From Nude to Prude: American Sauna Culture Hits Berlin

 Since moving to Berlin, I’ve sweated naked in public too many times to count. At my discount women’s gym in Neukölln, in a darkened cabin that always smells a little funky but gets the job done. At the slightly nicer spa at Holmes Place, squeezed in among 30-odd hulking, langoustine-pink gym bros. And of course at Vabali, the vaguely Asian-themed complex in Moabit, shuffling between hot saunas and cold pools while surrounded by genitalia of all colors, shapes and sizes.

The famous German word for nudism is Freikorperkultur (“free body culture”), or FKK. As a transplant from puritanical New England, there are some FFK activities I’m still not brave enough for: the clothes-off dance tent at Fusion Festival, say, or naked karaoke at Monster Ronson’s. Nude saunagoing, though? That’s not even culture, it’s just common sense. Nobody who’s felt the joy of letting sweat flow freely from nipple to kneecap, unobstructed by sodden polyester, can possibly return to the tyranny of swimwear.

Or so I thought, until I started seeing social media ads for a new breed of spa. A place filled with beautiful young people contorting themselves into yoga positions, gracefully slipping into cold plunges and dancing to techno, all while clad in trunks and bikinis.

In other words, the American-style sauna has landed in Berlin. And it’s brought American prudishness with it.

"If a mother passed by the gates and started complaining because her 13-year-old son saw naked people, I’d have to deal with that.”