I Miss Getting Naked With Other Women

Japanese onsens are a sensual delight with or without company

I love getting into hot water. You dip the tips of your toes in carefully then pull them quickly out. Yup, that’s hot, you tell yourself. Then you ease your entire foot in. First one than the other. Slowly you lower your body into the water your skin tingling, complaining at first, too much, too much, careful, careful, before settling down into ahh yes, perfect.

Tension you weren’t aware you were holding begins to drift away. You slip deeper into the water until only your head is free from the heated caress of water. Your legs float up from the bottom and your breasts, freed from their daily cage of fabric, elastic, wires, and clips, drift up, floating, weightless, cupped only by the water above, below, and around tingling with freedom.

You close your eyes, letting your arms float up as well kissing the surface. The water falling from the bamboo pipe and hitting the surface creates a gentle music playing into and between the rattled thoughts bouncing off the walls of your mind. It captures, calms, and isolates them. They drift noticed but detached.

Hints of eucalyptus drift from your freshly washed hair and body further loosening the bonds of care connecting you to your concerns. Let go, let go, let go, the smell of steam, woman, soap and scent, whisper to your brain.

The water of the onsen doesn’t carry your problems away. It clears the mud and grime, untangling them from each other, allowing you to disconnect from the pain and pressure and ground yourself in your own body. Stripped of clothing, open to reveling in the senses, here and now, what I see, taste, touch, smell, and hear matters most.

Japanese baths are communal. Maybe you will be alone on a slow day in a remote location, but usually, you will share your water with other women. Everyone walks into the outer changing area covered with the protective armor pressing down and in, excess weight we don’t notice until it is temporarily gone. Stripping down is hard for an American woman, seeped since childhood in the story of Eve: fallen, sinful, and full of shame at her nakedness.

You choose a locker or basket and quickly remove your clothing as if pausing to contemplate your actions might make you change your mind. The outer layers are easy. Your shoes were already left at the door. You remove coat, socks, pants, and shirt and neatly fold them.

Bra and panties are the difficult step. You reach behind and unclasp your bra. You hook your thumbs into your panties and pull down stepping out one foot after the other. Naked now you take your undergarments and hide them inside your folded clothing as if even though you are now naked, someone glimpsing your underthings would be embarrassing, revealing.

The short walk to the shower room is the most uncomfortable. You straddle the zones between women who are clothed and those exposed. You sit down on a short wooden stool and begin the soothing ritual of stripping the unseen accumulated debris from your skin.

You walk from the shower area to the bath area divested of the outside world. It is only you, your body freshly singing from the sensation of your own hands and scented suds caressing and cleaning every inch of you. You’ve washed away your self-consciousness with the grime.

The onsen is filled with beauty: simple bamboo plants in the corner, steam rising gently from the surface of the water, soothing earth tones everywhere. Most beautiful of all are the women.

The onsen is far removed from the airbrushed women taunting us from the pages of magazines, billboards, and online ads. There are no movie stars, or Instagram influencers holding the camera at the perfect angle for take after take. Here we are all just women or girls. We’ve washed away all the filters before we dip together into the tub.

At the onsen sagging baby chewed breasts mingle with pert perky B cups. Some tummys are tight and others sag in folds over the midsection. Toned arms reach out for cool water to pour over the back of the neck. Arms with loose skin hanging down and flapping freely tuck a stray hair behind an ear.

All are beautiful, these women’s bodies full of c-section scars, age spots, dewy youth, and diversity. Here are bodies removed from a lustful gaze, owned and inhabited fully in this moment only by their bearer.

Being alone at the onsen is delightful, a time of contemplation and connection with your own body. Coming alone to the onsen and sharing the magical waters with strangers is another sort of delight. We are sisters here, me and these women whose language I do not speak. Our exposed bodies tell a story beyond words. We exchange shy smiles as they welcome me to dip into their ancient traditions.

Sometimes I come to the onsen with friends whose language I speak, whose culture I share. “Oh I could never,” says the newly arrived ex-pat, blushing a little at the thought of communal non-sexual nakedness.

Western women are used to changing clothes quickly in a locker room, rushing to wrap a towel around their nakedness, or hurrying to make the switch from street clothes to workout gear and back. We don’t fear the gaze of other women in these moments of undress but we don’t wallow in it either. Relaxing with our imperfect bodies exposed seems impossible.

We nod sympathetically at the newcomer sipping our green tea. “Yes, yes,” we murmur, “we felt this way too when we first arrived in Japan. You may change your mind.”

“Join us?” we ask each month but we don’t push. She will come when she is ready. The culture of this ancient land will seep into her skin.

The bonds of ex-pat women are strong. We form relationships quickly and fiercely in this new land, clinging to each other for advice, friendship, a balm from homesickness and loss.

The waters of the onsen penetrate deep, tugging, pulling, floating from one woman to the next. Talk begins shallow. The heat works its way into our muscles whispering, relax, let go, and our inhibitions heed the message as well.

Our fears float to the surface with our outstretched legs and bobbing breasts.

I’m afraid I’m losing my identity. Is there a me beyond wife and mother?

I love my child but I don’t always like him. Am I bad?

I’m losing connection with my family back home. I’m changing and they are not.

I don’t want to have children. Am I wrong?

I think I need to leave him. How do I go?

I don’t want to get old and lose my looks. Am I shallow?

“Yes,” we reassure each other. “You are normal. We understand. Tell us anything. It’s okay. You are loved.”

We enter conversation like we entered the onsen. We walk in superficial, bundled up, covered, and concealed. Slowly we strip off the layers, the masks, the protections until all is laid bare. We dip a toe into honesty and openness testing the waters.

Hot, we think, danger. But this is what we came for and we continue on in. Too much, too much, careful, careful as we slowly bare our authentic selves along with our bodies. We speak, saying what we have told no one before. We are not rejected. We are understood. Ah perfect!

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