Did anyone here ever go to a sauna?

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Sauna's are an almost ancient tradition in Russia and scandinavian countries like Finland and Sweden. However, I live in Holland and about forty years ago or even further back sauna's became pretty common in The Netherlands as well. When I was in my teens I often went to the sauna with a group of classmates from high school. Sauna's in Holland are mixed. Men and women are present at the same time and you are supposed to enyoy the sauna butt naked. Some sauna's have days or hours that only women are allowed in and when I was still at school we only went to the sauna on those particular days.

I would love to go to a sauna again though. The dutch sauna's have become pretty lavish these days. Not only are there a number of different sauna experiences like for instance an infrared sauna but swimming pools and bubble baths as well among other things . It's like going to a health spa for a couple of hours which really appeals to me. The only problem is, is that there is no way in hell that I'm going to sit butt naked in a mixed sauna. I don't know why but total nudity seems to be an almost unbroken 'sauna tradition'. I finally managed to find two sauna's where one is allowed to wearbathing suits, bikini's and what have you. One of them has two days in a whole month on which visitors are allowed tow wear swimwear. Two days a month? Ridiculous. What is the problem with people wearing swimwear in a sauna? I know that I am a prude but I'm sure I am not the only one. I am convinced that sauna's would attract a lot more customers if people are allowed to wear something.

Has anyone here ever been to a traditional sauna?
I am referring to sauna's for both men and women by the way. Not to the type of sauna that is for men only and offers a wide range of experiences of a completely different nature. Not that I have anything against these places, why should I, but that's just not what I'm talking about here.

Last edited by Atom1966 on 06 Apr 2014, 8:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

Another thing that used to strike me about sauna's is that they seem to attract all of these huge people.
Women who like these prehistoric 'earth mother statuettes' for instance. It doesn't seem to bother them in the least that their voluptuous curves can be seen by all. I actually admire them for it.

Besides, I will look like that myself in a couple of years of I go on like this.

Last edited by Atom1966 on 05 Apr 2014, 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, I went to sauna complex in Germany where everyone walks around naked, even my Dad!
You just don't look at peoples bits, sort of keep your eyes above waist height, the actual sauna wasn't so bad as it was quite steamy.

Soon I am to visit my Sister in Sweden, she has said we will be going to a sauna, but I will try very hard not to, its bad enough seeing a naked Dad, I certainly dont want to see my Sisters bits!

Shame, as the sauna experience is well worth it, you do feel deeply cleansed.

That's right. You do feel cleansed, relaxed and sort of revived.
Knowing myself I am convinced that my eyes will wander and look at bodyparts I don't even want to look at. Not because I find them attractive though, it's a mechanical and unwanted response. But even that is nothing compared to the idea of being naked myself.

Time for me to go to sleep now. Making sense in a language that isn't my own is too difficult for me right now. I'm spending more time on this forum correcting the mistakes in my posts than anything else.

Bye for now.

I've never been to a *real* sauna, but I remember the enjoying the sauna adjacent to the pool at this fitness complex I used to go to occasionally. It was in a nearby city to where I lived before I moved here.

I've been to one of the really big sauna complexes in Budapest, Hungary. Twice.

Swimsuits were apparently compulsory, thankfully.

I found the heat in some of the saunas literally unbearable.

I use both the saunas at the gym. we have a steam sauna and a dry sauna. In the dry sauna. We have this big infrared heat lamp and when you stand in front of it, you can feel the heat going through your body. Unlike a conventional heat source that just bounces off you skin. The infrared actually penetrates your skin and warms your inner core. It's the most relaxing feeling you can get.

Yes!

I found the sauna that suits me best. It's in a large swimmingpool on the outskirts of the town I live in. Swimwear is required and the sauna facilities are lavish. I don't think these sauna's can be compared to traditional ones but they are good enough for me.
Absolutely great because I can focus on my 'long distance swimming training programme', in my case about 410 feet, and relax in the sauna afterwards.

The problem with people wearing swimwear in the sauna is that you cant control hygiene. Because of the temperatures and air/water-ratio in the sauna area, they are like breed rooms for bacterias. Thats the reason why step 1 of every sauna visit is to shower yourself. Because of the showers being public, this is something everyone does, because if you mention someone entering the sauna areas, and not showering, you simply go to the "sauna-janitor/master" and tell him about it, and that person will be told to shower or banned. When it comes to cloth, you dont have the possibility to proove if they are freshly washed, or if people simply went in there with their regular swimming stuff, that they have not washed before and that is often full of bacteria, because lots of people not regularly washing their swimming cloths after swimming. And you hardly can hire an "smell inspector" that checks every of your cloths, if its freshly washed, before he allows you to enter the sauna area.

Beside that sauna simply exists for comfort. The thing is to totally relax yourself and not giving a f**k about the world for 1-2 hours is part of the sauna experience. Part of that is to not give a f**k about how other people look like, just as well as dont give a f**k about how you look like. You should take in mind specially, that most people will visits sauna regularly. For them there is absolutely nothing special about naked people, so noone cares what you look like. In the opposite it seems to me, that in countries having similar traditions, people seem to have a better confidence in their bodies, simply because you know what everyday people look like, in opposition to countries where the only comparison can be done with picture of supermodels.



Yop, Hungary is our neighbor country. Because of them being at the border of the "naked-sauna-experience", they are at least used to accidents happening. ^^ The problem is that the english term they use to describe a normal naked sauna is "nature sauna", while in german an "Natur-sauna" means a classic finish wooden sauna. XD

The fact that people are not allowed to wear anything in sauna's because of unhygienic bathing suits baffles me. I always thought it is the otherr way around, that wearing swimwear is actually more hygienic than total nudity .

Here in England, We're British dont you know, such things are not permitted after the age of 4.
Our bathrooms are so small that two people would actually have to make physical contact to pass each other.

I hate having to wear clothing in the water or in a sauna. I really like Sauna Deco in Amsterdam, and I prefer a steam room to a dry sauna.

I can't do saunas. At least not for more than like five minutes at a time. Too hard to breathe. I get dizzy too. I like hot tubs, but I can't stay in them for very long either. Same problem.

Last edited by BetwixtBetween on 13 May 2014, 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've gotten past that part.

I kinda with people would just get used to the whole nudity thing. I don't want everyone going around naked 24/7 but the needless modesty is tiresome.