Ella wrote yesterday about a missing post of Abigail’s, relating to attitudes regarding nudity and sexuality within Islam, and I confess I missed that post entirely, hence it not being published! I’ll right that wrong in a day or two, but before I do I’d like to echo Ella’s thoughts regarding the objectification of ‘out of bounds’ women.

‘What lies beneath the burqa?’ is something that’s going to lead to fantasising and the sexual portrayal of such women, but we must remember that this isn’t a recent phenomenon limited to those ladies hidden under a burqa.

Something of a theme develops if we widen the idea of ‘the unavailable’ being sexualised.

Think of the exploitation films that utilise this theme. How many feature nuns? How many feature innocent white women being ritually abused by tribes of black men?

It’s a ‘thing’, once you think about it.

The photos, above, show the way in which this sense of ‘unattainability’ stretches into ‘art photography’ with both hijab and nun vestments being the source of eroticising the unattainable.

In all instances, not really SLN2 territory in terms of naturism, but certainly something that we return to again and again in the framework of the objectification of women.

I mention this because I’ve previously been at the Amazon River sims in SL, where you’ll get screen notifications that ‘if you have an exotic appearance you may be subject to unwarranted attention’.

While role-play and cosplay are core to some users Second Lives, there’s also a great truth behind it. ‘The Naked Savage’ was, to a degree, ‘unattainable’ in real life, and explorers, missionaries and others were thus drawn to them.

Christian missionaries arrive to convert these indigenous people, across the Americas, across Africa, while never being beyond having sex with the women.

Art shows these people as being naked, and thanks to the Bible one of the first things to be done was to clothe them -just as in Genesis. If we have ‘an enemy’, one of the things we do is dehumanise them. So, in current times, the entire ‘stripping the Islamic woman of her gowns of concealment’ really only follows on, I think, from a theme which has existed for centuries.

The ‘naked savage’ of the Amazon River sims attracts the attention of the Christian explorer

Abigail’s article on Muslim women’s attitudes to life (some of her source material drawn from some of her real life Muslim friends) is an exceptionally interesting (and lengthy) read. Because of its size I may split it into two parts.

Trine

Sailing around Greece was idyllic. We went with another couple and once out of our first harbour it was clothes off for two weeks, apart from when we went back into another harbour to replenish supplies or have dinner.

We would drop anchor at an isolated cove and dive off the side, then spend time on a beach not reachable by anywhere but sea, the only humans to have set foot on it for years, possibly.

(Posed at Fruit Islands)

With the refugee crisis sweeping Europe, the Hellenic Navy are out in force, and we were approached by them twice while bobbing around in the Aegean. It was a bit of a scramble into a bikini as they sailed nearer. They’d already seen us naked through binoculars, I’ll come to that in a minute, but I didn’t feel as though I wanted to be on display as a dozen or more Greek sailors grinned over the side of their boat at us.

The first time we were searched to make sure we weren’t people smuggling. The second time we were simply asked where we were headed. We didn’t know. We just sailed and dropped anchor every now and then. 🙂

The first time was a little bit frightening, as we were in a foreign country, didn’t speak too much of the language, and weren’t sure how we should react to being boarded.

The captain gently reminded us that being naked in public could be a public order offence. Now, prior to their ship sailing into view there wasn’t another boat anywhere else on the horizon, and land was so far away that even powerful binoculars wasn’t going to reveal four naked people on a boat, but we didn’t argue. At home, speaking to an English navy patrol, we’d almost certainly have argued the logic to ‘public order offences of being naked’ while at sea. And the instant they sailed away we took the bikinis and swimsuits off again anyway! 🙂

While the entire holiday was spent nude, it didn’t really feel ‘naturist’. We’re friends with the other couple from our sun club and have seen them nude often before, so it didn’t feel like there was any barrier to nudity to be broken down.

In Second Life there is ample opportunity to replicate the type of holiday I’ve just enjoyed, particularly around the Eden Naturopolis sims.

I’ve never yet spent any time afloat in SL. Plenty of people do, though, and at Eden it’s possible to do it naked as well.

Nat on board a yacht at Eden Naturopolis

Many people prefer to own their own yacht in SL, rather than have an on-land home. I have to say that I’m tempted to do the same thing, sometime soon. Failing that, I’d quite like to hitch a ride with someone who knows what they’re doing.

Trine