I saw this photo online and I love it!

Mixed gender, shame-free wild swimming that shouts ‘we’re too hot! Let’s get our clothes off in a non sexual way and cool off!’

Europe is in the middle of another record-breaking heatwave, and this sort of photo pretty much represents what all of us, naturist or not, should be doing to cool down.

I bet the location of the photo wasn’t officially designated naturist. It doesn’t matter. It’s people doing something entirely natural without shame, or society constructed body shame.

The entire world, within reason, should be like that.

The same body shame exists within Second Life, to the point that many skin/cothes designers are nipple-phobic. As for genitalia! :-O

To me, if I find a mountain stream on a hot day, skinny dipping is entirely natural, anywhere in the world. And the same, increasingly, applies within Second Life. If I find a photogenic location where I can take photos, I’ll readily strip off for them! And the rest of the girls on the staff feel the same. Increasingly, for us, there are NO (or very few) non-naturist locations in SL anymore. Obviously, as in real life, we aren’t going to go nude in a busy shopping mall or shopping fair. But any photogenic woodland, forest, desert or even urban area, if we like the location, we’ll photograph at it.

This conservative mindset in SL and its designers exists because SL (and Linden Labs) are US based, and there is so much uptightness about nudity within US social mores, whereas Europe is much more liberal.

If I was to buy a new SL skin I’d quite like to see what the nipples look like on it, and it’s a source of frustration to find skin stores with censored nipples within the store. The same applies to male genitalia. I imagine the men playing SL quite like the idea of knowing what they’re getting! The full picture! And many SL related blogs similarly self-censor. Please stop! It’s a nipple. The world won’t spin off its axis if you publish a photo of an essentially cartoon avatar with nipples on display.

The world doesn’t spin off its axis if others encounter that nude couple in the stream I started this post with. Everyone survives without scars!

Ella