Month: January 2021

“Aren’t they embarrassed, Dad?”

We were on a vacation in Australia, and Brian, eight years old, was experiencing a topless beach for the first time.  His question reflected his socialization in a culture where public nudity is not the norm.  (As I remember it, he seemed to adjust to this new culture rather quickly.)

It is well known that many European cultures have a more open attitude toward the human body than most people from the U.S.  A few examples:

• An upscale Dutch hotel features “No Swimsuits Sundays” at its indoor pool.
• Vienna’s prestigious Leopold Art Museum once offered free admission to its “Naked Truth” early 1900’s erotic art exhibit to any patron coming naked.  Founder Elizabeth Leopold said, “We find the naked body every bit as beautiful as a clothed one.”
• Some years ago 7,000 people showed up in Barcelona to be photographed in the nude for American photographer Spencer Tunick’s “Naked Pavement” series.  (Interestingly, Tunick was arrested four times in New York City for attempting the same project before winning his case before the U.S. Supreme Court.)

This relaxed attitude toward nakedness is nowhere more clearly reflected than in the phenomenon of the sauna.  In Europe it is not uncommon for people to willingly strip naked and sit together on wooden benches in a cramped super-heated room, sometimes with complete strangers. 

Although this ancient tradition was not invented by the Finns, they are most closely associated with the sauna.  Finland, with a population of 5.5 million, has 2 million saunas.   In this country of long cold winters, it is understandable that saunas would flourish there.  And, conversely, because summers there are short and fleeting, they are a time of constant celebration.  There are Finnish legends surrounding summertime that have a nakedness theme.  An old legend has it that if a young woman rolls naked in a dewy field on Midsummer’s Eve, she will remain beautiful for the rest of the year (and contract Lyme Disease from rolling around naked in the weeds.)  And if a girl goes naked to the well during that same special evening, she will see the face of her future husband reflected briefly in the water (or the village lecher standing behind her.)

“Taking a sauna” can involve a complex series of heating and cooling the body, and the process varies across cultures and from person to person.  The cooling process can range from a cool shower to a heart-stopping plunge into an icy lake.  I once came out of the sauna and entered a shower which had a large red button positioned in the middle, which I incorrectly assumed would turn on the hot water.  Instead it released a five gallon dump of ice water from eight feet above.

Although still a sauna rookie, I grew to enjoy the process while living in Europe.  Before getting to that place, however, I had a few unnerving experiences.  Let me describe my first two sauna encounters.

I had decided to throw caution and ingrained cultural taboos to the wind and take a sauna au natural, but I was biding my time until the time was right.  The first opportunity that arose seemed safe enough: On a Thursday afternoon at a small German hotel, I had the sauna all to myself, with guaranteed privacy for three hours.  (A sauna with training wheels.)  I was there working with a number of co-workers, but I was the only one not in meetings all afternoon, and our group had exclusive use of the hotel.  I had carefully checked and rechecked everyone’s schedules and was confident that my total privacy was assured. 

Many hotel saunas in Europe are mixed gender, with separate dressing rooms but a common open shower area next to the sauna.  I confidently entered my private domain, turned on the shower, and hung up my towel.  I was showering with my back to the sauna when I imagined I heard the sauna door creaking open.  “Not possible”, I told myself, so I relaxed, at least until I heard a woman’s voice say, “Hey, Don!”  My heart froze as I turned my head to see one of my European colleagues peeking out of the sauna.  So much for my careful calculations.

 “Just wanted you to know I was here!” she said. 

“No problem!” I shouted back, much too quickly and loudly, attempting to sound as cool as one could in such an exposed situation.

As the sauna door closed I quickly considered my options, which boiled down to two: I could grab my towel and bolt, thus confirming the stereotype of the uptight, repressed American, or I could join her in the sauna and hope for a power failure.  I grabbed my towel and went in.  Lying there on her back across from me with her eyes closed, she said, “I do this at least once a week, so it’s no big deal to me, but I wasn’t sure about you.”

“Are you kidding?” I replied, looking at the ceiling and attempting to sound casual.  “Heck, I do this almost every day!  Why, I can’t think of anything more natural than this!”

Luckily, when we saw each other again that evening, she was the one to joke, “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on!”

My second sauna experience was awkward in a different way.  I was invited to the sauna by two male business partners in Finland.  We had finished the day’s business when Juhana and Ralf suggested that we take a sauna. Their company headquarters, like many in Finland, has its own sauna.  This one had separate hours for women and men to use the facilities.  It was now the end of the workday, so we three had the place to ourselves.

We entered a room that looked like an office break room with casual outdoor lounge furniture.  It was warm, humid and dimly lit.  We sat fully clothed drinking a room temperature beer and chatting about the weather.  I had no idea of the protocol, so my strategy was to observe my hosts and carefully mimic their actions.

As we talked, Juhana began to take off his shoes and socks, so I did, too.  After more banter, Ralf started unbuttoning his shirt, and I followed suit.  After a few minutes, we rose and walked into a narrow corridor lined with benches and stacks of towels.  As we continued the conversation, we unbuckled our belts and dropped our pants.  Now we were three grown men standing there in our underwear.  Juhana brightened and said, “How about a Jacuzzi before the sauna?”  He disappeared into the “wet area” to fire up the hot tub.  A few minutes later he emerged to say that he couldn’t seem to figure out how to turn it on.  We offered to help and went in, setting about the task.  I laughed to myself as I observed us: three guys, practically strangers, scurrying around, conferring and troubleshooting, in our undies.  My mind drifted back to the locker room in junior high gym class.

After finally finding the switch, we dropped our drawers, showered off and hopped in.  After a while we moved into the first round in the sauna.  Finns like their saunas hotter than most, and this one felt like a pizza oven to me.

 After 15 minutes we took a shower and relaxed together in the lounge area until going back in.  For Round 2, they brought in a bucket filled with hot water and a number of vihtas, bundles of birch branches tied together.  They had been soaking for a while to soften the branches and leaves.  I watched my companions and as they each grabbed a vihta and began to flagellate their naked backs, chests and legs.  I followed their lead, and after a few minutes of this exertion in the superheated air, I was near heart failure.  We finished with another shower and warm beer before dressing and oozing home.

What about this openness to nakedness?  Is it a healthier attitude?  How does it affect people’s views of sexuality?  I’ll leave that to the social scientists.  I do know that it is not usually shocking or offensive and that after a while one becomes blasé to it because it is commonplace.

One learning from observing this more casual attitude toward nudity is that is not typically about sexuality and arousal.  In fact it is almost asexual and sometimes even anti-sexual.  I once sat in a sauna in the Netherlands as three rather rotund couples lumbered in and plopped down in splayed positions which left nothing hidden from the light of day.  (Interesting place for a tattoo.  Artistic trim work.)  It made me wish for something, anything, to be left to the imagination. 

Another lesson is that what is the local norm is normal.  Walking into a “naked” sauna in a swimsuit feels like showing up at a picnic in a tuxedo – way overdressed for the occasion.

Have my views on nakedness changed?  Maybe a little, but I am not sure that I have adopted a total Nordic attitude toward nudity.  But to be on the safe side, if we’re ever stepping into a hot tub together in the US, please stop me before I forget where I am and take off too much.

Compared to most other carnivorous cultures, U.S. Americans are among the world’s most finicky meat eaters.  If we were a pride of lions that had just chased down a wildebeest and were gathered around for the feast, we would tend to concern ourselves with the wildebeest tenderloin, chuck roast and prime rib, leaving the majority of the carcass to rot in the sun.  Not so for much of the rest of the world, who might remark, “Hey, you’ve left some of the best parts!”

In the U.S., many people are selective about both the animal parts we eat as well as the types of creatures we consume.  As for the parts, except for the cuisines of many cultures that are present, many of us tend to stick to the muscle and fat of the animals we eat.  There are a few notable exceptions, about which most people are either blissfully ignorant or in complete denial.  For example, that ballpark hotdog we’re scarfing down is composed mainly of “variety meats”, a labelling euphemism for “guts”, and no amount of mustard and relish can cover up that fact. 

For perspective’s sake, let’s pause a moment to recognize that there are hundreds of millions of earth’s inhabitants who eat no meat whatsoever, either out of necessity or for health, religious, or environmental reasons. I personally am not of their tribe, but I respect them for their convictions, discipline, or for the fact that they would eat meat if it were available.  I admit that I am a confirmed carnivore, having grown up on a Texas cattle ranch no less, where we always had a large freezer stuffed with beef wrapped in white butcher paper.  Many Sunday nights of the year were spent gathered around our family altar, the brick barbecue grill in the backyard, as the High Priest (Dad) cooked and served Fred Flintstone-sized slabs of sirloin or T-bones.

Having said that, though, I must admit that I’ve never been very adventurous when it comes to what meat I eat.  I prefer my chicken in the form of a skinless breast and my fish non-fishy.  My “meat credo” is fairly straightforward: “No Organs.”  After all, organs are designed to produce, secrete, transport, filter, or store many substances that I, for one, don’t want coming in direct contact with the parts I ingest.  But, alas, from a global perspective, I am in the minority.  The rest of the world beckons for me to broaden my gastronomic horizons.

As I stroll past our a local butcher shop here in Brussels, I spot a whole baby pig that appears to be peacefully sleeping, naked on a bed of ice.  Trays of brains, hearts, and tongues vie for space with brightly feathered pheasants and ducks with beaks and feet still attached.  No part is wasted.  This efficiency of utilization is found in most parts in the world.  Once on a trip to Taiwan, I was eating with a Chinese family when Robert, the university student son, sought to engage me in conversation to practice his English.  Keying off of the main course, he asked, “Which part of the chicken do you not like?”  I mentioned the back and the neck, to which Robert responded, “I do not like the chicken’s ass!”  Yes, I allowed, that’s on my list, too.  On that same trip I ate chicken’s feet two ways — boiled (like chewing rubber bands with goose bumps) and roasted whole, with claws intact. (Saves on toothpicks.)  On my last trip to China, I enjoyed dishes made from cow lungs and beef tendons, among many other picturesque dishes. (See photo below.) There are just some parts that I’m just not drawn to. 

I’m the first to admit that much of my Organ Aversion is purely mental.  And when it comes to the types of animals we eat, it is emotional as well. Different cultures may have wildly different attachments to a given species.  Why do we have no qualms about eating cows but get apoplectic at the thought of eating a

horse?  After all, here in Europe there is the cheval steaks right next to the boeuf at the supermarket.

 What’s the big deal?  Well, it seems like a big deal to me!  I grew up watching now-ancient shows like “Fury”, whose tagline was “FURY! The story of a horse…and a boy who loves him.” I think back over those “Fury” episodes and wonder if I had misinterpreted that special relationship between Joey and his horse:  “Thanks for saving me from the abandoned mine, Fury!  Now let’s hurry home and get you a big bag of oats – You’re looking a little thin…”

Saddled with such long-held associations, I bridled at the thought of eating horsemeat, but for the sake of experimentation, I reined in my aversion and trotted to the supermarket to buy a nice horse steak and threw it on the grill.  I cooked it medium-well and tentatively dug in.  The verdict?  It was OK, and it would have been even better if I hadn’t known what it was.  When I was thirteen years old, a friend offered me a piece of chocolate that tasted like a crunchy chocolate bar.  “How was it?” he asked with mischievous cackle.  “Great,” I said, after which he gleefully informed me that it was a chocolate covered grasshopper.  It would have been OK had I not known – It’s mostly mental. 

The fact is, dietary preferences have cultural roots and are neither right nor wrong.  What is appetizing and appropriate is culturally conditioned.  For instance, many Australians regularly tuck into Vegemite, a dark brown yeasty, salty goo that tastes to the uninitiated like something scraped out of a rusted water heater.  Is it unappetizing?  Not to them, because they have grown up eating it.  On the other hand, I have met a number of Australians who are repulsed by the taste of peanut butter, which is, of course, the manna from heaven referenced in the Bible.

So what are the lessons from this?  First, all joking aside, we shouldn’t judge others’ foods and eating habits.  Listen to yourself, and when you hear yourself using words such as weird, gross, or repulsive, you’ve crossed that line.  Stick to describing and not criticizing.  At least be willing to say, “It is gross to me.” Or “It’s not something I like to eat.” 

Also, eat what you like, but be willing to stretch your dietary comfort zone a little.  If nothing else you’ll have something new to brag about!   This is also a critical part of cross-cultural etiquette.  In many cultures, turning down an offered dish is not interpreted as merely a personal preference but as a social snub.  (In parts of Asia, when you are offered the eyes of the fish being served, be honored and not repulsed!) 

Another point of personal reflection is around the amount of waste of edible foodstuffs in our lifestyles.   In light of world conditions, many of us waste an obscene amount of food.  No, you don’t have to eat the chicken’s feet or the cow’s stomach, but do take a look at what you throw away and make conscious and responsible adjustments.

Well, it’s lunchtime, so I’ll stop for now.  Anyone up for a salad?