Living in Stuttgart has afforded me some pretty spectacular international exposure that a southern girl from a one-horse town usually doesn’t have the opportunity to experience. To date, I’ve been embraced like I was next of kin by a big Greek family with four generations of love spewing from the kitchen; I’ve been part of a debate on political ideology with the French, and shared the most intriguing historical and cultural revelations with a German Jew whose family fled to Shanghai, just before things kicked off here in Germany.

Every one of these wonderful events has taken place around a dinner table. But some of the more dramatic and revealing (sort of speak) cultural experiences happen in the sauna. I have concluded that the best a culture has to offer is experienced around a dinner table.  However, if you really want insight on different levels of a country’s culture, more specifically on its morality and health culture, get naked and visit a sauna.

My mom, niece, and I went to a spa over the summer.  Mama Belle, being the middle-aged, southern, conservative prude that she is was not ready to do as the Germans do and wore her black and bright striped one piece bathing suit into a tiled steam room. Everyone silently and nakedly braced themselves for the heated pain that was to one except one obviously non-native man who started pointing and shouting at us in German. We looked at him. He kept on. The other native Germans looked our way but didn’t say a word. I looked around. “Is he yelling at us?” I asked loud enough to let him know we didn’t speak his language. “Maybe he’s saying that Audrey is too young to be in here.” My mom responded. “Maybe it’s because you’re not naked,” I offered. I mean, it’s really not fair for everyone else to be naked and then there’s one person not willing to make one’s self vulnerable.  Having clothes on certainly gives the clothed an upper hand.  The man fumed and stormed out of the room, presumably to find an employee who could translate.  Audrey started getting antsy in the heat so we left before the angry patron returned.

Now, it is important to note that I get yelled at by angry Germans all the time so this occasion was really not unique.  Every non-German I know has a similar angry German tale to share. Headlights turned off at sunset, make a U-turn even when no one is coming, switch lanes without a signal, or cross a crosswalk when the little man on the sign is red and just expect a firestorm of angry Germans to emerge from all directions and shout at you.  Heaven forbid a plastic bottle end up in your cardboard recycle bin. You will have a neighbor knocking at your door, handing it back to you while providing a lecture in German. Leave your car running to warm up as you run back into the house to collect some last minute items and a local will be standing right by your car when you come out of the house waiting to let you have it.  Cut your grass at 1145 on a Tuesday, expect neighbors to congregate to observe what you’re doing as if you are making a spectacle, then brace yourself to be yelled at. If you walk in the woods with your dog and come across a no dogs allowed sign… a German wood gnome will pop out of the forest and you will get yelled at. There’s no time to explain, “Well I’m sorry, I’m already here, there was not a sign at the entrance and I’m trying to leave the area.”  There are no excuses. You will get harangued.  Once, the driving lane I was in suddenly turned into the taxi lane. I was stopped at a red light with a car to my left, sidewalk to my right, and a car, that happened to be a taxi, behind me. There was nothing I could do about it. The taxi driver beeped furiously. Sorry bub, the light is red. I’m not going anywhere. The driver, who was actually Turkish, not German, gets out of his car, starts beating on my window to yell at me as if I know what on earth he’s saying. Now this would have ended very badly for him if he was in the south in America. Its times like that I wish mace wasn’t illegal in this country.  It was also the day I started carrying a mini can of bug spray in my purse.  Has the same affect. It does It’s not like he could do anything either…the light was red! Then he drove with road rage. Oh, once, someone swerved his little car and abruptly stopped in front of my beau causing him to slam on the breaks in the cross walk…the the light turned red and he couldn’t move. Then my beau got yelled at, and his truck smacked by Germans crossing the street.  Goodness people, get over yourself. Sometimes stuff happens and there is nothing you can do about it. And usually it’s not that serious!  Unless someone’s life, eyesight, or limbs are seriously in jeopardy or they are going to score a goal in Fußball, there is never a real reason to yell at them. Well, apparently it’s the sauna, a place for relaxation and tranquility, is not off limits to yelling either.

Fast forward about four months — my beau and I go to an indoor pool.  Everyone in the pool area is wearing swimsuits. After a few laps and splashes we decide to check out the “wellness” section which includes saunas, foot soaks, whirlpools, and lounge chairs.  The whole floor is ours alone. I go sit in the least hot Sauna wearing my bikini. No more than 15 seconds after I entered the wooden box — the door had not even had a chance to close all the way — and here comes the spa monitor looking like Megan from Bridesmaids in long red shorts and two layers of tee shirts yelling at me in German. Now, in most occasions when I get yelled at in Deutsch I respond by smiling and using my “you’re such a cute little baby” voice while saying things like “I don’t understand you. Do I look like I know what you’re saying,” while shaking my head. This time, instead of my baby voice, I simply respond by maintaining  eye contact with her while undressing. Why does she get to yell at me for not being naked in an empty sauna when she’s tromping around in layers galore?  Why does it matter if you are naked or not? Why is nakedness not an option?  I imagine if this was a movie it might be funny. Someone yells at you in German, you take your clothes off.  What if my response to getting yelled at was removing my garments every time?  Would that incite more anger? Amusement? Would the yelling stop? What if that became the standard American response to German yelling? Could we condition Germans to stop yelling at us least they see us naked, or would they do it even more? Instead of Americans asking, “Wanna watch me make this German flip the heck out?” then proceed to toss a plastic bottle in the trash, would the Germans then ask each other, “Wollen sie diesen Amerikanerin nanackt sehen?”  (Want to see this American naked?) then start speaking to us in a raised voice.

Working with international partners I get the chance to meet a diversity of people doing the same computer work as me. One such event was an international computer geek conference where I met a Finnish Army officer. Saunas are so much apart of Finnish culture that when the Fins deploy into war, they deploy with tactical saunas. And men and women soldiers sit in this tent-like sauna naked together. Once, one of the Finish soliders went to the U.S. to visit his sister who lives in Indiana. He got a similar shock of American Sauna culture. He explained, “There they were, the Americas sitting in a Sauna with their hot, sweaty, wet clothes and I go in naked like you are suppose to and they screamed. There were screamers!  And the workers asked me to leave.” He was not welcome to return.  Years later he was still upset. I laughed.

One last experience that I must share that still made me shake my head.  I was in my private little dressing cabin in a spa putting on my swim suit. When I came out there he was, my beau, smiling ear to ear, naked as a jay bird. I gasp. We had just seen everyone fully dressed in the swimming pools down below. “You are not supposed to be naked,” I hollered a whisper. “Why not,” he whispered back.  “No one else is naked,” I said.  Seconds later an accented voice came from the cabin next to us, “Excuse me,” she said. “This is a sauna. It is ok to be naked.” She cleared up the situation. Sure enough we turned a corner of the locker room and there was a bare butt naked lady greeting a fully dressed man in a business suit. They smiled shook hands and carried on a lengthy, friendly conversation.  In America there would be so much wrong with this scene.  She’s naked. He’s not. They’re in a co-ed locker room, laughing and joking and just shooting the breeze.  But all the patrons dressed only in flip flops walked right passed them and into the wellness center without concern.

When living abroad it is expected to feel the sting of a cultural sanction at least once in a while. However, there are few cultural shocks so jilting than getting socially sanctioned while in the buff. Our approach to nakedness, health, and family is a paradox salad.  America, a nation founded by puritans, has endorsed the Daisy Duke Shorts and bras that push our breast in low cut tops where you can see everything but the color. Yet we can get violently upset if we see another adult completely undressed in a controlled environment with heat climbing over 100 degrees centigrade. In Germany, you’re hard-pressed to see a girl in cut off jeans and ta-tas spewing out walking through the shopping district but plenty of naked bodies are found in every sauna and every beach is at least topless.  In America we have laws against being naked in front of children. In Europe, families go to the Sauna together.  It’s no big deal for an eight year old girl to be walking around bare butt naked with her daddy and every other middle aged man in a spa.  The Germans don’t allow clothing in the sauna due to sanitary reasons as if it’s more sanitary to have someone’s sweaty genitals sitting nude on a wooden bench.  It seems that Americans do not allow nudity for sanitary and moral reasons. Usually saunas in America are found in gender segregated locker rooms.  In Europe those are hard to find and Finland and Germany families are close enough to be naked and unashamed together.  In America the same act is a perversion.

I must say I enjoy the Sauna experience and it has become a part of my lifestyle while living here in Germany. I think culturally appropriate nudity warrants deeper exploration.  We all know that every region of the world has culturally regulated guidelines on what a female can expose, whether it’s her belly button, legs, ankles, cleavage or what have you.  But why do two similarly developed western societies have such drastically different attitudes toward nudity in general? And what are the affects? In Germany there are still child molesters, rapist and general perverts. There are still occurrences of eating disorders. I can’t say if there is a difference between frequency rates of any offense or if there is heightened awareness and discovery in either country.  Perhaps Germany has a healthier body image understanding that there is no shame associated with your naked form. Maybe I’ll make this a thesis topic at a later date, I certainly have enough field research to get started.