One of the things that excites me in SL is the representation of other cultures, as I don’t like the idea of it being monocultural.

It was therefore exciting to read of a sim, new to me, called Shakti Gardens. Nudity is allowed, but not for the usual reasons that we would embrace a sim, describing itself as offering traditional beauty of India – from sensual Apsara Temples to Tantric temples. Discover the land of Tantra, Kama Sutra, Hinduism, enjoy freedom to celebrate your sexuality/sensuality. Desi girls RP nude beach, *Mama Allpa* BDSM.

Theres quite a number of words in there that would normally place it well beyond the bounds of the type of location that SLN normally regards as naturist, but as somewhere with a different cultural perspective, I thought it was worth visiting, at the very least.

A few reservations aside, based on the descriptive words mentioned above, it’s a rather lovely sim.

Yes, there’s a bit more of emphasis on the side of the sensual/sexual side of India’s history (the Kama Sutra, etc), a time when the carnal was revered. So it’s quite acceptable that an Indian-themed sim plugs into this aspect of Indian life, even if it’s not ‘front and centre’ of Indian life anymore and the country has, on the surface at least, become more conservative and chaste.

Despite this ‘chaste’ aspect, and the lack of nudity in Indian society as a thing, nudity becomes much more prevalent at times of worship, when dress codes become more relaxed in the context of praying (see the gallery above). It seems quite acceptable to be a little more naked, in the context of prayer, or worship, than it does in normal Indian society.

This has been something I’ve tried to cover on numerous occasions in the context of SLN, and always failed. I just couldn’t get a handle on it.

So, source it to those who know. A couple of blog posts are in the offing, written by an Indian avatar, who will try to get a grip on what I’ve failed to do over five years or more. Stay tuned for this one. They’re remarkable pieces of writing about a complex area of Asian life.

Ella

Our posts ‘My first time’, also published as ‘My nude debut’, has been a popular, if irregular series at SLN, and draw on reports we receive, or commission, as to our readers first experiences of naturism in its broadest sense.

They seem to be like buses 🙂 you wait for ages and two come along at once!

Here’s the first of two recently received reports, the first from Floridian reader Connie, about her first experiences of skiing dipping in her parents’ pool with a friend and, later in the week, there’ll be another in this ongoing, irregular series, following an inworld conversation I had with an avatar at a naturist sim.

Ella

Hi, I’m Connie, from Vero Beach, Florida. Or I was, 10 years ago as a middle teen. My nudist experience comes from I was living with my Mom in Florida. My parents are divorced and my Dad lives in Tampa now. Mom still lives in Vero Beach, but I’m now resident in Kissimmee after university there, finding a job after university and then marrying. I’m 25 now and the proud Mom of my own baby son. About 10 years ago, I was 15 going 16, my parents split up and Dad moved away. It was an amicable divorce and Mom got the house, complete with pool. At the time my Mom was young enough to think about dating again (she eventually married a boyfriend she met in that time) so used to go out every Friday night. I was pretty young, but she had enough faith in me for me to be at home if I had a friend over for a sleepover most Fridays.

Olivia would come over and stay until Saturday lunchtime when Mom drove her home, so we’d go home from school on a Friday afternoon, Mom would fix us some food, and we’d change into our bikinis and laze by the pool.
The sun would go down but it’s Florida, still warm enough to sit out in a bikini until midnight and beyond it you want to in the summer months.. Which was what we did. We’d put on some music, order a pizza or light up the BBQ, cook some food and chill. We’d swim a bit.

So one night I dove into the pool and my bikini top just disappeared. I guess I was developing at that time and my bikini just didn’t fit anymore. I was laughing when I surfaced and I told Olivia it had gone. In an instant she took hers off too. ‘Wouldn’t want you to feel alone’, I think she said. It wasn’t a big thing. We changed into out bikinis in my bedroom and had seen each other naked, so it wasn’t some weird moment.

Then Liv said she was taking her bikini bottoms off to skinny dip.  A challenge had been thrown down. So I did too. After that night, when Mom went out and Liv came over, going naked was the order of the day in the pool. My first naturist experience, and one I loved. We’d then go into the jazuzzi and splasha round as well. We’d do this almost every Friday night for about a year, until Mom’s new boyfriend moved in and she stopped going out. I went to university, met my husband, Todd, and we’ve skinny dipped together when dating. Recently, I’ve discovered that Cypress Cove, a naturist resort where you can live, is nearby! I’d love to bring the idea up to Todd, but I’m not sure how to… I can’t begin to describe the feeling od swimming naked I knew 10 years ago, or of living naked, even if only for the few hours Mom was out, that Liv and I had. It wasn’t a sexual thing between Liv and I. It was the thrill and the loveliness of swimming, living, barbecuing nude. Advice will be gratefully received on how I bring it up to Todd and ask if he’d like to move and live in Cypress Cove!

Connie.

I recently, for the first time ever during the course of writing this blog, became ‘becalmed’ in what I want to write, and a bit of writers’ block set in. There have been times when I’ve been becalmed by SL itself, but there’s still been something from the real world to write about. This time? Nope. Zilch. Nada.

It was the devil’s own  job to work through it, and if you check out the dates of posts you’ll find I was struggling to produce an article per week in recent weeks. There simply weren’t enough naturist stories, or SL naturist events, to write about, and the only way I found I could produce anything, and even deliver an article per week, was to abandon the whole idea of ‘naturism’ for a while and get out in SL to explore some things that might more accurately be on the periphery of naturism…beauty pageants, cosplay and role-play, go lingerie shopping, and write about these things instead.

It worked.

Granted, I’ve ended up a few hundred Linden dollars poorer while researching ‘sexy’ costumes, lingerie and the like, stuff I’ll never wear again in SL, but it needed something radical to brea the log jam.

Eventually the writers’ block ended…but not before I’d amassed quite a number of articles sometimes only vaguely associated with naturism (our primary function) or ‘the nude in society’ (an important secondary function), both in and out of SL.

So…I’ve decided to publish these in the coming days. Please don’t write to tell me that they don’t ‘fit in’ to our usual brief. They do fit in, but you may need to think a little more obliquely to see exactly how they fit in, although my texts should provide the clues as to what my train of thought was in still having naturism in my mind when writing them.

Ella