Tag Archives: SL

Giardina di Vita

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There’s a stunning new sim called the Giardina de Vita (The Garden of Life) that I spotted on the updated Ad Vitam Aeternam blog.

It’s almost certainly not naturist, but what the heck…no one was around. The photographs I took accurately reflect how I spent the weekend, gardening or harvesting nature’s bounty.

That has certainly eaten into what might be SL time, but between that, and getting ready for my holiday next week, I thought that there was something nice about the fact that my little available SL time was reflecting my RL time. Might that be a good place to stop my regular postings? I think it is.

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ella potting shed2_001b

ella potting shed3_001b

 

I will, as promised, be back to report on my RL naturist holiday, at the beginning of September. After that…who knows if SL Naturist will continue. From what I’ve read it looks as if Howie imagines there might be a reprieve. I hope there is. It would be terrible to see the blog just disappear. But apart from my now familiar ‘Postcards from Spain’ series, I think that’s me done. 🙂

Ella

 

Cancel that wake!

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Don’t buy wreaths just yet, or write out the eulogies. Because I think we might just have replacements for Ella & Pookes and SL Naturist may just be able to continue. I think I’ve found a couple of writers. Female, again, as females are by far the best bloggers where SL is concerned in my opinion.

Nothing has been nailed down tight yet (including the SL Naturist coffin lid) but we may be able to continue, which would be amazing after the gloom of the past few weeks.

I’m off to Spain tomorrow, Sunday, for a week to sign the papers for our new ‘retirement’ home out there, so there’ll be no further updates on this until next weekend.

Fingers crossed we can keep SL Naturist going anyway.

pam and howie_001bc_Fotor

 

 

Howie

SL may be increasing your sense of wellbeing.

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Mr. Keng was listening to football commentary on the radio last night while tinkering with an old radio he’d picked up in an auction. This is an old style radio with the dial marked with now long forgotten radio stations on it, post war and possibly up to as far as the mid-60s would be my guess at its age (although I’m no expert). But apparently the names of the stations evoke a sense of romanticism for people of a certain age in Europe. Let me run down some of them to see if they trigger your memories or if you remember them: Luxembourg, Athlone, Hilversum, Paris, Light Programme, Third Programme, Home Service (the latter three would become BBC Radios 2, 3 & 4 respectively, and I thing Athlone became the Irish broadcaster RTE and Hilversum became NOS, Netherlands Radio).

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It’s a rather long pre-amble into me telling you that BBC did one of its ‘stings’ for its own programmes, this morning’s BBC Radio 5 Breakfast programme, and my ears pricked up when I heard that one of the items being discussed was that virtual reality gaming makes you smarter and gives you a sense of wellbeing.

An extract from the discussion is here (although I’m not sure if that will be playable to internet addresses beyond the UK).

However, a psychologist says, in that extract, that “you have these other psychological phenomena which give you a sense of wellbeing, such as competence […] you get a sense of achievement, we know that’s a fundamental psychological need that people have, and that gives them a great sense of wellbeing and happiness”.

Is Second Life giving you that? Does the process of dancing with SL friends and indulging in idle tittle-tattle while listening to someone DJing give you a sense of wellbeing? I know there are times when doing that, in SL, is a far superior relaxation and ‘wellbeing’ process than watching some television programme.

Do you think that too many people are far too quick to write off SL as ‘that thing that was briefly popular’ (I know that, in relation to this very blog, I’ve read a comment on the internet that more or less reads ‘Is that still going? And it has a naturist community?’)

Yes. And yes. And in both instances, up to a point, thriving. Clearly not of Facebook/Twitter style popularity (although we’re comparing apples with pears) but thriving, improving and being a pleasurable experience to its players nonetheless.

Is the view that SL players are ‘sad loners’ misplaced? Might it be that people who, for whatever reason, live alone, have a sense of belonging provided by SL? Might it be that cybersex is a positive, valuable release valve rather than some sordid thing? It will be interesting to see, as SL develops, just how psychologists come to value it. Because it’s clear that we’re now moving away from that ‘video games made me a mass killer’ view into something different.

Ella

 

 

Update on the blog

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Last week, bowing to pressure from the great SL public (OK, a few SL friends asked me to reconsider my decision to close the blog), I’ve been ‘interviewing’. The CVs have trickled in, and in some cases almost immediately been weeded out.

Anyone reading the blog over the years will have known how much faith Ella placed in ‘genuine naturism’, and hers was pretty much a one-woman crusade to reflect family orientated, non-sexual, social nudity. It’s pretty depressing to then get SL-CVs from people who ‘look forward to getting [pixel bounced] at a bondage sim’ and similar. I don’t know what you do, but if I’m applying for a job, or a new role, I do some research. I’d make it my business to know that [pixel bouncing] isn’t part of the gig.

I’ve no idea, right now, if we will find an applicant who is suitable. If we do, will one applicant do? After all, it was an Ella & Pookes joint effort, a lot of the time.

Pookes has signed off on the blog, and I’m sorry to see her go but would take this opportunity to say ‘thanks’ to her for her work on SL Naturist. Ella’s still here, until September as previously arranged, so the blog posts won’t dry up entirely.

I was thinking about Pookes today because I was flicking through some of the SL blogosphere and spotted an item that I thought I wanted, and was via one of the blogs, SL Freebies & more, that Pookes championed.

There’s two free gifts at their current round of the ‘Cosmopolitan’ event. One’s a day bed, which I took a copy of anyway but haven’t unpacked yet. The other is the item I specifically wanted. A pot of lavender. That’s correct. You did read that right.

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I keep an idiosyncratic home in Second Life and it has to kinda reflect me. Silly things that are aspects of my real life are in evidence.

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Stone owls, record players, books. I’m not much of a gardener but I do like to grow tomatoes and fresh herbs. I know this isn’t a kind of ‘sexy’ thing and quite boringto be written about and photographed in SL Naturist but home grown tomatoes taste better, haven’t been plastered in phosphates, and our herbs add taste to all sorts of cooking. We like to do that too. Lavender, we grow. My missus likes to make lavender oil from it. So seeing lavender oil as a free gift was something I had to add to my Second Life home. Really I should lose the house I own at Eden Naturopolis and set a greenhouse there, surrounded by an expansive herb garden. Who needs sex beds when you’ve got a thick, luxuriant rosemary bush?

While I was at the event I spotted a ‘man bag’. I suppose it’s meant for the girls, but it’s something else I use in real life as I usually move with my phone, kindle, iPod, a camera and some sort of wet weather gear in there. A couple of pockets in your trousers or inside jacket pocket no longer is enough. I paid L$100 for this (see the photo below). It made me think of Pookes because it seemed like the sort of item she’d have blogged as ‘naturist accessory’.

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The lady in the photo is an applicant for the SL Naturist editor’s job by the way.

If pressed for an answer, I’m going to say that it’s not looking good to get a replacement for Ella, and that I’m not hopeful we’ll go on past September. I’d love to be able to say differently, but that’s the reality. It’s not looking good. If there’s any change to that, I’ll let you know.

Have a good weekend!

Howie

 

Sustainable Living

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Did you know that SL has its own eco-village, Etopia?

It has always harked back -I feel- to how SL used to be some years ago, with an obvious educational quality to it.

It’s a PG sim, obviously because that educational aspect means that they’re trying to maximise the number of visitors to it. As a result, my final post for SLN (yes, I’m going to bow out now) is non-naturist. However, anyone who regards themselves as a naturist should always have one eye on environmentalism as part of a larger, wider naturism.

Care for the planet, recycling, green politics and sustainability would be elements of the naturist’s natural mindset, and you’ll find aspects of all of those things at Etopia. Please take the time to visit and learn something about the small things we can all do to make a difference.

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Education is a major part of what’s on display at Etopia

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etopia3

 

I have to say that environmentalism is a major part of my life. Whether you’re a naturist or not, these things should be important to you. Recycle and grade your rubbish. Walk or cycle if you can avoid using a car. It’s not got to be about demanding nuclear power stations close and going on a demonstration to the site, or to local government buildings. If we’re all getting the small things right, we can make a difference.

It’s a planet of finite resources and we owe it to future generations to care of it. It’s a naturism bigger than just taking your clothes off.

 

And that’s me done on SLN. There’s no point in hanging around with diminishing interest as we reach the closure date, so I’ll take this opportunity to thank everyone who commented on my posts, everyone I’ve run into in SL during the course of writing for it, and all of the readership for allowing Ella and I to have the run of our mouths and grab people by the throats when they got their interpretation of naturism (i.e. that it equates to sex) wrong.

Over and out…

 

Pookes

 

 

 

 

S***storm: Help wanted

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My post a couple of days ago announcing that, with Ella stepping down, I had decided to close SL Naturist has resulted in me creating something of a considerable s***storm for myself.

I’ve been in SL for quite a long time now, frequented a lot of naturist sims and therefore have a lot of SL naturist friends.

The tone of IMs I’ve received in the past 48 hours from some of them can essentially be boiled down to one general response. ‘WTF are you doing?’

Ella remains adamant that she wishes to quit the position of SLN editor, and hers are considerable mesh flip flops to fill. I’ve taken for granted that the posts would be there, that Ella & Pookes would post, that the standard of writing would be good. Faced with that void, why continue?

hanna and howie3_001b

Filling an empty chair

Can we get someone as committed? Can we get someone with the same standard of English? Can we get someone with the same knowledge of RL & SL naturism? Probably not. But some of you seem to believe that’s no excuse not to try. I’ve already outlined my thoughts of this, that it’s best we go out on top, but some people obviously disagree.

On that basis…

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I am making no promises about this. People may not fit the bill. I may decide to still follow my first instinct and close, as planned, on September 14th. As several people have said no, please don’t, and others have expressed a desire to try to fill an Ella-shaped void, I owe it to you to maybe try to see if there’s a suitable replacement out there. The fat lady may not be singing just yet, but my own view is that she’s sipping a honey & lemon drink and practicing some scales backstage.

Howie

A word from the publisher

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As Ella’s already told you, we’ll be shutting SL Naturist on September 14th.

The entire thing has been a blast, and far more successful than I think Ella or I imagined. We’ve known each other since the very early days of our respective SLs, which seems a long time ago and some bad skins, hair & AOs away now. Ah! Some of the naturist sims Ella and I have seen, been members of, watched close… By the time we kept turning up at the same ones, night after night, we were chums. 🙂

The blog will remain online after ‘closure’, so if the links work you can still reference them.

I don’t expect to make any further comment on the blog, so I’ll take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us (which means Ella, basically) over the last four years. I just provided a ‘home’ for the writers and threw some money at the avatars so they could best reflect how much fun naturism in SL can be.

As Ella’s already also told you, I expect to launch a new blog towards the end of the year, which will reflect on music-making within SL. Lots of people perform in SL. Let’s profile them. Let’s get their recordings available in the blogosphere. Let’s get those performers in ‘the SL charts’. Let’s present them with gold records…or whatever. That’s my next project. Actually, that was my first project, four years ago, before Ella & I cooked up the idea of SLN.

Sincerely, folks, thanks for supporting Ella in particular over the past four years. We’ve had as much fun as it’s possible to have with our clothes off. 🙂

All that’s left for me to do is grab the (SL & RL) missus, stick some cool jazz (‘Hello, Pork Pie Hat’, if you get my meaning) on the ghetto-blaster just out of shot in the photo and lead her to the surf for some sunset naked dancing.

howie & pam_001b

 

Be sure to keep enjoying the wonderful SL world we inhabit. It’s a great game, and I think in some ways we’ve only just scratched the surface of its possibilities.

Love to everyone, and see you all around sometime.

xx

 

Howie.

 

Makeover

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There comes a time in most women’s real lives where long hair really doesn’t look right any more. As a teen, my hair was so long that I could pretty much have tucked it into the waistband of my jeans. As time progressed, it got shorter…just a bit…so that the Ella of my avatar had hair that was fairly accurate to RL. I could certainly keep a small ponytail. But it sometimes looks a bit ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ (to utilise a phrase popular in England), that is, an older women still trying to look young and, sometimes failing.

I do like to maintain an avatar that kind of reflects RL. It’s never going to be perfect, given the limitations of SL, but I strive to make it something that’s relatively true.

As I’ll be 40 in a couple of years I decided that I maybe needed to consider a newer look for the second half of my life.

Well….I’ve only been and gone and done it! Reached that point in RL where shorter hair is something that had to be done. And as it’s the school holidays, a time for getting things done, a trip to the opticians as well for an eye test. New glasses were required, and thus I’ve lost the little ‘John Lennon’ type glasses I’ve worn in RL and SL for a number of years, to be replaced with what was, years ago in the UK, historically known as ‘National Health Glasses’. These were referred to disparagingly, as something only poor children wore. If some of you around the world think ‘Buddy Holly’, with the thick, black frames, well, that is very much the historical style of ‘national health glasses’. Oddly enough, Raybans Wayfarer were always somehow considered cool, while similarly chunky framed spectacles were incredibly unfashionable. Nowadays they’re considered to be very cool.

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1950s rock & roller Buddy Holly wearing what most UK people would recognise as ‘national health’ type frames. Uncool for decades, and now very much ‘in’.

I didn’t choose heavy frames because they were cool. I chose them because, as they’re very cool, they’re about the only style on offer in my rural opticians!

So…new eyewear picked, we headed down to my hairdressers where I opted for a fairly radical hairstyle. No, a very radical hairstyle. In real life, it’s not quite as harsh as this Argrace cut (intended for male avatars) but it’s as close as I could manage. My son said ‘You don’t look like Mummy’. My daughter said ‘Waaaaahhhhh!’ 🙂 My husband said ‘Mmmmmm!’ I’m not sure if that’s a ‘sexy’ mmmmm, or a pensive, undecided mmmmm.

Anyway, SL must continue to reflect RL, so the new Ella is here. I do think that in RL I won’t be just so harsh with a haircut again, and my avi will change again to adopt a softer, slightly longer cut, just not quite as long as before. Or, who knows, I may just grow into this style, learn to like it and keep it.

In the meantime, it’s a whole new Ella who you might encounter in SL.

 

Ella

 

PS. My RL ears and neck are cold! 🙂

 

 

 

 

Heroes of Naturism : the story so far & the SL dimension

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By now, you’ll be aware that we’ve run an occasional series during the course of our existence where we’ve identified ‘heroes of naturism’, people who’ve advanced the naturist cause, or through their visibility have advanced the normalisation of nudity in society.

So far, the list has extended to Miley Cyrus, the 1980s British naturist film Educating Julie, Australian internet model Vanessa B, French performance artist Enna Chaton, French naturist pioneer Christine Lecocq,  author France Guillain, The Colombian Ladies Cycling Team, Swedish painter Anders Zorn, Brazilian actress Vera Fischer, German figure skater Katarina Witt, Brazilian naturist documentary subject and naturist pioneer Carina Moreschi. While not featured in that ‘series’, as such, we could also add San Franciscan naturist rights & film maker Gypsy Taub and English actress Helen Mirren.

 

While not nude, we could also salute the women behind the Iranian ‘Stealthy Freedoms’ campaign for removing their headscarves in a patriarchal society and striking a blow for further freedoms. Or, while we disagree with some of the methodology, the women of Femen.

There will be further instalments in the future.

What we haven’t done, so far, is to identify some of what we regard as the heroes of SL naturism. I’d like to correct that omission today.

There have, for us, been some stand out heroes of SL naturism over the past number of years. In no particular order, Brenda Hoisin, Elbag Gable, Gray Muircastle, Meikel Skytower, Kaiya Mumba and Lupe.

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Brenda
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Gray

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Lupe

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Meikel

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Kaiya

Over the years, at Eden Naturopolis, at Su Casa Naturist, at 7 Hills Naturist, at Wild Coast/Turtle Beach and at Lupe’s Magical Forest, they’ve provided the sims in which naturism has flourished over much of the source of SL’s life. For those of us who enjoy the naturist lifestyle, their sims have been constant, imaginative & fun. Other naturist locations come and go, but these are probably the premier naturist locations in SL right now, as they were in the past and, hopefully as they’ll be in the future.

It’s probably not too far fetched to say that many SL avatars who aren’t naturist in RL have discovered and enjoyed a replication of genuine naturism at their sims. The people named have pioneered virtual naturism in their own unique ways and they’ve almost certainly spread the naturist message in a positive way.

If SL Naturist wishes to identify ‘heroes of naturism’, these people fit the bill in an SL environment. Too often, we can take naturist sims (or any sims for that matter) for granted, without realising how much time, effort and, yes indeed, money people put in to enhance our second lives. Many people took Evacaroline’s ‘Sweden Naturist’, another former long-standing naturist sim, for granted until it was gone.

In the former eastern Europe, ‘western ideas’ were spread by a samizdat system. That is, dissident activity was spread underground, be it sharing works of literature or bootlegged tapes of The Beatles. Vaclav Havel, the late president of Czechoslovakia and, after its split from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, was also an author who spoke about the value of these samizdat artefacts changing his mindset, leaning him towards ‘western’ ways.

In their way, those listed above will have provided a samizdat style towards their SL projects. People previously unaware of naturism, or the genuine naturist lifestyle, will have been brought to the lifestyle partly through the efforts of those named.

As readily as the list of our real life naturist heroes, those named should also be included on our list.

Ella

 

The Lady from L.U.S.T

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Hi.

One of the great pleasures of my life is reading pulp fiction. I go to flea markets, second-hand bookshops, boot-sales and any where else I can imagine to buy (for very little money) pulp fiction novels. My collection now runs to several thousand titles, believe it or not, although the market value might be a few hundred dollars at most.

I love them for their ‘sleazy’ plot-lines (‘she took a quick puff of his reefer and descended into hell’) and of course the ‘sexploitation’ covers. I’ll buy a book based on the cover alone.

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What’s better is that they’re ideal for updating in the context of Second Life. The original cover is above, and my (very quickly done) revision, in the context of SL, is below.

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I didn’t bother to make my model (Karen) ‘perfect’ in the the frame. I’ve not properly cut her out of her posed shot to place in the cover. It’s very imperfect. I just did this exceptionally quickly (5 minutes) to see if there’s any of you might like to see SL models ‘re-cast’ in old pulp fiction covers. Old pulp fiction, married to new SL models, would very readily work. If you want more, properly done, let me know.

 

Hugh