One thing that seemed to be a bit of ‘a thing’ on my recent holiday is the number of extended families who appear to be embracing and enjoying naturism.

I wrote earlier in the week about three generations of Spanish naturists in the pool, not an extraordinary thing where there’s a culture of naturism, but earlier this week I was in conversation with an Irish trio, a man, his wife, and the wife’s sister.

There was once a time when people kept their naturism hidden, a sort of secret not meant to be shared with others. Happily, people are now more open and blasé about their naturist activities.

This is a good thing, because it exposes more people to the lifestyle and encourages others who’d never thought of themselves as naturist to discover that they, too, are actually inclined toward naturism when opportunity presents itself.

The man in this Irish trio told me that he had always been keen on the idea of naturism, but didn’t really know how to bring up the conversation to his wife. Eventually he did, expecting a ‘no, never’ response and was surprised to hear her agree to the idea of a naturist holiday. ‘But I told him I’d keep my swimsuit on!’, she interjected. A day into their holiday she was in the pool and on the beach as naked as everyone else, loving the lifestyle.

They then bought an apartment here, and began coming out regularly. Eventually the wife told her sister, expecting a ‘how could you? In front of strangers?’ response.

Instead, her sister thought the idea ‘intriguing’ and asked if she could come out with them…but keep her swimsuit on! 🙂

You know how this story ends, don’t you? 🙂

The sister picked up the story saying that ‘it was a bit of a shock when [my sister] got naked immediately we arrived. I’d not seen her naked since we were 10 or younger, sharing a bath. It was then a bit mind-blowing when [my brother-in-law] stripped naked. I didn’t know where to look! After the first couple of hours it seemed normal. My sister and I had been coming here (the pool area) for swims, but it was a bit disconcerting to think of [my brother in law] seeing me naked. I’d forgotten about it within an hour or so and I’m loving every minute!!’

Another (mental) image I have from the week was a 70-ish year old woman taking a walk with her 40-ish year old son (I know their relationship because they live around the corner from the apartment we use, and have spoken to them individually before).

We had ‘Granny’ with us, something that’s becoming a regular occurrence, and Granny has embraced the naturist lifestyle too. Granny’s mantra could very well be ‘I wish I had discovered this 50 years ago!’

Naturism is, I find, increasingly beginning to filter through generations of families, which is an exceptionally positive thought.

Ella

It gets windy in the afternoons, almost every afternoon, where we go on holiday. The wind picks up in late afternoon, blows for a couple of hours, then settles back into beautiful, warm evenings.

Women often throw a sarong around themselves to head down to the beach, myself included sometimes, and the wind will be whipping the sarong up around our waists so that everything below the waist is on display anyway 🙂

One of the funnier things I saw this week was the girl who lives in the flat opposite struggling with the wind.

She’s a young, slim, very beautiful girl who walks naked and confidently on her balcony. A stunning looking girl, happy with her naturist lifestyle.

She goes out to work in a short, summer dress and she made me laugh the other evening on her return. The wind was blowing the skirt up constantly, and she was tugging hard at it to keep it in place. She’s happy to be seen naked, but seemed terrified that her panties might end up on display!

Ella

Our week in the sun is at an end. Of course we’ve grabbed the last moments of sun that we can, the only things not packed away are my laptop and…my clothes 😦

I shall only wriggle reluctantly into those as we’re practically going down the steps of the apartment.

OK…time to head back to the airport and our flight home. Bet it’s raining when we get there 😦

I’ll close of our week in Spain with another couple of my son’s photos, including yours truly having coffee yesterday afternoon, and myself and my daughter on the beach, digging in the sand while my son wanders off on yet another adventure… (to be fair, he was with Jim, returning from the beach bar with some cold drinks, not unsupervised)

…in case you can’t spot us, above, I’ve circled us, below.

Probably no posts tomorrow, but normal SLN service should return at the weekend.

Ella

Our eldest son has reached an age where technology fascinates him and his grasp of it, like most children of the 21st century, is such that he’s far, far better at it than we are. With the younger two slumbering in granny’s company, we headed out for a walk first thing yesterday morning, our eldest boy tagging along with his camera.

He’s also getting to an age where it’s not enough to take photos, but also ‘experiment’ with the end results on his tablet, thanks to various bits of software.

Some are excellent. Whether they turn out this way by accident or some emerging talent, I don’t know. As his mother, though, I’ll suggest the latter. 🙂

He was trailing behind us yesterday and grabbed this shot of Jim and I, the three of us being the only people on the beach a little before 700am!

I’m currently going through some of his images with him to see if there’s any other ‘experimental naturist’ photos I might be able to utilise here. Although I’ve also had to give him a gentle, motherly talk about not infringing other people’s privacy. Nevertheless, there’s some photos I may try and utilise in the blog at a future date.

Ella

I’ve posted many times about naturists and their use of towels, something they spread across a seat for hygiene purposes.

Any photographs you see of genuine naturists on the move will often show them carrying a towel over their shoulder for this purpose, and I’m drawn like a moth to a flame by any towel pose in SL.

I was delighted to see another towel I could add to my collection at the Fab Free Cart Wash (K&A Designs cart).

Priced at L$10, it’s actually part of a lifeguard’s swimsuit set but naturally we dispensed with that part of the outfit 🙂 and I’m just wearing the towel part. What I like about it is that it’s a large towel. Many towels are often smaller over the shoulder or around the neck type, but this one looks like a large beach or bath towel slung over my shoulder.

Ella

Reading comments on this site, and on other pages, I’m aware that many, many men like a fully depilated (shaved) look.

Sorry, boys…but my observations on this trip, building on that of last year, is that ‘hair is better than bare’, and it is back amongst all age groups. I’ve been speaking to my friends while out here. We’ve haven’t actually directly discussed the reasons why, but my friends from 65 years of age down to ladies in their 20s are now sprouting hair where none existed before. Some of these women I’ve known for 10 years and more, and in that time I’ve always seen them fully shaved. This year?

No-one is rocking a 70s bush, but…

…more naturists seem to be sporting the ‘extended bikini wax’ look, or the ‘brazilian wax’ look. The Hollywood look appears, in naturist circles at least here in Europe, to be on the wane. Surprisingly amongst both younger and older women.

I tried the ‘Hollywood’ look a year or so ago and hated it, having nearly always been ‘natural’ down there. I’m not sure why hair is back, as it seems a certain amount of pubic grooming is still necessary to produce both the ‘extended bikini’ and ‘brazilian’ look. Why not just give the razor a couple of extra strokes?

No, it seems that lady naturists (I know my observations don’t qualify as any sort of definitive poll) have determined that at least something is now the in look.

Sorry, boys..

Ella

…very warm, sticky and humid here. No bright sun, though, which means we can probably stay on the beach a little longer than usual. The children will still be factored up, though. Just because there isn’t bright sunshine doesn’t mean that there’s no harmful UV rays! But because it’s an overcast sort of day I don’t fret quite so much about them burning quickly. Plaster them in Factor 50 and we’ll be good for a couple of hours rather than just the one hour bursts we generally limit them to.

So here we are…heading to the beach!

Probably no further updates until this evening, as the chances are we’re going to get quite a lot of beach time, going back and forward, today.

Ella

I don’t know how they dare do it!!!! No, not naturism, silly, that’s completely normal. Volleyball. In this heat!

There was a game of volleyball going on down at the beach when we were there earlier.

Far too energetic for me, but it’s great that people don’t just lie in the sun all day doing nothing, that they can get up and do things that anyone on a textile holiday could enjoy.

The SL volleyball court can be found at the Baja Shore sim, complete with poses.

Ella

Yet another feminist has appeared naked at Glastonbury festival.

I’m fully expecting to see her describe the experience as ’empowering’, a word that has now lost all meaning in this context.

By all means go naked…my perspective is that more people should do it…suggest you’re liberated from clothes and the symbolic aspect of ‘uniform’ they create. Say you’re standing up for the beauty of the human body which doesn’t need to be hidden away at all times. But please don’t say it’s ’empowering’. It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful, I salute the girl who did this, but it’s not ’empowering’. Just our natural state of being.

Ella

When we think of ‘naked selfies’ I suppose the image of nude boys and girls, snapping in a mirror, is the first thing that comes to mind. We don’t necessarily think of ‘naked selfies’ being ‘naturist selfies’!

It’s a whole new concept I’d never ever considered before!

Because our apartment block is close to the beach, lots of people drive to here, the naturist beach, from wherever they live. Some leave home in clothes easily removed when on the beach. Others strip off at their cars and leave clothes in the car, just carrying beach essentials with them.

When I saw the couple, above, undressing and then grabbing a selfie together I knew I had to grab a sneaky photo of them. I don’t like the entire idea of people doing sneaky, voyeur shots, but my normal thought processes that it’s an invasion of another’s privacy were suspended because I had a flashbulb moment in this regard! The couple can’t be identified from the photo anyway, so I thought it was such a magical idea that I had to capture their moment before I try to do similar photos with Jim later. We take photos of each other, certainly, but we’ve never used our cellphones to do a ‘naturist selfie’ together. This afternoon, I’m going to try it! 🙂

In other news, we’ve divided by gender (almost) this morning with ‘the girls’, Gran, myself and my daughter, as well as my baby son, spending time in and around the pool. ‘The boys’, Jim and our eldest boy, have hit the beach to jump waves (there probably aren’t any, but it won’t stop them having a good time wave chasing).

I was delighted to find that the three generations of our family were joined by three generations, gran, mum, daughter, from a Spanish family. The mother spoke quite good English so we got into conversation and she told me that it was the grandmother in the trio who was a naturist of many years standing, bringing her daughter, the lady I was talking to, up as a naturist from birth. She was around the same age as me, I’d guess, and our own daughters are around the same age. Despite having no common language between them, they’re now firm friends!

I guess the moral of the story is that, given a chance to be naturist, it becomes so normalised that it becomes just another part of life, a ‘thing’ that we can contentedly adopt when the opportunity arises. It’s like a life skill we own, such as riding a bike. We never forget how to do that, despite not having been on a bike in years, perhaps.

An easy acceptance of the bodies of ourselves and others is another life skill in the same way.

We may not have the opportunity to be naturist from one year to the next, or for years, but once we’ve got over the fear of nudity, it’s also a ‘skill’ that will live with us, and we can disrobe without fear or embarrassment. Imagine! Were we all to be brought up as naturist from an early age, the entire world could be theoretically naturist in a generation. Or, at least, body-image positive.

Ella