I intend to try and save SL Naturist in some shape or form. It won’t be at this website, and won’t be called SL Naturist, but I do hope to try and do something to save it in some shape or form. I’ve spent the day looking at websites to try and see if I can get my own up and running, but as you know, Howie bankrolled SLN, so I’m going to be pitifully short of cash to run an avatar and pay other avatars for poses and so on. Nevertheless I’m going to see if I can do something with it. There’s no point continuing on at this site, because it would look like we’d had more comebacks than Frank Sinatra. So a new name, new location, new ideas and new everything. I’ll be spending the rest of the weekend seeing if I can do something.

Trine

Every seven years, you change., apparently.

For me, if I look back over my life, there’s some truth in that. 14 spells the beginning of a formative age, 21 the beginning of adulthood, 28 the beginning of family life, 35 the beginnings of a new maturity and so on.

It doesn’t hold exactly true, of course. We don’t change each seventh birthday, but around and about each seven years there’s a kind of shift.

At 56 I retired. Not because it was 8 x 7, but because I’d always hoped and planned to retire at 55. It took a year to extricate myself from the hamster wheel of work and actually do it. We (my wife and myself) bought a home in Spain last year where we’ll live at least half of the year and enjoy our middle age and twilight years.

After seven years and four months (2704 days, at the time of writing, to be exact) I’ve reached the end of the SL road, in a sense. I won’t be renewing my rental in a month’s time, and will be exiting SL on a regular basis as a result of real life ‘commitments’. I’m not actually committed to anything, but the death of Prince, almost the exact same age as I am, made me think that I should try to do stuff that thrills me (i.e. music) while I can.

It seems an appropriate time to bring SL Naturist to an end and go back to my first love, music. You’ll probably never hear that music, of course, but that’s not important. The important thing is to flex the creative muscle in that regard. I’ve always regarded SL & RL as entirely separate, so I’m not even going to point you at my real life, real world website (or real life, real world recordings).

With hindsight, no disrespect to Trine and Abigail’s terrific work, we should have closed when Ella and Pookes called it a day last autumn.

We’ve weathered changes in personnel, a shift in attitudes to SL nudity, a shift in attitudes to RL nudity, a shift in the way SL is over that seven years.

It feels like the right time to say goodbye, and close SL Naturist. I’m grateful to Trine, Ella, Pookes, Abigail, Harry, Diane and others for their input over the past four and a half years, but there’s something that’s telling me that this is the time to call a halt. So I will.

SL Naturist, 821,000 visits later, 1000+ visits per day later, is closing. I would like to thank all who have visited the blog over the past four and a half years.

We will remain online, but as from today it’s unlikely there will be few further updates. (I reserve the right to blog on redirecting readers to any new blog the staff may wish to set up, but SLN, in its current form, will no longer post or update).

It has been fun. It has been great fun. But the world moves on, if it’s real life or a Second life, and for me it’s time to exit SL almost entirely, due to a shift in thinking. Of course my avatar ‘lives on’ and I’m not ruling out occasional forays into SL, but regular visits are almost impossible, moving forward. There’s much to do, and SL won’t be an integral part of that, moving forward.

I promise that I will redirect you to any new site, should the staff, past and present, decide to continue blogging on SL naturism, but I’m done, I’m through, I’m finished. The SL office presence in world will exist for about another month, but I won’t be renewing my rent at the Eden Estate thereafter, and will be moving on to pastures new, in the real world.

My very best wishes to you all.

Howie

At the beginning of the month we reported that The Naked Hunt was coming. And now it has begun 🙂

The starting point is Isle of Punishment, and with each gift you discover, the locations for the next two stops on the hunt are provided along with the gift. You’re looking for a card with the image (above) printed on it for each gift.

I’m not going to race around the hunt and try to finish it too quickly, but spread it out over a couple of weeks and come back to it on a semi-regular basis.

So to kick off…

…this loincloth and leg bands at the first stop on the hunt, to give you a flavour of what to expect on The Naked Hunt.

I’ve picked up a couple of the other gifts already but I won’t post these just yet. I’ll continue on the hunt over the next couple of nights and update you.

Trine

Audrey Hepburn. In ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s‘. A moment that defined a certain style with the ‘LBD’, the ‘little black dress‘, and continues to define it. There are few women reading this who don’t have, in some shape or form, a little black dress in their wardrobe.

That iconic Givenchy dress continues to be something almost as vital to our wardrobes as bras and knickers, and has been in fashion for half a century and more.

Should you wish to dress in an Audrey Hepburn style, I’d advise you to pop onto the Marketplace, and check out Crazy Pastry’s ‘Audrey’ outfit (includes hat, sunglasses, cigarette and holder) all for just L$165. Bargain!

Our model poses as ‘Audrey’

So what’s the connection to naturism?

Well, like ‘the little black dress’, the human body is a design classic that never goes out of style. It’s always fashionable. Examine art from the ancient Greeks, to the Romans, to the Renaissance, to photographs made somewhere in the world in the past ten minutes as ‘art photography’, and it’s evident that human beings have been captivated by the naked human form since we practically began scratching images on cave walls.

Shouldn’t we be making that part of our wardrobe, a (birthday) suit to be worn -like the little black dress- in the right circumstances? That is, all beach and swimming activities, in our gardens where the weather permits?

Trine

I didn’t get into SL yesterday because we went to our naturist club. The weather was chilly, and it ended up as a day helping out in the grounds, clothed, rather than enjoying naturism. However, it was quality time spent with friends, and working on the grounds was part of our wider naturism.

If the graphic above, Meteo naturiste, naturist weather in France, is showing the figures in Brittany & Normandy being purple in colour, you can imagine what colour we’d have been, naked, in northern England. Oh, the sun shone, but the naturist’s worst enemy, the wind, blew hard. The wind, in my opinion, is a worse enemy than rain for the naturist.

Anyway, the sun’s shining again today. It looks pleasant when inside looking out, but outdoors it’s quite nippy. Scotland was, apparently, going to get snow over the weekend, so winter hasn’t released us of its death stare just yet. My shoes are off, and I’m tucked into a favourite armchair to spend the rest of the day in SL.

Trine

I don’t have a dog in the fight, so I’m not going to get too involved in an opinion on this, but I thought that it was worth pointing out for reasons I’ll explain in a moment.

There is a Donald Trump SL Campaign Headquarters in Second Life.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this because I recognise (as does the Republican Party and maybe even Trump supporters) that he’s a divisive figure, but the fact that this building (complete with info, notecards, freebies) exists is a throwback to the early days of Second Life when the real world was very much represented on the grid. Many businesses and universities had a foothold in Second Life, and there was an educational element to the entire game. If that means that people use SL to get informed, and then engage (in anything), that’s a good thing. I suppose it could be argued that SL Naturist fulfils this role for the naturist community, in a small way. Mixed feelings because we sometimes like to use Second Life to escape all this political nonsense.

So even if you’re in favour or opposed to Donald Trump, the very fact that the real world is dragged into Second Life and we get back to where Second Life once was can only be regarded as positive. Who knows? In a small way will it reinvigorate that real world engagement with SL, making it ‘the next big thing’ in terms of how politics, businesses and places of learning engage with an audience, in a form of social media, the way SL used to be? That would be a good outcome, I think.

Perhaps the next development would be a Sanders and/or Clinton campaign HQ in response? Or a Cruz HQ?

As I say, I’m not going to be drawn into opinions over an election I don’t have a vote in, and I’d be mightily pissed off at people from beyond the UK sticking their worthless tuppence worth into our forthcoming EU referendum (something I do have an opinion about). So I’m not getting involved in the merits or demerits of Trump.

Even if you’re vehemently anti-Trump, I’d encourage you to visit the sim, if for no other reason than seeing a throwback to how SL used to look, in terms of providing information notecards or promoting a message.

Trine

I wrote last week about ‘cultural  Marxism’, with a context of female flight attendants for Air France being asked to cover their heads when landing in Iran.

The BBC reports that the women have won their battle (or, rather, Air France have side-stepped the issue rather than tackling the issue head on).

The issue also raised the profile of the My Stealthy Freedom social media group, whom we’ve previously written about in SL Naturist. They’ve asked all female visitors to Iran to remove headscarves, and to highlight the ‘freedom’ involved in doing so, and many women are posting photos and memes to the group’s Facebook page.

SL Naturist has sometimes been about personal freedoms in the issues we write about, with naturism (in the real world, as in Second Life) certainly being a personal freedom we make our demands to pursue, sometimes in the face of opposition. While it certainly doesn’t have the same implications for an avatar, there may be sanctions. Stepping outside the norm in Second Life can leads to bans from certain sims. Being a furry, or another type of non-human styled avatar, might result in a ban from a sim. Being naked, in human form, might lead to a ban from a sim. Going out in public, without a headscarf, in the real Islamic world, could lead to fines or worse (note: in respect of this last link, I’ve no idea if that blog has a demonising of Islam styled agenda in presenting these facts).

I don’t wish to focus too much on Iran, as it is a country that is opening up (as the resumption of the Air France flights demonstrate) much more under a reforming President (although it still has some way to go in terms of how we, in the west, might frame ‘freedoms’). Then again, in some respects, is it the west’s place to interfere in the politics and society of somewhere else just because it’s not our way of doing things? Anyway, people are people, not demons. Iran, meet Uncle Sam. Soccer Mom, meet Iraqi mother.

Really, tell me honestly, how often have you travelled and been delighted by the friendliness of strangers? How much have strangers’ lives mirrored that of your own? ‘I worry about my child…can they get a better life than I have had?’. It’s never any different. We have the same hopes, fears, aspirations as everyone else, and it’s only the damned politicians who mess the world up for the rest of us.

I know that Iran, or rather the wider ‘Persian Empire’, is a region steeped in history and a deep, rich culture, and it’s a shame that it is on the other side of an ‘us and them’ fence. Because ordinary Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Jordanians and so on are just normal, ordinary people, and it would be a delight to have a greater, deeper insight into the history and culture of the region rather than being seen as ‘westerners’, or them being demonised as ‘religious nut jobs’. In almost all instances, it’s doubtful they’re anything other than beautiful people under the cosh (as we are in the west) of idiotic politicians working to a ‘divide and conquer’ agenda.

Tehran, like any other modern city, is in parts beautiful and exciting, while simultaneously being a congested place with the same issues as anywhere else.

I know that Islam suggests that women need to cover their heads, but it’s an Islamic patriarchy who determine this rule over women. I know we read articles written by a metropolitan elite about how women decide to wear a headscarf of their own free will (and an equal number of articles saying this is anti-feminist). Those women wear headscarves of their own free will, some say.

I know I’m rambling a bit here, trying to haul a few thoughts together, but it has some relationship to my next job, editing the Lingerie Lunacy blog. Sales of lingerie by British high street store Marks & Spencer are worth £200m per annum in their Saudi Arabia stores. So you might want to suspend your misconceptions just a little, and I’ll be kicking off my tenure at LL with an examination of that particular fact, and how women around the world look at their purchases of lingerie, how they display it for partners and so on.

I’ve had great fun working at SL Naturist, but I’m also looking forward to developing LL in the coming months. Thanks for reading my stuff, and giving me feedback. But this is my last blog posting for the blog and I’ll be moving onto LL as from now. I expect we’ll have some new posts up by next weekend.

Best wishes and enjoy your naturism, real or virtual,

Abigail

Meet the ‘new’ staff!!!! 🙂

Yes, the eagle-eyed amongst you will immediately recognise the pair photographed with me as Ella and Pookes!

With Abi & Diane departing to run a SL lingerie blog, Lingerie Lunacy (I know I’ll be a reader, I love SL lingerie!) a few feelers were put out to see if former favourites might be interested in jobs.

Ella said she’d love to get involved again. ‘Our new baby has been, without doubt, our easiest child, and a midnight feed sees him settled until early morning. Perhaps just a little too early, but I can’t complain at all. The grinding tiredness of disturbed sleep isn’t the same as it was with our first two. So I’d be delighted to climb back on board, just not in an editorial position. I’d love to write the occasional piece, and I’m itching to get back in-world. I’ve missed my SL friends! I didn’t expect a new baby to be quite so easy as it has turned out to be, in terms of night time feeds and the like, so I think that my old routines might just be do-able, and I can get inworld, and do a bit of dancing at some of my old haunts, some evenings, and report back accordingly.’

With Ella back in the fold, persuading Pookes was easy, and she’ll be resuming her old role as assistant editor, with Ella writing on an occasional basis.

A full team now back in place! Welcome back, ladies! 🙂

Trine

by Trine and Silje

A quick search online will reveal that there are persistent stories about naturism being in decline.  Even topless sunbathing is in decline, we learn. The young aren’t interested, we learn. They’re too prudish. Granted, we also learn from FFN, French Naturism’s official body, that many of the people using naturist campsites and beaches under their jurisdiction are under 35, writes Trine

Two years ago, French Elle magazine asked if it was ‘La fin du topless a la plage?’ (the end of going topless on the beach)

Are the young prudish? The same generation sending naked selfies to each other? Sexting each other? No, I don’t think they’re too prudish at all. But the phone-in-the-mirror-while-pouting shot is usually intended for private consumption…up to a point. Relationships fall apart, and the male recipient has revenge by posting them online (it happens that males who send photos are occasionally ‘outed’ in this manner as well, but it’s less common).

I’ve blurred the faces from the images because we can’t tell if the subjects are even aware their images are online, and they have a right to their privacy. Which is where we’re heading with this post…

But it’s not just teenage girls who enjoy a frisson of excitement in taking nude selfies, adds Silje. Older ladies, mature ladies, ‘milfs and cougars’ as they’re defined in porn world, also like the idea of naked selfies, showing that an older generation can be as sexy, as sexual, as alluring as their daughters.

Older men are in on the act too, but from the research I’ve undertaken, it appears they’re less inclined towards bathroom mirror selfies as having their partner photograph them. Often they’re in various stages of erection, so not suitable for this blog, but it’s interesting that although there are many candles on the cake, they still wish to portray themselves as young and virile.

Before you ask, yes I, Silje, have done some naked selfies in the bathroom mirror, but the quality isn’t so good, and I now would use a proper camera with a self-timer to take naked ‘selfies’ (although these are not so evident as ‘selfies’) if I am going to do self-portraits. Why do I do it? My husband likes them. But as with the evidence online, his preference is simply to be photographed by me. They make us laugh, and that’s what life is all about. That’s why we do it.

Meanwhile, Trine says she has never taken nude selfies and has no interest in doing so.

But let’s get back to the naturist angle, adds Trine

Isn’t the likelihood that declining nude or topless sunbathing and swimming owes much to omnipresence of smartphones? A girl in her twenties or a mature woman in her sixties might like to take selfies, and demonstrate her sexuality to herself or to a partner, but out there on the beach, now, everyone is carrying a smartphone. Everyone naked, women particularly, are now easy prey for any voyeur who can post online minutes after getting home. A female, whatever her age, may be confident to go nude, at home, or in public on the beach, but she is much less likely to wish to become an internet sensation without her permission.

Perhaps this is, in part, why the decline of topless or nude beach activities are being reported. Perhaps this is also why French naturism, the FFN, has conducted a survey to learn that naturism in the under 35s is alive and well within its membership. Inside the environs of a naturist campsite, amongst like-minded souls, the use of cameras is much less likely to be an issue (of course, it’s not impossible that photographs aren’t taken, but the allure of photographing fellow naturists is much diminished in organised naturism).

The availability of smaller cameras with megapixels and better lenses mean any naturist can be captured in high definition at distance, unaware of the presence of a camera.

The lesson to be learned is that naturist etiquette -the ground rules by which we exist, such as ‘always carry a towel for hygiene purposes’, needs to be upgraded to be fit for purpose in the 21st century. ‘Bag the phone, bag the camera’ now needs to be written into the naturist ‘constitution’ in some shape or form. You’re at the beach, you don’t need to be taking messages, calling friends and maybe sneaking photos. If genuine naturists were to adopt this code of conduct it would lead to a situation whereby smartphones, in evidence, might just become a mark of the voyeur. That call, that conversation, isn’t likely to be a matter of life and death, so why not enjoy the here and now, enjoy the moment, rather than living it second hand with a phone at your ear constantly?

Trine and Silje

As we creep towards the UK’s referendum on membership of the European Union, it’s an issue that will probably nudge into SL Naturist from time to time.

I’m a Europhile. I’m a paid up Francophile, and I’ll be in France on the day of the EU referendum, trying to replicate Ella’s Spanish sojourns with a series of ‘What I saw on my holidays’ naturist related posts.

What’s not to like about France? It’s people, its culture, its wines, cheeses, lifestyle, music, literature, philosophers and so on…

France, je t’adore!

But…but…but…I will be voting to leave the EU. I’ve already applied for a postal vote to cast prior to my departure to a string of naturist campsites in June. I don’t hate Europeans. I don’t hate Europe. I don’t hate the French, the Germans, the Italians….I hate the bloody EU itself, an unaccountable, vile, pigs-in-the-trough entity that needs a bloody nose. And if the UK delivers it, the entire deck or cards may fall. That doesn’t mean I want an isolationist UK. That means I want a totally reformed EU -the political entity.

Europe has provided so much to the UK in terms of the culture, from the rather mundane –croissants– (although how could you ever reference a well baked croissant as mundane?) to Enlightenment ideas from Voltaire or Rousseau.

Incidentally, on the topic of ‘croissants‘, the crescent, they originate from interaction with Muslim culture in Austria. Allegedly.  They are, in some bloggers eyes, therefore an ‘anti Muslim pastry’. What sort of society do we live in where a bit of pastry is ‘anti’ something? Completely stupid. It’s…..(expletive deleted)…baking!

Never mind. The EU referendum vexes us in the UK as much as Trump/Cruz/Clinton vexes our American friends.

Anyway…here’s a committed Francophile -your editor- at the delightful Paris Je t’aime sim, grabbing a croissant and coffee in what appears to be a particularly windy day on Le Rive Gauche, the left bank of the River Seine.

Trine