One thing I should make clear, after today’s sudden splurge of posts. I’m not up to the eyeballs in caffeine… 🙂 ….these are some of the backlog of posts over the past 2-3 weeks. I’ve managed to clear my own backlog today, and I’ve a few Pookes posts to wade through tomorrow, a couple from Barbara, one from Areola (now, incidentally, playing SL again but sadly unable to contribute to SLN other than very occasionally) and a couple of guest posts.

Oh! And one big ‘backlog’ is SLN 9. I hope to have it published by Sunday.

Ella

Anyone old enough to remember the furore surround ‘Oh, Calcutta!’, a theatre revue that debuted in the 1960s? You can read about its background here. Most of the controversy revolved around *sigh* nudity, both male and female, and full-frontal at that. We were discussing, weeks ago in ‘the office’, nudity in film, and the differential between actors and actresses. For the female, nudity is often ‘essential to the plot’ (hmmmm!) while actors, generally, get to keep their boxer shorts on. (Making love in those, fellas? Your girlfriend/wife in the film must love that!) Discussion, via Barbara, turned to Oh! Calcutta! (a play on words from a painting by Clovis Trouille, its title being the French phrase “oh quel cul t’as” translates roughly as “oh what a lovely ass you have”)

oh quel cul t’as

Eventually, discussion came around to stage nudity. I said that, despite being a naturist all of my adult life, I would find it remarkably difficult to strip off on stage. Yes! I can walk the length of a beach where maybe 2000 people will see me totally naked, but stepping out onto a stage of 500 or 1000 (clothed) people would be a totally different proposition.

Well, Harry set me a challenge. 🙂

Thankfully, there was no one in the theatre at the time…but I did do something in SL I’m unlikely to ever do in RL, and that’s tread the boards nude!

I particularly like the second photo. It gives a sense of vulnerability in the context. The only thing missing is an audience! 🙂

Next time….perhaps!!!!

Ella

Agnieszka Radwanska is, apparently, a tennis star. More than that, she’s No.4 in the world.

This sentence will tell you all that I know about tennis….nothing!

However she has come to the attention of the SLN News Desk by posing nude (yet showing little) for ESPN magazine -something else I didn’t know existed- and receiving a barrage of criticism in Poland, her home country, much of it emanating from the Catholic Church.

Radwanska, a Catholic herself (almost all of Poland would be Catholic) was previously a poster girl for a Catholic youth organisation, Krucjata Mlodych (Youth Crusade), and declaring herself to be proud of her faith in a commercial. (The fact that the organisation is making commercials with this message may be telling in that it perhaps demonstrates a declining level of faith in previously solidly Catholic Poland).

And yet by posing nude she has incurred the wrath of those unmarried and (allegedly) celibate men, priests.

I’ve made no secret of my distaste for organised religion on these boards before. That’s not to say I would classify myself as Christian, agnostic or atheist; I really do like the entire ethos of the gospel of Christ, it’s just I can’t stand the idiots running His show.

Agnieszka looks lovely in the photo! Stunning!

Yet some dog-collared moron is spending time chastising her for posing.

Senior Catholic priest Father Marek Dziewiecki said: ‘It’s a shame that someone who has declared their love for Jesus is now promoting the mentality of men looking at a woman as a thing rather than a child of God worthy of respect and love.

‘If she meets a man who she can truly love and establish a happy family and raise Catholic children, then she would probably have to hide these pictures from relatives.’

Er, no…she wouldn’t. Chances are her future husband, if she is to have one and is Polish, has already seen these photos. So has his family. Chances are they’d be thrilled their son/grandson/newphew/brother is dating a gorgeous looking girl and Polish sporting icon. Chances are that this sort of idiotic bile lessens the likelihood she’ll raise Catholic children, or have them inducted into a backward looking church whose popularity declines thanks to its backward ethos.

And did no one tell Father Dziewiecki that Ms. Radwanska and her body are creations of God? She represents one half of God’s greatest creations, man and woman. Do we really need any input from a representative of a patriarchal and increasingly irrelevant church?

The background sources to this report come from the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. The Telegraph takes time to conduct a poll, asking if it’s OK for sports stars to pose naked. Why just sports stars?

The results (at time of writing this article) are shown below.

The opinion of the readership of a right-wing and conservative UK newspaper! 🙂

***

 While knowing nothing of tennis, I have played it, nude, in Second Life, at Rokutman Westinghouse’s much-missed naturist sim. I’m not going to trawl the archive just now, but I do know we took some photos there of me chasing, rather than hitting, a ball! 🙂

While Rok’s sim may be gone, I did manage to locate one tennis court in SL, and challenged my friend James to a game. I mean that….one game. 🙂

Maybe my game would improve with more appropriate footwear! 🙂

Yep! Still thinking about the match. Maybe we should just toss a coin for it and the loser buys the strawberries and ice cream.

Well…that didn’t last long! James has won the game and the match. Phew! Time for another sit-down.

James takes to the umpire’s chair while I retrieve the racquets and balls. More exercise than I got during the match!

Ella

The BBC reports that people are applying to join naturist clubs during the current heatwave.

This got me thinking….does there come a tipping point in the temperature, or the prolonged duration of that temperature, where nudity seems an attractive proposition?

I’m guessing that, like me, there are literally thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of British citizens who have ditched the currently unnecesary extra layer of nighties and pyjamas in order to seek a more comfortable sleeping option (although my own preference is to be nude in bed all year round…it’s only particularly harsh weather that would have me running for clothing in bed)

Were summers to always be like this, would Brits become a nation of naturists?

Possibly.

Does the news report suggest that, at a certain point, people who maybe haven’t been naturist before are consciously thinking that nudity is simply a more logical choice? Or are they more of the ‘holiday naturist’ variety who reason that they’d strip off at these temperatures on Mediterranean coasts, so why not join up to a club to ‘legally’ pursue naturism at home? I suspect the latter, but would hope for it to be the former. Either way, it invigorates British naturism, and that can’t be a bad thing!

One of the clubs mentioned in the news report is a naturist walking/hiking group. With this in mind, we’ve set up a couple of appropriate photos, taken at Eden Naturopolis, always a good place for a naked ramble!

Note that you will find the rucksack, a nice accessory for added realism, in your inventory. It’s part of the library your avatar is ‘born’ with, and I’m sure many of you can utilise this in your everyday second lives, naturist or not.

Ella.

Here’s a place we’ve not covered before. It’s a Bisexual Nudist Beach.

Not particularly overt in its poseballs, there is a place where various numbers and division by gender can be ‘accomodated’, but it’s otherwise a relatively innocent little sim where those of you who are naturist and bisexual may wish to meet others of a similar mindset.

Model Esme tries this particularly attractive swimming pool pose.

Floating on the rubber rings, eyes closed, just enjoying the vibe!

Geared towards sociability, the ‘social’ poses are also exceptionally attractive.

Barbara

You might like to pop over to Epicosity, where you can join their group for free and snag a pair of nice aviator shades which work well on both male and female avatars. I picked a pair up for myself, as did our model.

Model Cristina also spotted an ice-cream cart, where you can pick up a variety of ice creams and ice-lollies, perfect for cooling down in the summer’s heat.

nb: Epicosity isn’t naturist…we visited it when it was quiet and could pose in a manner suitable for this blog! 🙂

Harry