The Day I Passed A Beer To a Naked Old Man in Germany

There was a bar in the center of the main pool, where, of course, being in Germany, people were drinking beer at any hour of the day. A mutual agreement of non-judgement was in place. People sat in the stools, with their butts in the water and their bare chests outside, and no one was intentionally watching or, even worse, staring. Of course, there were glances between customers, as there would be in any other bar. A group of girls intently watching from afar, waiting for an appropriate number of stools to be cleared. A couple graciously passing the menu to people further down the line. An older man, sitting on my right with his wife, couldn’t quite reach the pint of beer the barman had put on the counter. I extended my arm and handed it over, just like I would in any other bar. But I wasn’t in any other bar. I was in a bar inside a hot pool, in a nudist spa in Germany, surrounded by naked people. I was naked, the man was naked, the wife was naked. And none of that mattered.

I would have never discovered the true pleasure of nudity if it weren’t for my husband’s love for naturist spas. I like them myself, but mostly I need them. Suffering from several chronic illnesses, the warm baths, hot pools, and even the most aggressive aufguss (a German ritual that involves trained people who wave towels and fans on you in a sauna, moving the hot hair infused with essential oils towards specific parts of your body) really help my muscles relax. So I humor him, and we go every time we can. We live in Northern Italy and have easy access to Austria and Slovenia, and can find nice naturist spas in all these places. I owe to him and the nudist spas the notion that my body doesn’t need to be attractive, beautiful, or even functioning. It could just be.

There are different views on how a thermal bath, a sauna, or a steam bath is truly meant to be experienced. Many people feel safer and more at ease with their swimsuits on, while others think that in order to thoroughly expel toxins and benefit from wellness treatments, you shouldn’t be wearing a synthetic piece of clothing, slowly soaking up your own sweat. I can find truth in both: naked as a baby, I feel really regenerated and reinvigorated, but the swimsuit is nice to have when I’m alone or with female friends. Yes, this all goes back to sexism, alas. Textile-free spas are usually attended by couples, male friend groups, and male individuals. It’s rare to find a woman naked and alone, and it’s easy to understand why. But that’s Italy. A couple of hours away, just outside the border, the perception shifts. In Austria and Slovenia, naturist spas are more frequently crowded by men and women alike. It’s part of the culture, and even more ingrained in German culture, I found out. People in these countries find nakedness more normal, more natural, maybe, and I suspect the Italian sense of modesty is more linked to our Catholic roots than anything else. 

Anyway, we are lucky, my husband and I: we can set aside some money every year and go on a little vacation in one of these places. This year, that included Bavaria, a German region we had never been to. Happy to drink lots of beer and visit some wonderful castles, I prepared my bags, including one for a spa day. I expected something similar to those I had already experienced. I was tired, exhausted by a year of moving houses, searching for jobs, trying to stay sane in a world at war, struggling with my chronic illnesses. I needed rest and relaxation, and yes, also beer. I put a couple of towels, fresh underwear, and a book in my bag and set out for my spa day. I never thought it would change my perception of the naked body once again.

I’ve always struggled with body image. I write about it, I read about it, I think about it. Being a female (or afab) human being is never easy, and being a chronically ill one poses even more challenges. First of all, my body never truly works. It kind of tries, really. Between fibromyalgia, adenomyosis, PCOS, interstitial cystitis, chronic migraine, and all the medications I take for treating them, it does its best. But my spine is never straight, my stomach is never flat, my skin and hair never glow, my thumbnail is determined to grow in the wrong direction, and my legs are crooked. I know, I know, I should be kind to it, but it’s not easy. I feel like it fails me, and I fail society. Even though our society is clearly more progressive than a couple of decades ago, women are still judged for their bodies. It’s a tale as old as time, until German spas.

I entered the space like I always do: feeling a little uncomfortable and trying not to look like it. I undressed myself quickly, put my robe on, and resigned to feel a bit maliciously observed, which is the price I pay in order to feel physically rested and relaxed. And I was blown away. It was completely different from anything I’ve ever experienced before, even in the most nude-friendly places. The spa was immense and beautifully located, with mountains all around and a magnificent lake in front of the panoramic sauna. It felt like heaven. But more strikingly, it was crowded by a very diverse group of people. There were couples but also friend groups (male, female, and mixed), families, and colleagues. And nobody was uncomfortable (at least, nobody looked like it). Most people didn't even put on a robe or a towel when moving from steam baths to increasingly hot saunas to hot-and-cold pools to reinvigorating freezing showers. Some of them were taking a bath in the lake or sunbathing on its beach, indifferent to the people on boats and bikes on the lakefront. They were all at ease. 

Older and younger, female and male, fit and less fit. I saw varicose veins and flowery tattoos climbing up women’s legs, perky boobs and saggy breasts, flat stomachs and round bellies, glowing skins and wrinkles, circumcised and uncircumcised penises. This richness in body types, all nudes, amazed me. It was the first time I also saw people with visible disabilities in the mix, too. Some of them limped from the sauna to the shower, others had their walking aids just outside the door. Visibly and invisibly disabled people are probably the demographic who will benefit the most from wellness centers, but for some reason, I’ve never seen a medical walker in a spa before. It just seemed impractical. And it is, if you think about spas as beauty centers where everyone shows off their perfect bodies and jumps from one sporting activity to the next. But German spas are not that.

They are places where bodies are truly free to do what they do best: exist. And not in an erotic or sexual way. Friends erupted in laughter when entering the freezing lake, disturbing the peace and quiet for a fraction of a moment. Some guys had their books or their newspapers in front of them, fully absorbed in their reading material or emerging from it to exchange comments with the person in the next chair. There were parents with their (18+) children, instructing them on how to safely use the sauna without risking a collapse. There were, of course, also couples, people obviously in love with each other. It was clear from the subtle cuddles in the hot tub, the little gestures to check if one or the other needed to leave the sauna, the spontaneous giggles erupting from time to time, maybe a prelude of a loving session that would continue later, in the intimacy of their bedrooms. I’m sure my husband and I were making these gestures; I’m sure someone else noticed them. But it was all so easy, so natural, so unjudging.

I think about that episode quite often since it happened. I passed a beer to an old man while we were both in our birthday suits in a pool. And it all seemed normal. Maybe this is what we really need when we talk about needing sexual and emotional education, both in Italy and many other countries. We need to see the naked body as what it is: a naked body. Not an invitation, not a provocation, not a lust vessel. It could be all of those things, but it is so much more. It’s quite literally the place we live in, the vehicle of health and movement, the first point of contact between us and the world around us. Beers, pools, and other people included.