Orwar

You don't 'have' to get a mesh head, no. There are body-only alphas (and usually mesh bodies come supplied with both). Here's one for example: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/SA-Avatar-Alpha-Layers-Pack-Free/1309176 Mind that if you go BOM, you will not need an alpha. Whether your body is BOM compatible or not I couldn't tell though, and if you go BOM you can't use an applier skin.

Ah, yes - you're wearing a full body + head alpha then, you'll need one that only hides the body.

Are you wearing an alpha to hide the system body beneath?

Shouldn't they send 'Oi, you've been hanging around for AGES and never seem to take a break - get a life!'-messages to people ..?

I don't know if I dare comment on your pics ..

All them pimples ..

No. Whilst it appears some people caught the drift of the reason for the thread, it appears a lot of others didn't - so, here's the thing. I made this thread in response to another thread being necro-posted, calling for men to post their pictures so 'the ladies' could comment on them. It's a prod at the duality of how men objectifying women is bad, but women objectifying men isn't. It's about how any hint of a man enjoying a woman is considered dirty, oppressive or perverse, but a woman enjoying a man is cute, sweet, and romantic. Some people think that their idealistic dogma trumps reality and social convention, that their perspective is more important than others' liberty of expression, and that their authoritarianism is good whilst the established hierarchies of society are evil. Because this has been an escalating theme over time, some men have chosen to cease participating here, others have vowed to never post a picture wherein they're topless or otherwise suggestive; and whilst I'm very much aware that this is a loud minority of narcissists who think themselves above democratic society, the negative attention just isn't worth it, and it's easier to simply not share my pictures anymore. The picture threads used to be about people sharing style and fashion, and nerding out about SL photography. Now there's a clique of self-proclaimed critics who view everything through their radically politicised lens and point out how people are bad and wrong, in response to which new threads in which such was explicitly asked not to be posted - but again, those types believe themselves above the rules and went ahead and continued on those threads as well. Now we just have a whole lot of picture threads and a whole lot of people not knowing the difference from one to the other. Thus, this thread. A 'social experiment', and yet another picture thread, to point out how twisted and hostile things have become.

. . . . . . . . . Nuke each other sideways?

Funnily, I thought this was a forum pertaining to Second Life, not a layman discussion forum for 'Murrican politics. But since you point out how these are the 'worst times in modern history', that's both quite a stretch and quite a vague statement. Depending on what you define 'modern history' as, of course, but in many historical communities it's somewhat arbitrarily placed at 'the end of the middle-ages' (i.e. the age 'in the middle' of modern and antiquity, or more specifically the fall of Rome A.D. 476 and the fall of Constantinople - or today's Istanbul - A.D. 1453. Or just arbitrarily 'the new age starting with the Renaissance around 1500, but occasionally a little earlier, or sometimes at 1534 with the Act of Supremacy, depending on who you ask). Another commonly used definition for 'modern history' is 'the present and one hundred years prior'. In which case you're comparing current events to things like the Spanish Flu, the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 30's, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the murders of JFK and Martin Luther King, Watergate, the Chicago Heat Wave, Columbine, the September 11 Attacks, Hurricanes Katrina and Maria, too many mass shootings to list, etc. TL:DR:

Not a fan of the background. Outfit looks cool though!

I can't really tell who've gone recently, as I too rather lost interest in 'the community' thanks to a couple of things going out of hand. Too much politics, too much annoying re-posting in the picture threads, too many trolls, too much bickering and drama. My visits to the forums are very sporadic now, usually incited by someone mentioning something going on here that we can laugh or facepalm at. But I'm still around, still alive, and still productive. I just lost interest in sharing and participating.

As a Swede, I abhor the idea of looking for Swedes or Swedish sims in Second Life. As @RowanMinx said - if I wanted to socialise with Swedes (even if that strikes me as a weird thing to say . . . ), I can just step out the door. And preferably walk a short bit, because socialising with your neighbours is just weird. I've had and have a few Swedish friends in Second Life though, who I've bumped into by chance. I think that Brits are the second largest chunk after Americans on my contact list though, if I were to start categorising friends by nationality. Huzza?

I'm going to take you away, out from this world, into the darkside where we live. I'm going to take you away, out from this world, into the darkside, for a while . . .

Too manscaped. But I dig the eyeshadow and the nail polish - I usually wear something like that, too!

This is why we invented blame . . . Bill and Charlie went hiking for a vacation but ended up losing track of their position. After a while they came to find an old manor where there lived a beautiful young woman all by herself, who offered them to stay the night. In the night, Charlie woke up hearing voices from the master bedroom, and when he looked around the room he saw that Bill had left his bed - he didn't think much more about it and went back to sleep. A few years later, Charlie walks into Bill's office and asks: - "Remember that time we went hiking and got lost, and we stayed the night in that manor?" - "Yes?" - "You went to bed with the lady of the house, didn't you?" - "Maybe I did." - "You told her you were me, right?" - "I might have. Why?" - "I just received a letter from her lawyer, letting me know she has passed away and left me her house and £15,000,000."

I vote for kidnapping the princess when the king gets distracted, and extorting him until the kingdom is in ruins, before fleeing to Switzerland to buy yourself a nice manor just outside of some remote village where no one will come looking.

It's not disallowed to discuss on the forums, but it is disallowed to link to anything and share pictures that has adult content on this particular board. It would be easier to discuss on the A-rated boards, but would otherwise go under 'Wanted' rather than 'Lifestyle and Relationships'. Thread location aside, you're looking for something that appears a bit .. Vague. By 'erotic art', do you refer to pretty men or women in little clothing and suggestive poses? Or do you want something that's made in SL (i.e. SL photography), or are you more inclined towards non-photographic stuff (drawings/paintings/digital art)? Do you want it to be related to anything particular (i.e. BDSM, femdom, or such). You also mention frames vs. no frames; do you need something that's actually ready made, or do you just want textures that you can then put into frames or displays of your choosing? One easy (and relatively cheap) method to get art from your home is to find whichever images you like on the Internet, download them to your computer, resize them to whatever you feel appropriate (a large wall-mounted painting I'd probably put at 256 x 512 or even 128 x 256; having 'HD art' is pointlessly resource intensive and will actually look blurrier when not zoomed in until it's full screen anyway). Then you can use either simple prim cubes or buy yourself a frame you like off the MP (a lot of them allow you to put your own textures on them, but make sure to double-check that first - or get a full perm frame to be certain). Just mind that you don't do anything that violates any copyrights, do not redistribute or sell anything you take off of Google (although to be fair, vast amounts of the 'art' in SL is nicked off Google, packaged and sold - LL can't police all uploads and it's only if the actual owner of the copyright finds out that you may get in trouble).

Sometimes, Second Life reminds me of my favourite musical .. Repo! The Genetic Opera. Some people get pretty 'hooked up' on the game of changing their avies' stuff to always stay in vogue and to keep up with the latest news in the blogging scene and whatnot. Hopefully without financing their kidneys though .. Me, I do get a lot of clothes and accessories, hairs and the occasional tattoo or makeup thing, and I have a thing for cybernetics, but changing skin or eyes I don't do on a whim. When I first went mesh I was uncomfortable with my new skin for such a long time, and now when I changed again as I went BOM I was terrified of feeling alienated from my avi - but, now that it's been a while I'm loving the skins of both my avies. . . . Now maybe that's a job I could have in SL.

Let's call it a social experiment. Also, I don't think we've had enough picture threads lately!

. . . Unlike every-- Nope. I'm going to behave, for once.

I mean. The days I actually go in-world, and you're also online, anyway. But twice! . . . I mean, what, who, me? I'd never.

Usually the kind of people who turn to the forums for friends are the people who fail to make friend in-world due to their abysmal social skills. Whilst that's not always the case, the majority of the people I've reached out to have been the sort who barely manage to uphold some sort of basic etiquette of communication, who with every line cause a conversational dead end and who show no interest whatsoever. . . . And occasionally, when you confront them about it and ask why it is they never even try to hold up their end of a conversation, they accuse you of 'constantly trying to get into their knickers'. Like, I'm terribly sorry you got that impression from 'Hello there! I saw your thread on the forum and thought I'd reach out. How are you today?'. Shrugs.

How do people even manage to find threads from 8 years ago . . .

Yeah, no, pass. People are already running around with their genitalia 'hidden' whilst wearing clothes which causes all sorts of lag. Don't need to give the lag hogs larger pastures.