Hi,

I spotted this new Fab Free gift on their blog. A necklace camera. It’s from Zendra, whose store can be found here.

I rounded Harry up so we both have one of these while snapping for SLN. And here we are modelling them!

Diane

We’ve covered tennis, or its ‘unique to naturism’ equivalent, mini-ten, before. You can read more about mini ten via this link. It is very tennis like, but most ‘landed clubs’ (naturist clubs with their own grounds), sometimes don’t have the space to have a full sized tennis court, so miniten is a good alternative on a smaller court.

Naturists do love their sport. While it looks appealing, I often think that the court where I holiday is simply too exposed to the sun to make it an enjoyable experience.

Picking up on our post from earlier about Image Essentials pose sale, Esme has picked up a couple of tennis poses.

Ella

Naturism isn’t for everyone. But here in Europe, on our beaches, we’ve reached a point where going ‘topless’ on almost any beach won’t raise an eyebrow and, indeed, on some actually wearing your bikini top is likely to make you stand out from the crowd. A woman who would never drop her bikini briefs will readily lose the top.

It’s not just the younger generation who routinely go topless. It’s commonplace to see the generation who grew up in the first wave of topless beaches still going topless. That’s women in their 60s and 70s now.

When I started in SL it was relatively easy to find free bikinis (and lingerie!) dotted around the grid in numerous stores, but sadly that’s no longer the case, and these items are much rarer and harder to find. So we’ve been out and about, several of us, to see what free swimwear is available out there.

Starting with Mal (above), her bikini comes from Chez Kitten, in tattoo and underwear layers. That means you can opt for a total cover up (as in the top pic) without overloading your avatar, important where there’s likely to be sim lag or a limit to your avatar’s overall ‘complexity’. I will often utilise similar bikini tattoo layers for exactly this purpose. I can be seen by everyone, rather than being rendered as a jelly ‘blob’ to others. (If you don’t play SL, this may not make any sense).

Barbara was altogether more cute, as one might expect of a long-term SL user, and headed for one of the many freebie stores around the grid – Lusch Haven Freebie Market to pick up several free bikinis and a wet T shirt! Often, freebies are maybe a decade or more old, the products of the earliest days of Second Life, and as such aren’t of the sort of quality and design we expect so often nowadays, but some of the products are still very serviceable.

Anything for the guys? Jake also ended up at a freebie market, The Lost Dove, more by accident than design, and snagged a mesh shorts and tank top set (which also included sandals). Not quite a pair of speedos or a man-thing, but serviceable enough as swimwear.

After all, guys have been going topless on beaches for decades! 😉

As a naturist, I understand the sense of fear experienced ‘first time’, be it going topless or fully nude. (‘Hey! Everyone is staring at my boobs!!!!’ – No, they aren’t, really).

Women, however, who may be initially reluctant to strip fully do, when presented with naturist opportunities, often see the folly of their ways…

Bikini bottoms aren’t very practical for swimming purposes, and oft is the time when you will see a bikini brief wearing lady enter the sea but after a brief battle against wave power pulling them off, she’ll simply give up! Sometimes, this scenario is a woman’s entry to full naturism. Once discarded, she quickly realises that they’re unnecessary items of clothing, and they may not be seen again for the duration of the holiday.

Ella

Image Essentials currently has a L$25 retirement pose sale on right now. Literally dozens upon dozens of fabulous looking poses.

Naturally, I gravitate to the beach type poses, as they fit with the remit of this blog.

The three above are from the “Carefree’ set (I’ve not photographed them all) and utilise a ‘scarf’ as they put it, but I like to think of this as a pareo being used, as a pareo is used, in RL naturist situations. (see the photos below for real life naturist sarongs/pareos and you’ll see how this set from Image Essentials works so effectively)

Above are some from a beach lay set (again, I’ve not photographed them all) so the poses are working out at about L£4-5 each. Bargain.

Everything from nativity scenes to zombie poses are at the sale. I was also particularly delighted to see some LGBT friendly poses being promoted. All at L$25.

Ella.

‘If I went to a nude beach I’d walk around with an erection all day’.

How often do we read words of that type in relation to naturism? Quite often. And the truth is no, no you wouldn’t. Because -we keep underlining this- despite the nudity, it’s non sexual. Naturism is non sexual, and in those situations there’s no sense of sexual arousal to manifest itself.

I’ve picked out a few photographs, featuring three or more people (above). Why ‘three or more’? In life, we can wander around naked in front of a life partner or significant other without becoming sexually aroused, very often. We know what the other person looks like naked, and while they may arouse us in certain situations, they don’t do that all the time, depending on circumstances.

So some photos of naked couples could be assumed to be of a couple who are in this situation. But that whole ‘I’d get an erection looking at naked women’ schtick…at least one person in all of the photos above isn’t a ‘partner’, so they’re looking at the third person in a sexual way, right? Wrong. In naturism, there’s no sexual triggers. Indeed, in many ‘group/publicly naked’ scenarios there’s no sexual triggers.

Many people who participate in one of Spencer Tunick’s many installations won’t identify as being naturist, so their experience of being in a mixed gender nude scenario will be even more limited than that of someone who does identify as naturist. Do you see any erections? No, everyone is resolutely flaccid.

Simply because there’s no sexual triggers involved. So, please, don’t keep on with the ‘I’d be running around with an erection all day if I visited a nude beach’ nonsense. It’s simply never going to happen.

Despite the presence of two beautiful female avatars he remains flaccid

In a sense, Second Life’s mechanics can teach us this in its own small way. To become erect, the male avatar has to do something -push buttons.. Because he’s probably more wrapped up in the conversation on screen, pushing those buttons isn’t top of his priorities, even when surrounded by lovely naked women. And naturism’s like that too in real life. You aren’t focussed on how beautiful her breasts are, more the conversation -often about mundane topics. And removed from the sexual triggers, there’s no erections.

No erections on these naturist beaches

People simply get on with whatever they’re doing, reading, tanning, swimming, talking, drinking coffee… Sex, and arousal, is not on their minds. Neither will it be on yours.

Ella

My day begins early today with my usual trawl of the news websites. This is often ‘work related’, but occasionally a story involving nudity will catch my eye and work its way into the blog.

One story, widely reported in the UK media, involves a rather bizarre naked protest at Auschwitz, the former Nazi concentration camp in Poland, wherein they killed a sheep (!?!?) at the gates, then stripped naked and chained themselves together before the police were called and the protestors removed.

Unfortunately, the nature of ‘news’ is that it’s often not followed up, so it may be that we never hear the motivation behind this bizarre protest. Some media reports suggest it was in protest against conflict in the Ukraine, and while this is laudable, their choice of venue is not, besmirching the memory of so many people who were forcibly stripped in order to humiliate them when they arrived at Auschwitz, before going to their deaths. And killing a sheep? Naked protest still has a power to create media interest, and publicity, for causes around the world, but there are some places where it’s unacceptable. Auschwitz would be one such location where the memories of those who lost their lives to a horrible, screwed-up ideology needs to be preserved and protected.

1.1m died at Auschwitz, mostly Jews. It’s a harrowing place to visit. I’ve been and was rendered speechless just by the enormity of the hatred that took place there. It will be interesting to know if the 11 arrested, aged between 20-27, will be revealed to have the slightest comprehension of the enormity of history, and man’s inhumanity to man, that occurred there. Quite simply, an awful, ignorant way to protest.

Ella