Back in April, Ella or Pookes (the post is uncredited as far as I can see) wrote about Tampon Tax.

Earlier today, the French parliament rejected the chance to reduce VAT on tampons because it would reduce tax income to them by 55m euros.

Shaving foam has a reduced VAT because it’s not a luxury. VAT on tampons aren’t reduced on tax, despite being a necessity ( a luxury good) for women of menstruating age. An outrageous decision.

Abi.

I discovered a beautifully photogenic sim called The Garden of Eden a couple of days back.

Naturally, the Garden of Eden will lend itself to nudity.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed (Genesis 2:25)

The Garden of Eden sim has recently run its own photographic competition and has a Flickr page, so you can see how other avatars interpret it.

This reminded me that SL Naturist has its own Flickr page, something I’ve barely looked at so far, so it also seemed like a good moment to add a couple of photos to that and let you know that page isn’t dead. I would have added them to The Garden of Eden’s own Flickr group, but it seems that the SL Naturist account has been moderated by Flickr staff, meaning that I can’t set the ‘safety’ level to alter them to be added to another group. I’ve no idea if this has always been the case or not.

Trine

In conversation with another (American) avatar at a sim this week, it was pointed out to me that the ‘Y’, the YMCA, insisted on nude swimming for many years, and the males in school swim teams also swam nude, often in the company of swimsuited female swim team members. Girls/young women were apparently clothed because the female body required ‘more modesty’. I wasn’t entirely sure if this could actually be true, so I did some research and found out that apparently yes! It might be true! Then again, it might not!

Are the photos above composites of the male & female swimming teams?

The photos don’t look photoshopped to create some CFNM fantasy. Despite this, one site examines the different press reports and suggests that, in many cases yes, the boys swam nude, girls clothed, but that there were gender segregated swim sessions.

I think we can say with some degree of certainty that males swam nude at the YMCA and in high schools, while females wore costumes. What I think is much less certain is that, despite photographic ‘evidence’ above, there were never any CFNM swim sessions. I would be delighted if any readers of SL Naturist could confirm or deny this CFNM scenario.

True or false?

Trine

I’ve not posted over the past week or so, the reason being that I’ve been spending time in the naturist sims of Second Life, hanging out and making new friends. I’ve also been utilising free time to acquaint myself with some external websites related to naturism. You will have noticed that previously SL Naturist could apparently effortlessly make a post relating to real life naturism, about events happening around the globe, and Ella seemed to do that with such ease. I didn’t have that knowledge, so the past week has been spent gaining some knowledge relating to external sites and bookmarking them so that I, too, can bring you news of the real naturist/nudity related world.

The first one I’ve got is this one via Buzzfeed.

It seems entirely apt in October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. A young woman with breast cancer has had tattoos applied to cover the scars. To me, it’s a story of hope and defiance against a disease that affects so many.

Read the story. I’d also recommend you read her story in her own words at the xojane site.

Trine