The Joy of SL Belly Dancing

By Any1 Gynoid, reporting for SL-Newspaper

Get wild, get nakies, and party your tushies off, usually means a trip to SL naughty land, SLs adults only regions. But there is an alternative: belly dancing. In mature sims round SL's main grid, amateur belly dancers are fun party goers who bare it all, or at least most of it, in a brave new form of personal freedom and self expression. Why is it brave? Because I can't even coax most my bff macho party buds to check it out. And they call us "chicks"! Who's chicken now? Ha! Hey, SL belly dancing is guys and ladies and a whole lot of tushie shakin' goin down. Too much fun! This is why God invented the perv cam! lol

When you think about the Middle East, do you ever think FUN? But our mission in SL is fun, and yes we do bring out the fun in every RL culture to SL. Belly dancing has ancient Babylonian origins, but in modern times was revealed to the West at the 1893 World's Fair. The golden age of belly dancing was in the 1960s and 1970s, promoted in part by an Egyptian film renaissance. Which is quite interesting, Islamic cultures were very much more liberal than they are today; even in Afghanistan, women openly wore miniskirts in public in the 1970s. How far we have regressed RL, backwards in cultural values and human progress.

The personal is the political, and you can participate in cultural revolution right here in SL, by shaking your tushie to Middle Eastern beats. Belly dancing in SL is amazingly liberating and extremely fun. In fact, I can only think of one thing more fun in SL, and I shall cover that soon for SL Newspaper. It's NOT sex silly! Shame on your dirty mind! Terrible thang to waste! Tee Hee Hee!

From left to right in picture 1 is Guy Vollmer (a supercool party dude), Garret Mehrens (an impossibly hot dish of male beefcake), me (wearing my naughtiest outfit), and my beautiful friend Acceber Smythe. Picture 2 shows Garret's flip side. LOL Making it painfully obvious why we love belly dancing in SL!  Am I objectifying men? You betcha! And high time for that! Yuppie Buns! Slurp! lol

Anyways, I hope you get a chance to try SL belly dancing soon. Most Mondays at 4pm and Thursdays at 8pm, you will find me slinking round the club Parvana Ayre in Angel Shark Shallows sim, wearing practically nothing and "working it"! You know what I mean! IM me if you dare! Only the brave and truly fun loving need apply. Peace!

There are lots of free silks in SL, and I would be happy to share. In fact I only wear freebie silks when I belly dance. I've tried most of them all and can tell you about the best ones. I fancy my blue & white silks (shown in pictures), my chrome, and my tie dye colors. By losing the top bits, these free silks can work for guys too, just put on a thong, and attach silks to arms and legs. Well at least 1 brave bff was able to do that! There is hope!

Eye on the Blog: Lindens "to Retire the Current Mentor Volunteer Program"

 

 

Upcoming changes

The company has decided the time to evolve and grow as a volunteer community has come. While the official Mentor Volunteer Program has been an extremely valuable endeavor, its sheer size has made it increasingly difficult to support, and we need to reallocate our resources at the Lab for other Resident-focused programs. We've decided to retire the current Mentor Volunteer program—launching new opportunities for expanded volunteerism within Second Life.

For more information about the close of the Mentor Volunteer Program, please take a look at our FAQ.

We're sad to see the Mentor Volunteer Program go, but we're also excited about new opportunities! Now is the time participate in new offered programs, create your own programs or groups, or simply volunteer on an individual level. On our end, Linden Lab will work even harder to create the framework that highlights your efforts and supports the efforts of even more volunteers—heralding in a more sustainable and more creative phase of volunteerism. Rest assured that we will always want and appreciate volunteers in Second Life!

Announcing two new programs!
Linden Lab is focused on building robust volunteer programs in collaboration with the Residents of Second Life. Not only do we plan to help support their amazing work, but we also want to increase the visibility of their contributions for other Residents to enjoy.

If you're looking to volunteer, here are two Linden-supported programs that might interest you:

1. Second Life Answers. Residents submit questions and other Residents answer them—it's both simple and awesome at the same time. With over 200,000 page views, the Second Life Answers Beta has been a huge success, thanks to our Residents who participated by sharing knowledge, guidance, and friendly support on a wide range of topics in multiple languages. As Second Life Answers continues to grow, it will become even more effective as it attracts even more questions from Residents and more knowledge from our volunteers.

2. Coming Soon: The Resident Help Network (RHN) Beta! This program, which is expected to launch in about a week, will highlight the “best of the best” Resident-run help groups. There's a lot of great information out there among different help groups, and this network is designed to help our Residents find what they need. To apply to be part of the network, help groups must meet a high standard for helping new Residents, maintain over 50 active members, have an established history, produce documentation on how they help, and submit three Resident testimonials. There are more criteria for applicants, which you will be able to read when the blog and wiki information is available at launch. The accepted RHN groups will be listed on the website, featured inworld, and help shape future new Resident experience. We also hope to have an inworld Resident Help Network Fair early next year, so you and other Residents can learn more about the first groups accepted into the network.

Read more in the complete blog post by Lexie Linden Here.

Cartoon of the Day