I’d be quite opposed to the whole nonsense about ‘Muslim rights’ (just as I am to ‘Christian rights’) in a secular society. The needs of the secular society prevail. And in western Europe, around the Mediterranean, beach culture will mean bikinis, topless of possibly nude sun and sea bathing. This is the European way, and if you don’t like it, tough.

While I’m not of any faith myself, I do respect the rights of others to hold one. While I’m a naturist, I respect that it’s not a view shared by everyone. But I do expect others to respect my right to sea bathe and sunbathe nude should I want to without either comment or glares.

I do, however, think it is plain wrong that the French police are ‘forcing’ women in bikinis to disrobe on a public beach.

How retrograde a step is this?

For centuries, the way to humiliate someone was to strip them naked in public. In some parts of the world, that’s maybe still the culture. While this Muslim woman was not stripped naked, her sense of ‘public shame’ may be regarded as being the exact same form of humiliation as that experienced at different times throughout history. and reflected in modern day entertainment.

‘Integrate and be like us’, say the French. So this woman does exactly that, in a costume of her choice, while being totally accepting of a western, European beach culture that permits less clothing than her, or no clothing at all. She determines to fit into that western beach culture and is challenged by the forces of law for it. Not a particularly forward looking policy, I’d have said.

‘Wait’, wails someone, ‘she’s simply a media stooge. How convenient that someone with a good camera just happens to be just a few yards away, photographing it and  subsequently making those photos available to the press. It’s just a propaganda image’.

But how stupid is the French law? I own one of these in real life, and use it in winter months…

Can I wear this in France? Might I, as the ticket issued to the woman on the French beach said, be accused of not ‘wearing an outfit respecting good morals and secularism’?

That’a how dumb this new French law is.

I suspect the French are trying to make a point here, although going about it in the wrong way. ‘After attacks on us’, it seems to run, ‘we will show who is boss in this country’. After all, the police had the opportunity today to the woman ‘you can leave the beach’. By demanding a semi strip, all under the gaze of a remarkably sharp series of photographs, France would appear to be saying ‘we will humiliate your women in public, unless you learn to accept that western ways don’t include raping or sexually assaulting wester women (i.e. in Germany or Sweden) or launching attacks on us and our way of life’. Particularly that ‘our way of life’ element of it. The police challenge the woman directly as a quid pro quo for attacks on the French way of life. Maybe it’s right, maybe it’s wrong, who knows? I’m firmly on the side of saying that it’s the wrong approach.

Ella

I have to admit I have become becalmed by SL in the past week, as there’s not been any MSM (mainstream media) stories related to naturism to use as a hook on which to hand an SL equivalent story on.

I’m glad to say that, this evening, I’ve managed to locate a couple of SL-direct naturism matters to address, so I’ll be spending this evening researching these (new locations) and bringing you the detail, with pix, later in the week.

Phew! I was beginning to get a little desperate with ‘writer’s block’, as it were and things I felt I could write about.

I think the issue is often exacerbated by logging in to SL, and its main blogging aggregator, SL Style Daily Wire, to discover it’s just more dresses, more dresses and more dresses, something with which you reach saturation point after a while. I don’t really need to be spending any more linden dollars on another pair of jeans or another T shirt or cocktail dress. Do I? I don’t think I do, so much of what is being blogged is automatically made irrelevant to me. That’s not to criticise the bloggers. They’re all doing a terrific job, particularly for those who are new to SL and do need to expand a wardrobe.

A case in point: I have Roodvosje Rosse‘s ‘Go Dutch‘ blog bookmarked. I like many of the items she blogs, even if I wouldn’t necessarily buy them myself. I am, however, a sucker for free, sexy lingerie (not that I have any opportunity to wear them in any inworld scenario, other than the knowledge that I’m wearing them under my usual jeans (often the ‘girl next door’ jeans that come in everyone’s inventory) and a sloppy T shirt -my usual SL dressed attire.

So I’m grateful to her for pointing out the free lingerie set (photographed above), available at Seldom Blue, for L$0.

I’m equally grateful for her drawing my attention to this set because, after a week in a negative SL mindset, just grabbing this set and then photographing myself in it was the kick up the pants, the kickstart, I needed to reinvigorate my SL.

I guess there are times when we’re all becalmed in our Second Lives. SL is a habit, and without something to grab us it’s easy to drift away from SL. I suspect many have drifted away because there’s no reason to log in…just more dresses, more dresses and more dresses.

Anyway…I’m off to explore a couple of locations we’ve not featured before, and I rather hope to have those published before the weekend.

Trine

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a more inappropriately named store as ‘Stiff Poses‘, because these are fabulously fluid looking poses which give a real sense of ‘action’ in them.

You know we love poses here at SLN2, because we love to give a sense of movement in the photos we do, and ‘Stiff Poses’ offers a real sense of movement that bring photos alive.

Via the slurl, you can buy three L$1 gift sets (2 for female, 1 for male), and I’ve posed a selection below.

All seemed to suit a beach scene well, textile or naturist, and it’s just a case of using your imagination to use them in settings they weren’t initially intended for. You can imagine my various titles for them, from ‘eek! this water is cold!’ to ‘peace and love, the naturist ethos’.

You can’t actually buy the poses inworld, and have to go onto the Marketplace to buy.

Role-players may also like to know that Stiff Poses do several ‘action’ pose sets with titles like ‘Secret Agent’ or ‘American Agent’, so if you’re into RP and want a new profile photo, for example, Stiff Poses is the place to go to.

Ella

The Ile de Levant is an island off the coast of France (near Toulon…so think of it as roughly half way between Marseille and Nice).

While much of it is fenced off as a military zone, part of it has a long history as a naturist haven going back to 1930, was pretty much Europe’s first dedicated naturist ‘village’ and nudity is pretty much de rigeur there, apart from the harbour area, where there is a dress code known as ‘le minimum’.

This would basically be a thong, or versions of a thong, for both male and female visitors.

You can see variants in the photo above, with one girl wearing standard bikini briefs, while the other wears a ‘loincloth’ to cover her genital area. The thing both girls have around their neck is a small pouch used to store keys, some money, sunglasses, etc.

The Ile du Levant likes to style itself as ‘the capital of naturism’.

The island is also one of those locations that still holds a ‘beauty contest’, ‘Miss Levant’ (Koversada in Croatia and Agde in France do likewise), which is popular. I’ve holidayed there in real life, did enter the ‘Miss Levant’ competition (I didn’t win, and wasn’t even in the final placings 🙂 Just a bit of madcap fun while on holiday, you understand.

Now, Second Life has its own Ile du Levant!

And exceptionally good it is too!

There’s an exceptional sense of knowledge of naturist history the instant you tp into the sim.

Firstly, the gentleman in the top could easily be one of the doctor brothers (Gaston & Andre Durville) who initiated naturism on the island. Touch his hat and you’ll get a copy of ‘le minimum’, which I’m wearing (below)

Harry, on his first assignment back at SLN2 following a period of ill health, accompanied me (and for us, it was also a ‘get to know you’ opportunity) and decided these made him look emasculated, so he hopped onto the Marketplace to grab a loincloth (L$30) he thought met ‘le minimum’ requirements.

After I logged off, Harry stayed to take more photos of the sim and…grrrr!!!!…I knew I should have stayed a little while longer…ran into Robin, who owns Ile du Levant.

It appears there are great plans to develop Ile du Levant socially, and we hope to be part of that, supporting IDL where we can.

Trine at IDL

From what I can see, there’s a lot to explore at IDL, so I intend to pick this up in a ‘part 2’ later in the week.

Trine

With another Spanish holiday looming, I’ve been in email conversation with my friend Mercedes, who also plays SL.

We got into conversation about the mantilla, a religious head covering for Spanish women, held in place with a comb called a peineta.

She has one that she wears to church and sometimes at funerals, and was telling me (much as photographers and artists use the ‘taboo’ of the hijab in their work to ‘break boundaries’) that Spanish artists have utilised the mantilla with the nude in their work.

A little bit of research later…

A mantilla is available on the Marketplace, priced at L$250, if anyone should wish to follow Mercedes’, and some artists, lead on this.

Ella

Here’s one of the most fun items I’ve seen in SL for a long time. Boutique 187 has a wearable balloon outfit.

L$20 will get you this outfit which, if either you or a bystander clicks on the balloons, they magically ‘pop’!

They do pop back into place a few seconds later, but they would be a fun item to have at a balloon party of some description as a crowd of dancers start popping each other’s balloons.

Trine

The Daily Mail points out the health benefits of sleeping naked.

• Sleeping naked is good for you, mainly because it lowers skin temperature which activates good fats to help burn calories
• Sleeping naked can help prevent women from getting yeast infections
• Men should also skip the clothes for maximized sperm production

We’ve covered this aspect of nudity before, but it’s worth pointing out again that you should maybe be considering dumping the jim-jams.

I’ve long been an advocate of sleeping nude, for the fact that it’s simply more comfortable for me rather than the health benefits pointed out. There’s a nice feeling to it, so I suppose  that -a feel good factor- is a health benefit in itself.

Trine

A bad day at work (in a post which has absolutely nothing to do with SL or naturism for once).

There’s a Christmas dinner coming up…and we’re being asked to state our intentions in August. Furthermore, the cost is £50 per head. We live in an era of ‘austerity’, and quite frankly I don’t want to spend fifty quid on a dinner with people ( (mostly) am glad to see the back of on a Friday evening, much less spend extra time with them.

More importantly, less facetiously, I resent the idea of spending £50 on a meal. It offends me. The ingredients are likely to cost…what? £5-10 a head? Less?

Yes, I know I’m paying for ‘the location’, ‘the waiting staff’ (probably on minimum wage), ‘the chef’ (who, unless he’s Michelin starred, won’t be on huge wages) and everything else, but still…where’s my £40 going?

Despite untold pressure to sign up (‘Oh, come on, it’ll be fun…the chance to mix with senior management and impress), I’ve said ‘No’. I would presume my chance to ‘impress senior management’ should be more fixed on my capacity to do my job well, not ‘scrub up well’ at a dinner. I’m probably being silly in that assessment, of course…

And I’ve said ‘No’ because I can spend the evening with someone I love, having a quiet dinner for two, with things cooked they way I like them, with music I like playing, with the candlelit atmosphere I like twinkling, and I can send £40 to Unicef, to eradicate hunger around the bits of the world not buying into this ludicrous set of bourgeois values which don’t impress me. Approaching Christmas, the idea of having filled some hungry child’s belly impresses me more. It should you too.

So, come on, when they’re asking you to buy a ticket for this Christmas’ works-do, don’t be afraid to say ‘no’, and say it for the reasons outlined above.

Trine

The new issue of ‘Charlie Hebdo‘ is out, and naturist Muslims are featured on the cover, which suggests a new form of summer bathing for them.

Trine

Well done to Swank, for their monthly round for August, entitled ‘Around the World’.

Regular readers will know I’ve moaned long and hard about the lack of cultural diversity in SL, so it’s fantastic to see Swank address this with different styles of dress from around the globe.

I did spot a full male Scottish kilted set of clothes, and am wondering if I can drag Mr. Keng along before the end of the month. Yes, yes, we’re a naturist blog, but traditionally the Scottish male is bare under his kilt, so sort of semi-nude anyway…

Nothing is worn under the kilt. It’s all in full working order!

Chinese outfits, Indian outfits, sombreros, African tribal face paints…they’re all there. And if you’re wondering which I’m championing clothes, my theory is that if we have clothes to suit a certain topography, then the appropriate sims may just follow. Ergo, African styled dresses lead to African styled sims which lead to…that ‘naked savage’ trope I spoke about previously. The potential for ‘nakedness’, if not strictly naturist, expands.

Dozens of blogs posting ‘new mesh jeans’ can get very boring, so do yourself a favour and immerse yourself in some lovely looking global fashion at this month’s Swank.

Ella