The joys of public nudity
February 12th 2009 15:34
Last Friday night I finally mustered up the courage to try something I'd been hesitant to do for about a year: visit a German sauna. My boyfriend and one of our male friends had been nagging me to come along with them for ages, but I didn't have the guts to do it. And why, you ask?
You see, German sauna complexes are unique in one special way: they are mixed gender, and no clothing whatsoever is allowed to be worn inside. As far as I know, not even super-liberal Scandinavia has unisex public saunas of this kind, so it's something truly rare.
So you can imagine the mental struggle that I had to endure: burning curiosity mixed with awkward visions of suddenly sitting nude in the company of our equally-nude male friend, having a casual chit-chat about the weather like everything's totally normal. In the end, though, my curiosity won (as tends to be the case with me), and I went.
Amazingly, I adjusted rather quickly and painlessly to this weird, new environment. And very soon I became rather indifferent to everything around me, regardless of how many breasts and private parts I pretended not to see (I am blessed with good peripheral vision
). At first I just hung around with my boyfriend to get used to the place and checked out the various facilities -- steamy saunas, dry saunas, spa baths and a heated outdoor swimming pool. And in the end (after a beer and a strong shot) I was fine with the idea of sitting around together with my boyfriend and our friend, rubbing special salts into my skin and sweating like a pro.Admittedly, there were a few moments where I did feel awkward. Like getting in and out of a hot tub occupied by four strange men. And considering that this hot tub was outdoors and that it was about zero degrees outside, there was more than just one odd thing about the whole situation. But I refused to let that trouble me, and actively stopped my brain from analysing whether it was weirder to have four naked men looking at my naked bottom, or to be naked and dripping with water in icy temperatures.
Final verdict? I would do it again! It's definitely a very relaxing and healthy way to spend the evening, or even a whole day. And naked people somehow all start looking the same after a while...
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Comment by BobB
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Comment by Eva W.
Life in Germany
Germans tend to go one way or the other -- they are either super-uptight, or super-liberal. (Mind you, there are also those who are liberal in some ways, but still manage to be uptight at the same time.)
Comment by Anonymous
I'm a german girl and I also live near Bonn.
I just found your blog and I think it's great! It's interesting to see things that I take for granted or find normal because I've always lived in germany from a different perspective
where are you from originally and how long have you been living in germany?