By now, you’ll be aware that we’ve run an occasional series during the course of our existence where we’ve identified ‘heroes of naturism’, people who’ve advanced the naturist cause, or through their visibility have advanced the normalisation of nudity in society.

So far, the list has extended to Miley Cyrus, the 1980s British naturist film Educating Julie, Australian internet model Vanessa B, French performance artist Enna Chaton, French naturist pioneer Christine Lecocq,  author France Guillain, The Colombian Ladies Cycling Team, Swedish painter Anders Zorn, Brazilian actress Vera Fischer, German figure skater Katarina Witt, Brazilian naturist documentary subject and naturist pioneer Carina Moreschi. While not featured in that ‘series’, as such, we could also add San Franciscan naturist rights & film maker Gypsy Taub and English actress Helen Mirren.

While not nude, we could also salute the women behind the Iranian ‘Stealthy Freedoms’ campaign for removing their headscarves in a patriarchal society and striking a blow for further freedoms. Or, while we disagree with some of the methodology, the women of Femen.

There will be further instalments in the future.

What we haven’t done, so far, is to identify some of what we regard as the heroes of SL naturism. I’d like to correct that omission today.

There have, for us, been some stand out heroes of SL naturism over the past number of years. In no particular order, Brenda Hoisin, Elbag Gable, Gray Muircastle, Meikel Skytower, Kaiya Mumba and Lupe.

Brenda
Elbag

Gray

Lupe

Meikel

Kaiya

Over the years, at Eden Naturopolis, at Su Casa Naturist, at 7 Hills Naturist, at Wild Coast/Turtle Beach and at Lupe’s Magical Forest, they’ve provided the sims in which naturism has flourished over much of the source of SL’s life. For those of us who enjoy the naturist lifestyle, their sims have been constant, imaginative & fun. Other naturist locations come and go, but these are probably the premier naturist locations in SL right now, as they were in the past and, hopefully as they’ll be in the future.

It’s probably not too far fetched to say that many SL avatars who aren’t naturist in RL have discovered and enjoyed a replication of genuine naturism at their sims. The people named have pioneered virtual naturism in their own unique ways and they’ve almost certainly spread the naturist message in a positive way.

If SL Naturist wishes to identify ‘heroes of naturism’, these people fit the bill in an SL environment. Too often, we can take naturist sims (or any sims for that matter) for granted, without realising how much time, effort and, yes indeed, money people put in to enhance our second lives. Many people took Evacaroline’s ‘Sweden Naturist’, another former long-standing naturist sim, for granted until it was gone.

In the former eastern Europe, ‘western ideas’ were spread by a samizdat system. That is, dissident activity was spread underground, be it sharing works of literature or bootlegged tapes of The Beatles. Vaclav Havel, the late president of Czechoslovakia and, after its split from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, was also an author who spoke about the value of these samizdat artefacts changing his mindset, leaning him towards ‘western’ ways.

In their way, those listed above will have provided a samizdat style towards their SL projects. People previously unaware of naturism, or the genuine naturist lifestyle, will have been brought to the lifestyle partly through the efforts of those named.

As readily as the list of our real life naturist heroes, those named should also be included on our list.

Ella