I Paid 20 Bucks To Sit Naked With Strangers

It taught me a valuable lesson about fucks

Berlin, November 2022.

C❄ld as balls.

Dark as a wolf’s throat, as we say in Spain.

My husband and I walk through a pitch-black park with ongoing construction work. We’re heading to a new place. A mysterious place. A warm place, thank God.

At the end of the park, we turn a corner and an arrow points us to walk down a set of stairs to a basement floor. Still, not creepy.

Light-coloured wood covers every wall. The light feels warm and inviting.

We look puzzled at a price list in German as a young man wrapped in a big scarf and a knit cap with a pom-pom walks past us.

We go down another set of stairs leading to a hidden subterranean oasis of steam and warmth.

As the eyes adjust, we see people naked everywhere. Mostly men, of course.

I don’t know why “of course” but… don’t you think?

Venture At Your Own Risk

At the end of the corridor, we spot a nice, high, wooden bar opposite a huge fish tank with little “Dories” and “Nemos”. Two alluring big fridges filled top to bottom with all kinds of beer, Club Mate and Fritz Cola rest like Doric columns framing the tank.

Man, I love Berlin.

In my shitty, near inexistent German, I ask the moustache with a man behind the bar if he speaks any English.

“Was?” He asks. I go again.

“Sprechen-Sie Englisch?” (Cute face)

“Nein”. Damn it.

A naked woman wrapped in a small towel looks at us as she sips her surprisingly large jug of IPA. She seems to find the situation amusing. But shows no intention of helping.

Fine. I make a peace sign with my fingers indicating we want two passes to use the Finnish Sauna. I’m borderline regretting the whole thing.

We get two keys for the lockers and Moustache Man starts attending the next person. No payment upfront needed. Bold.

Feels like I’m tripping balls and I don’t remember having taken any psychedelics.

“Did you drug me?” I ask my husband as we undress. “No, but this is pretty weird, I can’t imagine a place like this back home”.

Nor can I.

Even if I’d brought a bathing suit, it feels wrong to cover up. When in Rome and all that.

I am amused by the fact I’m self-conscious now about wearing less clothing when I spent the entire summer in Istanbul feeling self-conscious about not covering up more.

We wrap ourselves in fluffy towels and realise a long, cold, wet corridor separates us from the hot rooms. People’s perfectly arranged flip-flops lay along the corridor and we ain’t got none. We’re going in barefoot.

Foot fungus. Foot fungus hiding in the silvery puddles. I can’t stop thinking about foot fungus. Yuck. I hear my mom’s voice “do not walk on that wet floor!”. It’s not the time to be hypochondriac or deal with mommy issues, I tell myself. It’s fine. I’m fine.

Needless to say, I walk around on my tippy toes the whole time.

We go into the Sauna room.

A large lady with massive breasts lays down peacefully sweaty on one of the wooden benches.

I’m already too hot.

Relaaaaaaaax, I keep telling myself. It’s just people. Naked people. You’re naked too, in front of people. It’s okay. Because you’re not who you were a few years ago, scared and self-conscious. You’re a new and improved version of yourself now. One who can pretend not to be self-conscious. Please don’t let me get foot fungus, please don’t let me get foot fungus….

My husband walks around like he knows the place. So damn comfortable in his own skin. Doesn’t even know the word shame. I micro-hate him and his four-pack.

The Whole Shebang

As you can see, I was dealing with a tinsy bit of neurosis inside my pretty little head. But all was well… until I walked into the steam room.

The wet marble surfaces, the strip club-like red light, the cleaning product smell, the naked strangers hiding amidst the steam…. I was okay with it all.

Until I realised, unlike in the sauna, nobody had towels inside the wet room. Suddenly I was very aware all five of us were sitting with our bare asses on the wet marble and discreetly spitting out the excess moisture in our mouths.

Call me an OCD freak but my eyes started itching, I could feel something funny on the soles of my feet and I couldn’t stop thinking about my sacred V temple being all… exposed…

The power of thought, am I right?

I left.

Outside, there were people walking in all directions, in and out of the rooms, the showers, and the cold-ass plunge pool. Most of them keeping their gaze at eye level. Which sounds polite, right? But makes it all the more intimate.

They all seemed so relaxed and comfortable in their own skin. I felt out of place like a penguin in the desert.

What was weird though, is that it wasn’t weird it was mixed.

Futuristic.

I thought about a Finnish sauna in Spain or in the UK. It wouldn’t work. We’re still carrying a long, heavy lineage of Kings and Queens and the Church that bathes it all in sin. Gosh, we’re still negotiating which bathroom is for whom and judge the woman coming out of the men’s toilet even if there’s a half-hour queue for the ladies’.

We hide, we shame, we’re ashamed. Some perv a bit too openly. We’re like children when it comes to nudity. We giggle and get flustered. Because we’re so unacostumed to seeing it in the flesh.

Not Germans, though. They're pragmatic as fuck. Why build two sauna rooms and two locker rooms when you can build one for half the price with twice the space? Who cares what you got down there if its folded petals of labia or if it hangs? You’re at the Sauna for the heat, the steam and the beer. I love that.

Everyone seems happy.

I can’t help but envy their okayness.

The Bottomline

Nordic countries are cold af in the winter. Saunas makes sense. They warm you up from the inside. They help you sweat out toxins. And it’s pretty darn cosy once you get used to it.

There are a bunch of other benefits to Saunas, like easing back pain which a lot of us suffer from. But also:

• Boosting immune system — helps you not get sick
• Reducing congestion — clearing the respiratory tract when you breathe in the heat
• Helping you chillax — relaxing the muscles, reducing stress.
• Preventing fluid retention by eliminating excess liquid in the body — which helps with weight loss. Nice.

The key to all this, as per ush, is consistency. You won’t get all the benefits by going once in your holiday hotel sauna and never again.

The surprising lesson those unashamedly naked strangers taught me was to be comfortable with the uncomfortable when the uncomfortable is natural. Or said differently, when it comes to nudity

“Thou shall give less fucks”

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