Daily Archives: December 1, 2014

Vintage Season : More hippies

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I’m indebted to SLN reader Tish, who pointed me at a tumblr blog dedicated to the Hippie & Naturiste, from whence these photographs came. I’d suggest these aren’t ‘hippies’ in the traditional sense, but more ‘new age people’, people who’ll be attracted to the rainbow Gatherings, to festivals, to Burning Man, to a love of and caring for nature, to Koktebel in the Crimea (where some of these photos, I’m fairly certain, have come from), and of course to a casual approach to nudity, without ever maybe calling themselves ‘naturist’. Being naked is just what they do, weather and circumstances permitting.

Tish also highlighted the possibility to indulge in a similar sort of lifestyle in SL.

‘I had a successful career in banking, made a lot of money and hated myself’, Tish told me, ‘so I gave it up, realising that with a little bit of care I could live quite happily in the sort of lifestyle and location I wanted to without ever needing to work again. I could simply indulge my inner creativity. So that’s what I did.’

Moving, initially, to a remote location on the west coast of Ireland, Tish sold up about two years ago to relocate to France ‘because the weather was better’.

Painting, sculpting, making pottery, knitting and sewing, growing vegetables, she said each day was full and fulfilling. ‘I don’t own a television’, she laughs, ‘but it is necessary to keep in touch, with friends, with what’s going on in the world. So the internet and my computer is my luxury each month. And if the weather’s bad and I’ve no real work to do, I play SL. I do tend to manage to fill days firing little pots, painting them, painting scenes from nature, selling my products in the local market and so on. That’s become my work. I maybe make 1/10th, 1/20th of what I used to earn, but it’s a much more fulfilling life. I don’t miss the world of finance.’

Is Tish a naturist? ‘I’m not naturist in real life. Or, let me re-phrase, I don’t classify myself as naturist. I do spend quite a bit of time naked. I own a small-holding, it has a river that runs through it and it’s private. So I can bathe in the river in summer. I can go topless or fully nude in my vegetable plot. I don’t really see myself as naturist but more as someone who will be naked when it seems logical to do so.’

Tish’s RL daughter, having just finished an Arts degree at university, has recently come to live with her and also has an equally infrequent SL profile. ‘It was something we discovered independently of each other. I was amused to learn of her presence in SL, as much as she was mine. Currently, she’s living with me here in France, and doing a lot of time painting. I’m a mere amateur dabbler, whereas she has proper talent and training.’

What of the experience of many talented real life artists using SL? ‘I think that there is a certain mind-set that is attracted to SL. For some it’s a kind of moving image replication of dressing up Barbie dolls with a bit of cybersex thrown in. For others, I think there’s a creative element. Look at the builds! Look at clothes, hair, accessories. People are creating this stuff. It’s just another creative outlet. Look at your thing, your blog. You’re expressing yourself in words. That whole creative element is sometimes very much overlooked when people think of SL’.

 

 

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Tisha at the ‘Scribbled Hearts’ sim. ‘This is a place not unlike my real life home. Rural, wild, beautiful’.


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‘And this is very much like me on a warm day’, Tisha laughs. ‘Not many clothes on, and working on the produce in my garden’.


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And Tisha sends those who seek an alternative lifestyle a message from the Grateful Dead sim, ‘A favourite because they still represent a counter-culture’. 

Ella


Coming next: Tisha’s RL daughter ‘Rainbow’ explains the appeal of SL to her, and her love for a RL alternative lifestyle

Swimming in the Med, December 1st

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I really ought to give up work and write a SL blog for a living! Being inworld for much of today, so far, has been so much fun, with lots to see and do.

I’ve been spending time zipping about the different naturist sims, catching up on them in a more comprehensive manner than I might usually get to do.

First stop (when daylight arrived, I’d already been there at the edge of RL & SL dawn) was Su Casa, where a human cannonball has been installed.

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The view from inside

 

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Waiting for the fuse to light

Unfortunately the instruction said ‘press page up or E’ to ignite it. I’m operating on a Mac, and neither seemed to fire me into the air. Still, it’s one of those ‘a lot of fun’ items that I’ll need to go back and try again in a day or two. I’ll report back with photos if and when I can get shot into the air.

After that, my RL Spanish friend Mercedes popped up online (this is why I need to stop working; I could maintain a better social life) and reported that she’d just come back from a naked swim in the Med on the 1st December. Not too many people in, she reported, but it was a calm if chilly sea. I felt a little pang of jealousy, so I did the next best thing and hopped over to 7 Hills where she posed for me ‘knee deep, just like my real life swim earlier’, she laughed.

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 After some lunch, I then got around to what I’ve been meaning to do for some time: re-vamp the look of the blog. I’ve also added a new header bar -another design by my friend Brenda Hoisin, owner of the Eden Naturopolis sims. Brenda was kind enough to do several for me some months back, but until now the format of the blog allowed me to only use one, while the new layout will permit me to use the remainder that she did for me on a revolving basis to keep a fresh feel to the blog.

OK…I’ve got some RL children to attend to, so forgive me slipping away from SL for a little while. I do plan to return later this evening.

Ella

Urban Legends

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I have to give a mention to the Urban Legends SL blog, for their use of skin on their blog. Anyone who uses the naked form on their blog to illustrate SL items, skins, hair, whatever, is terrific in our books, because it all goes towards normalising the naked form, something that some SL bloggers still shy away from, with the liberal use of pasties. So well done to Natsumi Kangjon for her use of the naked form on her blog. It’s a beautiful photograph of a beautiful model in an imaginative pose.

PXL Belleza applier©2014 Natsumi Kangjon, Urban Legends SL blog.

Photo used without permission and will be removed on request

 

Sleeping naked is best for you

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Sleeping naked is what I do, and have done, since my mid-teens. I think that, even before I’d seen or experienced naturism, there was something that was sub-consciously present and attracted me to the state of being naked. Of course, I do own pyjamas, and am not averse to using them on a harsh winter’s night, but it has to be really cold, one of those nights where the frost sets in right after sunset and keeps dipping long into the night, before I’d contemplate searching for them in my wardrobe.

This morning, for example, I’ve been up with the lark after a night’s naked slumber beside my equally naked man, on the morning of December 1st. Straight into a dressing gown, of course. I live in a climate where there’s only a very few days in the year where the idea of wandering downstairs naked and pottering around in our kitchen like that would be possible. Even on holiday, in the heat of naturist Spain or France, I’ve had a tendency to throw on a shirt for an hour or so before or around sunrise because you can feel a little bit of a chill sometimes.

Now I’ve got a family I do tend to find myself showering and dressing, knowing I’ve got a school run in front of me most of the time, so the naked morning moments are somewhat rarer.

The coffee’s on, and breakfast’s prepared, any work that required doing was undertaken yesterday, so I have a full day’s SL-ing stretching out before me (hooray!).

I read, last week, that sleeping naked is beneficial to our health. Certainly, the idea of my skin breathing free at night, rather than wrapped up in constricting nightwear (about as attractive a proposition as constricting swimwear!) has more appeal for comfort, but I was surprised that it also has other benefits.

The media have picked up on this across a variety of outlets, so you can read about it here, here and here.

Which brings me, neatly, to my preferred ‘night’ (i.e. ‘early morning’) choice of nightwear. In summer, and even on the milder mornings we’ve been experiencing here recently, I do like to throw on a man’s shirt, one of those heavier ‘lumberjack’ types.

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Morning rounds of the SLN offices, checking in at Su Casa first…

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…followed by a look at the ideas I’ve come up with for our Christmas coverage at the Eden Naturopolis office

This lumberjack (night)shirt is currently available as a free gift (along with 59 other great freebies) at Fab Free Headquarters. Hopefully the sun will soon be up (in RL & SL) and allow me to discard it as the heat gets up in SL, while it’s off to the village for me for some shopping. I’ll be back in SL later, and I’m pleased to say much of it will be spent in world. Often, my in world visits are far too fleeting, picking up a SLurl here, an item to show you there, and not enough time to just kick back and enjoy the game as SLN doesn’t write itself! I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Ella