Hot take ♨🧖
On nudity, equality, and the quiet radicalism of doing nothing
Somewhere in Switzerland, we lost our butt-clenching American prudishness. It evaporated in the heat of a European sauna.
During our three years living in Switzerland, we quickly learned that leisure isn’t a suggestion; it’s on the schedule. On Sundays, the country conspires against errands, cleaning, or any of the other “catch up on life” tasks. Stores close. Vacuuming is frowned upon. Even your washing machine is expected to rest in case the spin cycle scandalizes the neighbors. On Sundays, you hike, ski, swim, read by the lake, or you go to the spa.
Here, “spa” shrugs off the plush robe, the manicures and facials, the project of polishing and preserving yourself, and invites you into a slower, shared ritual. European spas—particularly in Switzerland, Germany, and across Scandinavia—unfold in roughly the same way. First come the pools or thermes, where, bathing-suit clad, you float between different-temperature waters and let the jets and bubbles ease the tension from your body. Then comes the sauna area, where children, phones, and clothing disappear.
The first time I entered a co-ed sauna, I clutched my towel like a shield, hyper-aware of my body and unsure where to rest my gaze. But as I moved from room to room—each with its own temperature and ritual—I noticed no one was looking. Not at me, not at anyone else.
What became clear, sitting in a room full of silent strangers, was that nudity was not a spectacle. Nudity functions as a condition of entry, a matter of hygiene rather than meaning. Since everyone shares it, conduct—not clothing—sets the tone. No one stares. No one performs. You sit. You sweat. You surrender to the heat, stripped of wealth or status, and the body simply exists. In that stillness there is a quiet recognition of being part of a body larger than your own.
We became avid participants in this culture. Even now, drifting through a therme and submitting to the heat of a sauna remains one of our favorite rituals. Which is why I was eager to see spa culture migrating across the Atlantic. I thought, we too will float quietly or sit in shared heat, contemplating nothing and emerging restored. I forgot that we, as a nation, are deeply committed to the idea of rest. The concept of slowing down appeals to us tremendously, right up until the moment we’re asked to actually sit still and do nothing.
So we, as a nation, didn’t simply import the experience; we remade it, compelled to improve it. To optimize it. To make relaxation more effective, more measurable, more productive. We speak of cardiovascular benefits, longevity, and the ideal cold-plunge protocol for the nervous system. We add DJs, schedules, instructors, and the subtle suggestion that you could be doing this—this being nothing—better.
And, of course, we couldn’t leave it alone. We treat idleness like a design flaw and insist that leisure justify itself. If we are going to sit in a hot room, it should improve our skin, our circulation, or our personal brand—preferably all three. Science, conveniently, gave us a justification. Research into the brain’s resting state network shows that when we appear to be doing nothing—daydreaming, drifting, letting the mind wander—the brain is actually hard at work, making connections, processing memories, generating the little flashes we later call “aha” moments. Doing nothing, it turns out, is good for us.1
And then there’s the nudity, which introduces a whole separate category of American unease. We have never met a naked body that we didn’t immediately assign a storyline. Especially if it’s a woman’s. A naked man is just a person without clothes. A naked woman is, depending on context, a problem to solve, a message to interpret, a boundary to enforce, or a desire to contain.
We exist in a cultural paradox where women’s bodies are simultaneously sexualized in advertising and entertainment, and strictly regulated in everyday life. Nudity is rarely allowed to exist in a neutral state. It is either hidden or marketed, policed or performed. A topless woman can sell a product, but not sit quietly in a sauna without raising existential questions about morality.
So we add swimsuits and separate spaces and frame these choices as protection. But protection is only required because we view women as sexual consumables and men’s desire as beyond discipline. The implication is not simply that women should protect themselves, but that they absorb the burden of restraint. Manage women’s exposure, not men’s conduct.
Both the impulse to optimize and the instinct to protect assume the body, on its own, cannot be trusted. It must be improved, disciplined, regulated, or reframed. It is welcome as image, curated for consumption, but not as presence, raw and unmediated. The sauna refuses this. It does not elevate the mind above flesh. In its heat, the illusion of separation—mind from body, self from self—dissolves. We are simply embodied, fully present, and for a moment, equal in that fact.
Full steam ahead,
Kelly
P.S. Want a chance to experience real sauna culture, unoptimized, unselfconscious, and unapologetically hot? Visit Finland is giving six couples an all-expenses-paid trip to the Finnish Lakeland. Think sauna, lake, repeat. Applications close March 29, and yes, you must post on social media to prove you’re ready to unplug.