The Guardian carries a story today about the Xrysalis Gathering in California.

It’s a gay festival, with white people barred.

This reminded me of some of the sims in SL, where gay sims will say ‘no women’, for example. While it’s good, in one respect, that gay people can have sims to go to and thus avoid the awkwardness that might arise from conversations with heterosexuals..time wasted for all concerned…I’m generally opposed to the idea of segregation.

We don’t, as a rule, alter hearts and minds by being isolationist, and that applies to the naturist community as much as gay, black men being ‘if only briefly, entirely free from the white heterosexual gaze’. (Does this sentence strike anyone else as being ‘Peak Guardian‘? ‘Peak Guardian’, incidentally, is where writers wax lyrical on a variety of subjects that just read as the work of someone who is plain, bat-shit crazy in a display of inadvertent self-satire).

We alter hearts and minds by including ourselves in a wider society, be we naturists or black, gay men.

At the danger of digressing again, didn’t ‘one race only, please’ used to be called apartheid?

I asked Ringo, one of my gay SL friends, if he was aware of any segregated gay sims. ‘There used to be French Lovers’ Resort’, he told me, but it has closed. Even so, it was fairly relaxed about its inclusion. After all, you and Pookes both visited it with me! The only women only sim I’m aware of in the context of naturism is Bare Buns. I don’t go cruising, and my profile makes it clear I’m gay. If someone wants to read the profile and hook up, fantastic! But the only one advertising itself as ‘male only’ that I use is the Steamworkz Bathhouse. I wouldn’t be trying to limit my SL experience by saying ‘I don’t want to go where there’s no women’. That seems as silly an idea in SL as it would be in RL. There are a few single-sex sims around, but by limiting half the SL population, they turn out to be not particularly popular. I don’t use them.’

Ringo relaxes at the Ile de Levant naturist sim (report to follow on this relatively recent addition to the SL naturist sims)

Ella

Grrr!!!!

I wrote about this TV programme on UK’s Channel 4 last week, and watched it via their ‘Catch up’ service on Tuesday. It was awful, I have to say.

As a naturist I spend time, in the real world and in Second Life, trying to underline the actuality that nudity doesn’t always equal sex. That naturism is non-sexual social nudity.

Programmes like this, wherein adults are reduced to sniggering adolescents, make that task harder.

‘It’s a nice trimmed bush’, one naked guy said of a female. ‘What do you think of his penis? the presenter asked a female of a male.

The Sunday papers are now published, with some reviewing the last week’s television. The Sunday Telegraph uses ‘Naked Attraction’ as the jumping on point for a discussion about male nudity on television.  I’m not bothered. I think that if the scene demands it, nudity from both sexes should be expected. How many scenes have we witnessed where a man or woman who, we are led to believe, have been making ‘the beast with two backs‘ all night get out of bed with sheets wrapped around themselves?

I also find it sordid that the attraction of a person is distilled down to her ‘trimmed bush’ or her boobs, or the size of his penis. These things don’t define us. They are, certainly, part of who we are, but a minor part. Shouldn’t we be focusing, more immediately, on inner beauty? Intelligence? A good heart?

It was simply awful, and without being judgemental (too much) featured people who were possibly the sort who would do anything to be on TV and ‘famous for fifteen minutes‘.

Presenting this sort of drivel as…anything, really, reinforces people’s idea that a ‘normal conversation’ involves sentences like ‘it’s a nicely trimmed bush’. Fine between two consenting adults in private, not really for television. I’m quite happy for TV to feature more nudity, in context. Making it a freak show isn’t the way forward. Cue several SL avatars now thinking that the opening line to a conversation can be ‘I like your trimmed bush’.

Please, no more of this infantile entertainment.

Ella

The onsen is a hot spring/bath in Japan.

Abigail did an extensive post on these baths last November, in SL Naturist as part of the ‘southern hemisphere’ tour, even though Japan’s in the northern hemisphere.

It’s hard to know how accurate a portrayal of onsen life SL’s version brings, or indeed how representative the imagery of onsen life as found on the internet is. My research suggests that the onsen are more likely to be gender segregated than involve mixed, nude bathing. However it seems that in the past mixed, nude bathing would have been a regular occurrence. Now, men appear to cover their genital area with a small towel used for washing. The towel isn’t supposed to be immersed in the water for hygiene purposes, which is why you can see photos of users, male or female, with a towel propped on their heads.

Women wearing towels in the onsen

Women with towels on their head

Anime of an onsen shows a mixture of towel-clad and naked users.

Japanese avatar Haruto doing the pre-onset washing and cleansing ritual

The time difference between the UK and Japan means I don’t have any Japanese SL friends (ditto Australian or New Zealand players), but I recently met Haruto, who gave me a tour of some of the onsen in Second Life. On our travels we met Yui, who also agreed to pose.

Above, Yui is at the Hikaru onsen. As you can see, it’s in a snowy location, and this, it seems, isn’t so far removed from some real life onsen located in the mountains, above the snow line.

The pictures from real life (above) show that the SL version does indeed replicate RL to some extent.

We then moved on to the Sabai onsen, and again you can see the builders have located this ‘somewhere in the snowy mountains’. There was also a lovely little Japanese styled garden in which to pose, as well as using the hot springs.

Haruto then went to the Ryuuou gay onsen for more poses.

Note that many of the onsen in SL offer free towels such as that worn by Haruto (above) and by Yui (below).

I’d recommend that you try an onsen if you haven’t done so before, if only for the fact that the scenery & geography of them is uniformly lovely.

Ella

Over the years, I’ve introduced the naturist lifestyle to various people. Most important, my husband, Jim.

Mr & Mrs Keng

My RL friends ‘Bebe’ and ‘Nyma’…

Nyma and Bebe

Neither started a week’s holiday as naturists, both finished it as enthusiastic naturists and ‘Nyma’ has been on naturist holidays since (Bebe hasn’t repeated the experience yet).

Even my mother in law joined us in June for her first naturist experience, and joined in…

My cousin Sylvia wasn’t exactly a ‘hard sell’, as it was she who introduced me to naturism all those years ago.

Sylvia

It’s actually hard to think of Sylvia and I in Cap D’Agde, all those years ago, before it became a bit sordid, with me making my public debut in naturism! It is all Sylvia’s fault!

Another naturist holiday beckons at the end of August. Our domestic situation means I can’t always be guaranteed to have Mr. Keng or the children in tow (he stays home, spoils them and spends a week as a home worker). However, I do like a companion if I can. And having heard of her brother, then her mother, embrace naturism, my sister-in-law Mary will be joining me at the end of August. She is a ‘naturist virgin’, so I’m hoping she’ll contribute (or I can ghost-write for her) to SL-FKK about her thoughts on the lifestyle.

Ella & Mary

As has been the case in the past, I’ve utilised one of our SLNModel ‘alts’ to play the role of Mary for this blog’s purposes and have already worked with her to develop an avatar she feels reflects her reality.

We’re in Spain at the end of August, so I’ll be reporting again in our usual ‘Postcards’ series, and will be getting Mary to add her thoughts.

Ella

Three years ago, then SL Naturist photographer Harry Leistone added an ‘alt, Spencer Cloakk, a thinly disguised homage to Spencer Tunick.

SL Naturist did several Tunick related posts and in fact we still, as SL-FKK, do likewise, as Trine’s real life involvement in Tunick’s ‘Sea of Hull’ project, complete with an associated post, testifies.

Harry eventually stopped working for SL Naturist, and abandoned SL altogether, due to real life illness.

We lost a great photographer, I lost a good SL friend, and we also, by the by, lost his alt Spencer.

At the time, Harry had opened a photo gallery at the (now defunct) Nude Haven sim, and that, too, went by the wayside.

I’m delighted to say that Harry has made contact after almost three years, and is back in SL. I’m also in position to say -I have Harry’s permission- to let you know that he suffered a brain haemorrhage and stroke back in 2013, not ‘a bit of urgent surgery’ as I reported (had been told) on SLN back then.

‘I had lost much function down one side’, Harry tells me, ‘and I’ve spent the last three years rehabilitating myself with the aid of family and some wonderful people in the NHS (UK’s National Health Service). Without them…who knows? I’ve still got restricted use down one side, and I’m a bit forgetful as a result, hahaha, but I’ve taught myself to write left-handed in the meantime, and I can now work a computer again, so I’ve been able to get back into SL’.

(photos above: Spencer Tunick in Cleveland)

There are many issues involved with trying to replicate Spencer Tunick in SL. Lag, poses not synchronising, etc, but Harry/Spencer has been back in SL trying to do Spencer Tunick on a small scale.

‘I’d like to express my thanks to new SL friends Judy, Leerayia and Jelena (L-R in the photos) for their patience. It must have been torture for them to wait for me to type instructions, one handed, to get them to pose as I wanted them to. I’m grateful to all three of them.’

Please remember that SL-FKK is not my blog, it’s Trine’s, so I don’t have any input on this, but I’ll be suggesting to Trine (she returns next week) that Harry/Spencer will be a valuable addition to the SL-FKK staff. Hopefully we’ll see Harry (I still think of him as Harry, not Spencer) return to the SL Naturist FKK fold in the immediate future.

Harry & Spencer

I’ll be stepping back, again, and existing as an occasional contributor (although…wait for my next post in that regard!)

Ella

It’s hard to tell if it’s just the times we live in, but my contributions to SL-FKK (hurry back, Trine, you all cry?) seem to be more political than strictly naturist, although this story links the two.

The Daily Express & the Daily Mail both report (via Breitbart) that a gang of Muslim men ‘stormed a German naturist pool and issued threats’ to those in attendance.

The women were ‘sluts’ who would be ‘exterminated’.

Eyewitnesses said the six men, who were “apparently insulted” by the nudity, spat on the swimmers after branding them “sluts” and “infidels”.

OK…so they’re actually going out of their way to trespass the pool in order to be insulted?

Not the sharpest tools in the box, are they?

But then, why would be be surprised? Those who join terrorist groups are generally the young, disaffected, largely stupid -in terms of educational qualifications- and unemployable as a result. They’re the berries ripe for picking by older, ‘wiser’, more cynical heads who would never do anything dangerous themselves. They just select the cannon fodder.

When the group returned to the swimming pool the staff decided to call the local police. The police took the young men from the pool and checked their identification, and though there were no reports of arrests being made the state security service have said they will be investigating the matter further.

Muslims are quick to cry ‘Islamophobia’ when faced with hate crimes. Rightly so, in many instances. There’s no need to be abusing anyone for their beliefs.

But rather than sweep this under the carpet, perhaps it’s time to ensure that we, the naturist community, in Germany and elsewhere, shout ‘naturistophobia’ and demand that this incident be treated as a hate crime subject to the same rigours of the law as those afforded Islamophobics, neo-Nazis, and far right knuckle grazers. You all occupy the same gutter.

Everyone should have the right to live their own life according to their own chosen lifestyle without fear or intimidation, be it in terms of wearing a hijab or burqa, or choosing to live a naturist lifestyle.

None of us have the right to impose our values on others on the grounds that we’re morally superior. Allow others to live as they see fit. And if you’re indulging in the hate speech of the far-right, you’ve lost the moral high ground, lost the argument. If you’re indulging in the hate speech of the radicalised Muslim, you’ve lost the moral high ground, lost the argument. If you’re physically attacking others, with words or weapons, you deserve jail time, without parole. Ever. I hold both of you in nothing other than pity and contempt for your stupidity and self-loathing.

Ella

Caitlin Stasey was an actress in an Australian soap opera, Neighbours. It’s broadcast (or was, I have no idea, really as I don’t bother with TV or soap operas) in the UK. She since appears to have relocated to the US since leaving ‘Neighbours’ in 2009  and is working in film & television there.

And Caitlin has been reported in ‘OK!’ magazine (which I do know is a celebrity/gossip/drivel glossy mag appearing in various formats around the world.

But we at SL-FKK like Caitlin’s style!

OK mag report her posting photographs on social media featuring -gasp!- female body hair!!!!!

Intrigued by what OK! call a ‘one woman crusade to make body hair acceptable’, I explored some more, and found a rather enlightening interview and photoshoot with ‘Herself’ magazine, which the info provided suggests is a project by Caitlin Stasey, wherein various women (including Stasey) are interviewed and photographed nude.

It seems that recent Instagram photos merely reinforce her rather positive attitude to body hair. I, for one, approve!

I would also urge anyone who might describe themselves as feminist to read various interviews with various women in ‘Herself‘, as they shed a very positive light on ‘ordinary’ (who exactly is ordinary?) women living life as is right for them. From Stasey’s own take on body hair -that it’s fine to be yourself, not what others demand- to views on all manner of aspects about their lives, I found the entire ‘magazine/website’ to be incredibly positive.

Ella

We’ve just pulled into a port for the evening (clothes on as we got within sight of the harbour), and just enough of a signal to be able to say that nude sailing around the Greek Islands is as much fun as you might imagine! I’ll report all when I get home at the end of the week.

I definitely don’t have enough power of a wifi signal to log into SL, so here’s a photo taken at Eden Jakarna before I left the UK, showing us about to cast off on our naturist sailing adventure.

See you soon!

Trine

Flicking through the (digital) pages of The Guardian/Observer this morning, I spotted a story about male circumcision and how one husband’s insistence on it for his sons ended his marriage.

With circumcision the predominant look in north America, it’s unsurprising that ‘the look’ is mainly of the ‘cut’ variety.

In Europe, however, the predominant look is to be uncircumcised (uncut).

Uncircumcised male naturist with foreskin intact

Circumcised male naturist with foreskin removed.

There are social and religious reasons for circumcision. It was once believed that circumcising prevented masturbation (untrue) and offered more protection against infections (debatable), which were the social reasons for cutting.

Muslims and Jews routinely circumcise their male children, even now, for religious reasons.

I confess that I grew up in a slightly sheltered environment, and it wasn’t until I became a naturist that I had a range of penises to compare. Because my naturism has exclusively been in Europe, my exposure to the naked male form offered me an overwhelming experience of uncut men.

Of course, there were still circumcised males around, in a minority, and I do remember being intrigued by that look in my early naturist days.

My husband was circumcised as a boy, for a medical condition known as phimosis, that it a foreskin that is too tight for retractable purposes. As such, he never knew sex (or masturbation) as an uncut male and says he’s totally unqualified to comment on whether there is a loss of sensitivity as a result of circumcision.

As I’ve never had sex with anyone but my husband, neither am I in a position to make any comparisons either, but there are many articles on the internet which lay out the pros and cons of sexual experiences with cut and uncut men. There’s also some debate as to whether oral sex is preferable with a circumcised penis.

The internet is full of such arguments, although I draw the line at some people suggesting a circumcised penis ‘looks more natural’. Some of what males were born with has been removed. How is that remotely ‘more natural‘?

Of course, all of this debate is moot in the context of Second Life. What I think Second Life has done, for some users, is to expose them to a circumcised look they might not, as Europeans, or an uncircumcised look, as north Americans, they would have experienced in real life. In a sense, the likes of Second Life (and internet porn, too, of course) have ‘normalised’ the circumcised look for Europeans, and ‘normalised’ the uncut look for Americans.

One thing we can be sure of is that in SL & RL naturist circles it becomes immaterial after a while. We aren’t judging on how our male partners look in that regard, but how they are as people.

Conversely, UK’s Channel 4 begins a new series tomorrow night called ‘Naked Attraction’, in which people are asked to pick a date purely on the basis of their naked form, and then move to a clothed date to see if chemistry initially sparked by a purely physical attraction to another person’s nudity can develop. I have to say this sounds awful, if only for the fact that it reinforces a link between nudity and sex -something we as naturists are continually begging to refute.

Ella

Oh to be glad that I’m not so young that I’m addicted to social media and need to discuss everything on it.

The Daily Mail asks if it’s OK to sunbathe in your underwear in the heatwave currently being experienced here in the UK.

Does anyone need to seek anyone else’s approval for this? As long as your undies are clean, what’s the problem?

Fortunately, some rather sensible German gentleman has had the sense to post in their comments section…

A couple of other comments that caught my eye…

German avatar Franziska sunbathes in her underwear in Second Life, for the benefit of SL-FKK, ‘but would sunbathe nude in Germany in the park at lunchtime in real life’.

Ella