Following on from my post about the need to reflect age, at one end of the scale, in naturism, it’s also important to reflect age at the other end of the scale in naturism. Because…

…nobody is too old to be naked.

Indeed, the joie de vivre displayed by many older naturists is a thing of wonder, a guide for how we should all hope to live the autumn of our years.

You can enjoy naturism at any age, and indeed many people discover it later in life. There’s no rules regarding the number of candles on the cake, or where the needle stops when you step on the scales. Remember that! You’re beautiful, regardless of weight, shape or age. Enjoy and embrace naturism.

I get peeved when I read comments about how ‘someone that fat shouldn’t be getting naked’. Why not? Naturism isn’t confined to people below a certain age, or below a certain weight (and isn’t confined to just one gender…are you reading this, some tumblr bloggers?)

Expect to read a bit more about older naturists in the coming months on SLN. They’re an important part of the lifestyle.

Ella

I try to keep abreast of as many naturist related stories as I can, and picked up on one in the Toronto Star, which outlines the benefits of raising naturist children.

The conclusion is that people who spend time nude or partially nude around other people like their bodies more, regard themselves more positively overall and are more satisfied with life overall and that non-sexual nudity has no impact on children [with] positive effects in terms of confidence, self-esteem, and body image.

Children are an integral part of a family orientated naturist movement. Naturism’s future! Teaching them to grow up without body shame is, I feel, an important part of parenting, and my own children are, of course, naturist. They love nothing more than spending a hot afternoon in the garden in their birthday suits, splashing around in a paddling pool, running up and down, having fun and doing what comes naturally. And they’re smart enough to know that if they feel chilly, they put some clothes on.

I recently ran into Peter, an adult avatar, at one of SL’s naturist sims. As Britain recovered from WW2, he recollected going to what was then called ‘a nudist camp’ in the south of England with his bohemian parents, both keen naturists. ‘They were idyllic summers’, he told me, ‘the innocence of running around for an entire weekend without clothes’. Never married, Peter then found himself tainted by the ‘single male’ label that often is attached to single males, with their motives about naturism often questioned. Even now, many clubs refuse to admit single males, or will only level up the genders by permitting a single male to join whenever a single female applied for membership. As a result, Peter spent much of his adult life as a closet naturist, and it was only on retirement that he felt free to travel abroad as a single male naturist and enjoy the lifestyle.

‘When I discovered SL I was delighted to meet like-minded people in the game’, he says. ‘After a while I decided I’d like to recreate my childhood in SL and I got myself sorted out with a petite avatar [for the uninitiated, a petite avatar is a child-sized avatar] and immediately was thrown out and banned from one naturist sim I’d used extensively because it was deemed I was indulging in age play.’

When I began in SL agedly was quite common within SL’s naturist sims. Largely benign in nature, some avatars simply liked, as Peter did, to incorporate the recapturing of an element of his life into his SL game play. Of course, some exponents of it had other, darker motives and age play was banned from many SL sims, naturist and textile. I understand why it was done, in an atmosphere of paedophiles lurking on the grid, indulging in sick fantasies, but it did remove one strata of human life -child sized avatars- which sometimes feels like it has skewed the reality of naturist life on the sims.

As a keen advocate of family naturism, and it’s a topic I’ve often written about, I’ve often felt I’d like to accurately reflect naturism as it is, but have never done so before. This blog post changes that, as I got Peter to agree to wear his petite avatar to pose, complete with chic ice, as my son, to create a sense of ‘family naturism’. However, I’m also keenly aware there are some sick and sorry individuals out there, and thus I’ve opted to pixelate Peter’s avatar.

I hope that this doesn’t prove too controversial, and it’s likely that if someone, anyone, objects I’ll remove the photos from this posting.

That said, I feel it’s important to attempt to show family naturism in some regard, and to keep reinforcing the idea that it isn’t remotely sexual (apart from in the hands and minds of some people utilising child avatars for their own sick ends).

What motivated Peter to adopt such an avatar? ‘This may sound strange, but putting on the petite shape sort of transported me back to my childhood, and a whole range of long forgotten memories re-emerged. I could visualise my parents, now long dead, and there was one occasion where I came across a bicycles for rent stand and was immediately transported back to my father spending a weekend teaching me to ride a bike. It was an overwhelming set of memories, and I became so emotional at visualising him holding the saddle and teaching me to ride that I had to log off one night! It was just a happy-sad moment’

We refuse, rightly, to have our will bent to the shape of brain-dead terrorists, and refuse to allow our enlightened, modern, liberal lifestyles to be held ransom to some medieval death-sect. Why, then, should we bend our will to the sick minds of a few? Obviously, that does not mean providing a rich vein of material for their diseased minds, I have no intention of using real life photos…but let me ask the question…in posts where family naturism is relevant, would you be happy to see pixelated or unpixelated petite Second Life avatars helping to illustrate whatever the topic is? Would such photos possibly present a more accurate depiction of family naturism?

While researching ‘family naturism’ I chanced upon a website that acts as a directory for campsites around the world, including some naturist ones. The facilities for children were well to the fore, demonstrating that ours is a family lifestyle. It seemed a worthwhile opportunity to offer a set of new (to me) naturist photos that demonstrate the sense of family fun and innocence to be found in naturism.

(Photo removed due to potential copyright infringement)

Ella

There’s a couple of seriously cute couples poses as group gifts at K&S poses (no group join fee).

Other poses are also available for free, both for girls and guys.

Ella

I saw this photo online and it immediately reminded me of one aspect of naturist life, in resorts or campsites : the bread van!

Now, I know that the women above aren’t at a bread van, they simply seem to be unpacking deckchairs, but other than that the scene will be very familiar to those on campsites in France or Spain. Each morning, perhaps around 900am, you will hear the little strangulated ‘peep peep’ of the van’s horn. I’ve often speculated that these vans have a unique, and not very practical horn sound for usual driving, and that they’ve maybe had an additional horn fitted to differentiate between their vehicles and other, more normal, road vehicles.

Because of the heat, bread will go stale quite quickly, so in Europe it’s the norm to pretty much buy bread on an ‘as you need it’ basis. Every day. It’s not something bought and stored.

So on hearing the little strangulated horn in the morning, a parade of naturists will make their way from their apartments, onto the street, to buy their bread fresh for breakfast each morning.

The internet sometimes identifies such clothed/naked scenes as CFNM or CMNF (Clothed female, nude male or clothed male nude female) as if these are some sort of sexual fetishes, a sub-genre of pornography that amuses me endlessly, as it doesn’t really exist in naturism. Of course, these scenarios exist -daily, hourly- but it’s not a ‘sexual thing’ in the way it’s often portrayed in cyberspace. I’ve often held conversations, while nude, with clothed people, and vice versa. It just so happens they might be off out somewhere while I’m about to go swimming, or I’m going shopping (dressed) while they’re lounging on their terrace. It’s never ‘a thing’ within naturism.

Photo removed due to copyright infringement.

Purchases made, it’s usually a case of heading off to your terrace for that first, important, tea/coffee of the day, usually accompanied by orange juice and the recently purchased bread. Breakfast, au naturel, is a lovely experience, quietly easing oneself into the day ahead.

Ella

Ella adds : If anyone has any issues, at any time, with copyrighted material please let me know and I shall remove said items accordingly. I’ve always been keen to ensure we don’t infringe others’ copyrighted material, and the blog is awash with statements to this effect, asking readers to follow links to websites instead. The problem is that watermarked photos are often cropped and re-used, and I publish in good faith. This is not always 100% effective, but we will always try to ensure copyrighted material is credited or unused.

Remember these…?

Polaroid cameras. The first cameras which offered ‘instant’ photography without the need for external development, and probably the point at which ‘nude photography’ really took off. These days, we all have digital cameras, and cameras on our phones, so the potential for ‘nude photography’ is vast and the potential to share that photography just as instantaneous.

SLN reader Andrea has written to us recollecting her experience of a Polaroid camera and her first ever nude photographs…

Back in the 1980s, when I was a shy young virgin, and just begun a relationship with my first boyfriend (also a virgin). Of course we were inquisitive about each other’s bodies, and our explorations had led from being partly and then fully nude with each other to masturbating one another. His parents went out on a Saturday night and occasionally we’d even hop in the bath and soap one another down. I wasn’t just ready for full sexual intercourse, though, that was still over the horizon, but we did enjoy getting naked with one another and doing some of what all young lovers do.

One night he surprised me by producing a Polaroid instant camera and suggesting we took a few photos. Initially, I refused, but finally agreed to pose for a few lingerie shots. Lingerie isn’t the right word. It was basically just white bra and panties, and I insisted my face wasn’t in the photos. I was unidentifiable, with either my head not in the shot, or turned away from the camera. It was fun, pretending to be a model in ‘classic’ arched back poses.

After we’d done them, and had a laugh at the resulting shots, we then wondered what to do with the photos. Inquisitive parents, at either his house or mine, might discover the images, so we took them into the garden and burned them in the BBQ.

We repeated the ‘experiment’ some weeks later, this time with me in the bath, much like the photo above. ‘Innocent’ enough in that there was nothing ‘sexual’ in the photos, but this time my then boyfriend kept and hid the resultant photos. Eventually we split up, and I’d already put them out of the back of my mind by that stage and forgot to ask for them back. For long periods of my life I didn’t think about them, then they’d be forefront in my mind and I’d blush.

Thankfully this was the pre-internet age so any ‘sharing’ of them would have been done on a one to one basis. I was never out there for ‘all the world’ to see. I used to be frightened that the photo might surface somewhere but as time has gone on I’ve become less concerned about that. After marriage, a divorce, three kids, gaining a few kilos in weight and changing hairstyle, I doubt anyone might even recognise me now.

What seemed like an innocent, sweet thing to do at the time, though, hung over me for years. I’m thankful that I did do it then and wasn’t doing it now, when such a photo could be shared as ‘revenge porn‘, on numerous websites, around the world, in seconds. I know that countries are now passing legislation to make this illegal, but a successful conviction isn’t going to erase the photos from around the globe. It’s something that could ultimately haunt you, as it did me. For anyone thinking of making ‘sweet innocent’ photos in today’s climate, with today’s technology, I’d advise them to think again before they do so.

Ella adds… I’d agree with Andrea on this. Taking photos of each other can be fun, but it’s important to always remember the nature of the relationship you’re in. A boyfriend you’ve just met, requesting nude photos on the various strands of social media? Get rid! Even though a marriage may not last forever, and divorce can be bitter, there’s probably a firmer, safer foundation to build a mutual photo taking exercise on in an established (married or not) relationship.

The other side of the coin is that the social atmosphere has changed in recent years, where the ‘nude selfie‘, sent to a significant other, is part of the fun aspect of a relationship. And given the explosion in this sort of photography, it can’t really be argued that the model didn’t know what he or she was doing.  People pose on the basis that they understand it can be shared easily. As a naturist I find it heartening that people are much more body confident these days and that nudity in society at large is now much more acceptable and ‘normal’ than it would have been when I was at the teen years, and certainly Andrea was in her teen years. While it can be fun, I’d suggest that you always consider your reaction to a photo’s escape onto the internet. Not just now – the confidence of teen age is that you may adopt a ‘I don’t care’ approach. But how might future employers look on it? Or future partners? Or your parents or your children? People have taken nude photographs of each other since almost the invention of photography. They will continue to do so. But please, always be aware of the consequences of such actions.

Ella