Sauna Time!

I thought I'd get a few weird looks if I brought my camera into the sauna, so I downloaded this picture from the internet, trying to depict the quite foreign European Sauna Experience

As I go about my everyday life in Europe, I have discovered that there are a number of daily activities that are very normal to Europeans – that a local would never even think about here – that Americans find absolutely absurd.  For instance, the approximate percentage of smokers under the age of thirty (about 97%) or the fact that one must pay for ketchup at McDonald’s.  But there is one situation completely foreign to American culture that I must discuss, the culture of the sauna.

 

When I say “the sauna,” I mean the culture of taking off all your clothes and sitting with a number of strangers in a really hot room.  This is something that some European cultures absolutely love, and something that Americans would select only if “public humiliation” and “death by firing squad” were their only other alternatives.I must preface all of this by saying that the attitude towards nudity in the United States is much different than it is here in tolerant Europe.  In America, being naked is not something we do well, and strive to keep to a minimum.  There are almost no nude or topless beaches.  There is an uproar anytime something even remotely risqué appears on the television or newspaper.  Put it this way, Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the Super Bowl went as far as being debated by the American Congress!  Yet here in Europe, being naked is no big deal, whether in the media or especially in the sauna.  For instance, it was a favorite pastime for my American comrades while playing in Italy to look at the advertising posters – almost exclusively featuring a scantily clad female looking lustfully at the camera – and try to guess whether the semi-clad senora was posing for a bank or a cough medicine, because there was really no way to tell.  This must be why those at the local sauna feel so comfortable sitting around naked, talking as if they are at the office or even sharing a drink at the naked sauna bar.

 

Every North American has a different reaction to their first spa experience, as communal nudity simply does not occur back home.  I tried to explain the spa to my unbelieving parents, focusing on the health benefits and the relaxing way it makes me feel, but all they kept asking me is, “They do what?  And they’re… naked?”  My SWARCO Raiders teammate Alex Hoad, a native of Canada, spontaneously knocked over an entire rack of towels after unsuspectingly running face-first into a naked female in the coed shower.  My wife, already aware of the situation during her first time, didn’t know where to look for fear that someone would think she was looking inappropriately at them.  Using the “floor and ceiling” technique she developed as a sports-reporter in locker rooms back in North America, she successfully navigated her way into the large dry sauna, where suddenly she was sitting sandwiched between two naked, older men.  She looked at me in horror.  Feeling completely helpless, she whispered to me the funniest thing I have ever heard her say, “There is wiener schnitzel… everywhere!”

 

So trying to make an American feel comfortable shedding all of his or her clothes and sitting naked in a room full of strangers is no easy task.  At least for me, I have been in locker rooms with men my whole life.  Women, though, is a whole new thing for this football player.  All I can say is that we are trying, however I can tell you first-hand that one cannot fully understand the word “uncomfortable” until you’ve suddenly found yourself surrounded in a room full of naked Tiroleans, with a wrinkled leader speaking in a foreign language while banging a loud gong (which obviously meant that the Finnish or Russian style sauna was about to begin.) 

 

However, as with everything in Europe, soon you begin to see things from a new perspective and find an appreciation for it.  Now going to the sauna is something my wife and I look forward to as a relaxing part of our day.  I personally just can’t wait to take my parents there when they visit.  

~ J. Twice