A decade or more ago the presence of a camera could have got you thrown off a naturist beach, and still would if you were just there to photograph naked women and then upload them to the internet. And you wouldn’t get off the beach with your film stock intact, or digital memory card in place, even now, if being ‘pervy’ about it.

That’s not to say there’s still not people out there doing just that, taking secret photos and exploiting the subjects.

But in the past couple of years I’ve detected a much more relaxed view to the appearance of a camera.

Many beach users will take photos of friends, who seem happy enough to appear nude in front of the camera. Who knows? Some of this is probably being shared (at least in private message form) on social media. The simple fact is that people don’t care quite so much about turning up on the internet any more, at least in some places. In the likes of France or Spain the word ‘naturist’ can be worn as a badge of pride and honour, maybe less so in uptight Britain or the United States, where being a naturist is probably a more secretive thing than being in the Illuminati.

One of my Spanish friends, Mercedes, who has commented on these pages before, says that where she lives most people will have some experience of the naturist beach. They may not call themselves naturist, or be regulars, but they will probably have tried the beach, nude, on one or more occasions.

‘I think it’s likely that I’ve been photographed, nude, on the beach. Maybe by some voyeur who maybe uses it for sexual kicks. Maybe shared on the internet. Who knows? I don’t care. Maybe I’ve turned up in the background to a photograph accidentally when someone takes a photo of the real subject, a partner or friend. Who knows? I don’t care anymore.

‘I don’t understand you Brits for whom it is something you keep secret. If people ask me what I’m doing after work, I say ‘the beach’. Friends, colleagues, managers, bosses. They all know which beach. They all know I will wear nothing at all. It does not impact on my employment, my promotion chances, anything. Because many of us use that same beach and are similarly unclothed.

‘My friends and I have a group chat on social media and we sometimes publish photos. Maybe we are naked. Maybe not. I’ve had photographs of me naked where the first comment to me, by a male colleague who saw it was ‘that looked like a red flag day…no swimming’ [Note: the beach operates a ‘traffic light’ system for how safe the water is for swimming purposes] He didn’t seem interested that I was naked. More disappointed for me that our only day off in the week wasn’t a good swimming day’.

From personal observation and primary oral/textual input from friends, do I detect a sea-change in how some people regard their naked beach photos entering the public arena?

Ella

Naked Archery. I’ve tried this, in France, many years ago. Tyres (tires) bursting in all directions, people being carted off to hospital with puncture wounds… 🙂

I exaggerate! But hitting the target from about 10 feet away would have been a wonder! Actually, I did get one onto the straw backdrop, similar to that you see above, but didn’t get anywhere near the coloured target rings. I was actually thrilled! 🙂

I wasn’t very good!

Archery has long been popular in naturism. It’s easy to see why. It’s an outdoor sport, something most people won’t have done before and rather fancy giving it a go, and there’s usually someone on site to offer free, or very cheap, archery lessons.

Lots of French sites offer it, and one of the photos above is from the Vritomartis naturist resort in Greece, taken recently, which proves it remains popular.

It’s something you can try in SL as well. The sims that offer it are a bit 2007 SL vintage, that is, they’re basic. But if it’s archery you come for, and the chance to do it and compete against others on a leaderboard, the scenery won’t be your top priority.

Ella

I’ve tried to do articles on the Indian sub-continent and its attitudes to nudity and sexuality before. Most of those articles remain in the ‘drafts’ pile due to me not ever getting an acceptable handle on a culture which I know little about, and SL isn’t exactly thick on the ground with female Indian avatars (in my experience), despite Indians being fairly active in SL.

Regardless of that, a story emerged on the BBC pages a few days before Christmas about an Indian actress and playwright, Mallika Taneja, and her play Thoda Dhyan Se (Be a little careful) in which she strips nude.

That would have some ‘shock’ value, still, in some parts of Europe. So to do so in conservative, patriarchal India????

The play is meant to provoke people into thinking about whether women’s clothing really has any correlation with sexual violence, and that’s an important message to be sent out in India’s rape culture, where dressing in ‘revealing, western clothes’ is given as a defence in rape cases.

“But girls here can’t be like girls in the West. They have to dress decently and watch where they go, who they are with. If they don’t observe these restrictions, they are perceived negatively by men and will be at risk,”, one man is quoted as saying in the article linked directly above.

Mallika Taneja

The message of her show? How much clothing makes a woman rape-proof?

Her play is an important message that needs to resonate across India, and if not seen by all Indian males, they should all be made aware that how women dress is never an excuse for rape or sexual assault.

I’m loathe to single India out as a sole location where this ‘asking for it (because of how she dressed/drank/behaved)’ mindset. It exists here in western culture too.

Ella