The post on ‘aqua gym’ got me thinking of how well organised French Naturism is. It may be ‘camping’, in a sense, but it’s very luxurious camping. Even when we used to drive to sites in a car and with little more than a two person tent and a gas camping stove, we were amazed how inclusive it all was. We weren’t made to feel like ‘poor relations’ by those in motorhomes (RV’s, for those of you in north America) or extensive, superbly appointed tents.

Campsite facilities are second to none, and all of the facilities one might find in a typical French village are generally in place, from a shop selling beautiful fresh fruit and veg, to a patisserie selling freshly baked croissants in the morning and warm bread for your meals later in the day. Many also have terrific on-site restaurants.

In another of those happy coincidences that grab SLN from time to time, Harry has been out doing a photoshoot with model Esme, in a patisserie!

We do use Bitcacora Viajera’s website to locate some fabulously photogenic sims for photoshoots, and it was from there that Harry discovered the Indigo Patisserie sim. In keeping with the remit of this blog, Esme modelled as she might at a French naturist campsite. Truthfully, she might have had a few more clothes on than she does in this terrific set of photos! The food on display is exactly the sort of fare you might reasonably expect to find in any French patisserie, textile or naturist.

This got me thinking that while I’ve talked about my own entry into naturism, I have never actually done one of our stock-in-trade themes, that of replicating it in Second Life.

And so…I rounded up Harry, who rounded up the same male model, Guillaume, as he used in the Esme shoot…and off I went to the patisserie to re-enact my first foray into naturism 22(!) years ago now.

For those who don’t know, my cousin and I secured waitressing jobs for a summer in Cap D’Agde, a naturist resort in France. Then, it was the future of naturism, an entire naturist town with shops, accommodation, pools, recreational facilities, its own police station. Now, its reputation has diminished, or advanced, depending on your point of view. Today it’s a magnet for freaks, libertines, exhibitionists, wife-swappers and such like, and has no real place being regarded as ‘genuinely naturist’. Oh, there are pockets of it where, particularly by day, it can still be a family, naturist location, but at night, and even by day in certain parts, it is apparently possible to witness public sex involving multiple people, oral sex, penetrative sex, all taking place in the dunes in daylight, while after dark it just resembles a human zoo.

Back then, aged 18, bookish and never having had a boyfriend (sad but true!) it was an eye-opener to turn up, dressed, for work serving in a cafe full of naturists. On the upside, my French was pretty good and despite long, 12 hour days, one day off per week, the work not too taxing. Exhausting, but not taxing. Tips were good, but Sylvia, my cousin, and I would walk out at night like zombies after a full day on our feet, and collapse into our beds in a a small, barely furnished apartment.

Sylvia, a year older, more worldly-wise and with a little experience of naturism at home in the Netherlands, kept on all that first week about how on our day off, we could spend the day lying naked under the sun and recharge our batteries. I had no intention of doing such a thing!

At work we were, as I say, dressed, mostly because the proprietor was rightly keen on food hygiene. The food prep area would see is in hair nets to ensure no stray hair in food, and in the heat of Agde to ensure no one was dripping sweat in the food either. Shorts and a singlet vest were the order of the day, and an apron (see photo above).

Ella doesn’t know where to look!

It was strange, very strange, to be taking coffees out onto the terrace to a variety of singles, couples and families, all of whom would be nude! I didn’t know where to look, but by the end of the first couple of days I think I’d seen all there was to see! Back then, of course, pubic hair was still in fashion, genital piercings just coming into fashion, so shaved genitals (on either sex) and a variety of piercings (on either sex) weren’t common in the way they are even in mainstream naturism now.

One or two of the girls who worked with us would go topless while serving, but the proprietor insisted that shorts and apron stayed on.

Below, I’ve added a small gallery of the sort of naturist dining locations typically found at naturist campsites and locations…

Several of the above certainly evoke memories of my time in Agde.

It’s also important to give a sense of the more wholesome nature of Agde naturism as it was back then, and the next small gallery is intended to illustrate that…

Everything looks very typically mainstream naturist, doesn’t it?

Let’s reflect on the sort of zoo Agde has become. Below, a gallery which shows the more exhibitionist side of Agde, the sort of circus freak show that comes to town as the sun goes down. Remember, these are tame photos. It’s a relatively easy task to find photos of all manner of wild, public, sexual encounters from Agde on the net. Not the remit of this blog, nor something of which I approve, so none of those types of photos are included.

Neither have I included photos of the likes of leather-clad males leading leather-clad females around on leashes. While the behaviour may be ‘consensual’, it has nothing -absolutely nothing- to do with genuine naturism and nothing to do with creating the mind-set for society wherein females and males are equal. Submission and domination has no place in naturism either.

Contemporary Agde style clothing is also wholly possible in Second Life

In a subsequent companion piece to this blog entry, I’ll try to do an SL replication of what happened when, at the end of a long week, we did get our day off and my first experience of naturism finally happened.

Ella