something of a recession and shops closing, we weren’t sure if we’d find body paint. But, happily, we did at the Anthropology Main Store.

A whole couple of walls of ’em, so if you want to join the body painting revolution in an SL context, now’s your chance!

Anthropology also do a series of fun tank tops and tatts. I’m not overly disposed to tatts, in RL or in SL, but I did see one that tickled my fancy. What do you think?

🙂 🙂 🙂

Anyway, there’s a photo studio next door, so that’s exactly where we headed for a bodypainting photoshoot, and the results (some of them anyway) are below.

Pookes

Prior to being the chief architect in having Molly sent to prison, our day had begun so well, at Su Casa, at the lighthouse, where Molly posed beautifully for a lovely set of photos. There’s not much to say about the set, other than Molly was great fun (both on this shoot and the subsequent ‘courthouse drama’ we re-enacted). I hope to use her as a model again, after her release. 🙂

Harry

Working with another new model, Molly, meant I didn’t get to post as much as planned because, on the back of Ella’s earlier post, we decided to do a bit of re-enactment. 🙂

Notice the ‘zebra’ styled shorts worn by the Femen protestors in that post. It proved to be a simple task to make a pair from scratch using inventory items (there’s a ‘zebra’ fabric in there) and a new pair of shorts were had.

I’m not going to get into the politics of the case, simply to say that you can’t accuse SLN of not reacting to news events, as here’s our very own graphic re-enactment of the Femen protestors’ experiences. I’ve nothing to say about Femen’s actions in Algiers, and Molly (despite the title I’ve given the post) isn’t siding with anyone. It was just the opportunity to have SL replicate RL -one of my favourite themes, remember?

There’s no embassy that we could find in SL, so we opted for Molly holding a topless protest on the steps of a town hall.

Molly is taken to a police station. The desk sergeant has just nipped out to Krispy Kreme‘s, by the way. 🙂

She subsequently appears in the dock of a SL courthouse. For ‘public indecency’, baring her breasts in a non-adult sim 😉 she is taken away to a jail.

Looks like it’s solitary confinement for Molly! Oh dear! They’re only breasts. Not actually offensive.

Molly fought the law and the law won

If she’s going to be ‘breaking rocks in the hot sun’, it might be best if she took off her shirt…er…hang on…isn’t that how all this started? 🙂

We had a lot of fun making this short photo-essay, and we hope you like it. Molly will be available for modelling assignments in about three months….

Harry

That ol’ devil called synchronicity..again!

Just as Harry was posting about generally reading his favourite paper online, I was…reading my favourite paper online!

And I picked up this story, about Femen activists, a group whose actions we at SLN  have largely supported in their efforts to highlight the subjugation of women around the globe.

Until now.

Members of the group (presumably those photographed, above) have been jailed for ‘indecency’.

And the sheer hypocrisy of the Algerian authorities is plain for all to read in the accompanying text! ‘In Islam we respect…(women)’, said one of the prosecutors. Really? You respect them through your patriarchal society telling them how they should behave? You demand they cover themselves from head to toe in support for their freedoms and equality? You deny them the same rights as men out of ‘respect’? Utter nonsense. As one commentator puts it, it’s the words of ‘swivel eyed theocratic loons’.

Granted, topless women will have the effect of causing offence in some situations, regardless of the religious nature of the country involved. In Spain, going nude in public is not, necessarily, an offence (that right is enshrined in the Spanish Constitution), but there are limits, you know? Not in a school playground, for example, or in front of a church while worshippers exit. There has to be a sense of not deliberately causing offence for offence’s sake.

There’s a fine line, of course.

If you aren’t living on that line, then protests aren’t going to get the media coverage required in order to highlight the cause. Topless is what Femen do.

This time, however, I wouldn’t nail my bra to the mast of ‘womens rights’ being fought for here. While ‘tits out’ certainly still has the power to create massive media coverage (yawn! They’re breasts…isn’t it time society -certainly in Europe- got over them) it seems a deliberately provocative act in a Muslim country. And not very well thought out. Swivel eyed feminist loons, in many respects.

Theoretically taking action against the gaoling of Amina Tyler, a Tunisian femen(ist) supporter…well, why not stage any protest in Tunisia, rather than Algeria? And painting ‘in prison for being feminist’ on your body isn’t quite right. While I’ve no issue whatsoever with posting topless photographs of yourself on the internet, with the words ‘f*** your morals’ emblazoned across your chest, I do have some issues with spraying words on walls of mosques (or cemeteries, depending on your source(s) of information). The mosque, additionally, is a World Heritage site. Classy. Show your feminist attributes by defacing World heritage. Whatever next? Blowing up the Buddhas of Bamiyan? Odd to think that Amina Tyler’s tactics are just smaller scale Taliban. Ironic, huh?

If you’re going to demand respect for women in patriarchal societies, then the first thing you need to do is show respect for other people’s sensitivities. Their religious sensitivities. Or their cultural ones. Otherwise, you become as bad as them. And if you can’t bring yourself to respect a mosque, then at least have the common decency to respect the dead. You don’t agree with patriarchy’s morals? Fine. Express yourself in the manner in which you did. You don’t agree with the need to respect religion or the dead, then you’ve lost me. Sorry.

The Femen poster reproduced above demands that Amina is freed. But on what grounds? Sure, she should be freed on the basis that going topless and disagreeing with a certain code of morality is a freedom of expression. Spraying on mosques (or cemeteries) isn’t freedom of expression. It’s desecration on different levels.

Bare breasted in public I have no problem with whatsoever. I think there should be equality in all societies where men and women can go topless with the same rights. Bare breasted protest to highlight inequalities I have no problem with, simply because they -breasts- retain a power to achieve media coverage (although that, in itself, strikes at the heart of Femen’s actions. What’s getting the coverage? The cause? Or the tits? We can probably remember certain Femen actions (against an amused Putin, against the Pope, for example) but what was the precise cause of protest? Can’t remember, can you?

Oh…that’s right. Feminist action.

Never mind ‘F*** your morals’, or ‘Free Amina’ or whatever. In this instance it’s a case of ‘f*** your stupid, ill-thought, moronic protests in support of what appears to be an idiotic provocateur’. And please don’t cry if Algeria locks your members up. You’re modern day Emily Pankhursts. Pankhurst did time in Holloway prison in her fight for female emancipation in Britain. Maybe some Femen protestors, if they’re going to be stupid about it, need to do the same in Algeria and not whine about it.

Sorry, Femen, but you’ve lost my support.

Pookes spells SLN’s message to Femen out loud and clear

Ella

A new model! 🙂

This is Antoinette, and I happened to bump into her at Eden while scouring the clubs for locations. She readily agreed to pose, and her ‘payment’ was the framed ‘burnt’ photo (the fourth on this page) for the wall of her SL home, as well as copies from the remainder of the shoot.

Nice poses! (all currently free at a shop called tram, apparently. New to me, but I’ll certainly ask my usual models to hop over there and pick up copies for themselves).

I’ve a rare day off work today, without anything really pressing on my time, other than wander down to the High Street of the village where I live and pick up a hard copy of my favoured daily paper -I usually end up reading it on line in airport departure lounges 😦 – and have a bit of a read while sipping tea (I’m British, we drink tea) so I’m going to be out and about and around the sims snapping away and, later on, posting to SLN.

Harry