Berlin is famous for sex parties and Germans are famous for (among other things) getting naked on the beach. Frankly, I had not had the slightest interest in participating in either of these activities despite living in the land of apparent nudity, pretzels, sausages in jars and bureaucracy for more than three years now.
So, actually, it’s a major cultural thing here called Freikörperkultur (FKK), which translates to free body culture. It basically kicked off in the 18th Century, embodying the idea that there is a certain joy and feeling of freedom to be had from experiencing nature and being naked, without any direct links to sex. It was the first official movement of its sort in the world and is more prevalent than ever today, with very few legal restrictions on public nudity existing in Germany.
It became somewhat more of an East German thing following the war, largely because of the more secularised cultural development, and probably as a way to seek a sense of freedom behind the Iron Curtain.
Anyway, three years in, when a colleague offered to take me to a spa for a few sauna sessions, I thought “why not”. I’ve always very much enjoyed saunas. Have always worn swimmers or at least a towel when in them, though. Forgot about the FKK.
Well hello indeed.
So when I entered this particular spa, I was suddenly and very immensely surrounded by hundreds of naked bodies. Standing there in my robe, with my towel around my neck – I was the awkward one at this FKK party. Everywhere I looked were penises. Penis here, penis there, penis everywhere. Too much for my sheltered and very clothed Anglo brain, overwhelming to my more uptight and perhaps overly sexualised relationship with the naked human body. I’m sure my eye was twitching at some point, not really sure what to do, frozen and completely overcome by something so simple. Humans without clothes.
First I was thinking I would just sort of slink off and leave, but before I knew it I was being dragged into a sauna full of completely naked men and women. I put my towel around my body, underneath my robe, then took my robe off and sat extremely uncomfortably in the sauna with my towel around my body while the rest of the group remained entirely unclothed and entirely unabashed.
Next came the Aufguss (infusion), whereby a person enters the sauna, pours some infusion oils over some hot rocks, hands out some scrubs and tells you to have a great sweat sesh. With a duration of 12 minutes it starts to get real hot-and-steamy. Sweat is pouring, balls are being scrubbed with orange peel, people are looking into each others eyes as if to bond over their shared sweat droplets. Me? I’m sitting there in my towel contemplating how I ended up here in life. Then came the lols.
Leave nothing to the imagination.
Oh how the lols did come. I had to go sit down in the most private place I could find (there aren’t many) and just laugh until I couldn’t laugh anymore.
Then I went back and attended another Aufguss with my towel on only from the waist down. Talk about free body culture, right?
It was an 8-hour session and oh boy was it a transformative one. In the end, I still find it all a bit extreme, but I understand that this is based on my associations and connotations with nudity, which are perhaps utterly British in their tense, anxious nature.
Germans are an odd bunch, but body shaming is not on their agenda and understanding of the human body separate from sex is something they’ve certainly achieved. Damned if they aren’t a bunch of sex freaks too, though.