It is with a heavy heart that I announce that american gym bros have discovered sauna and they wear clothes in it
in their very slight defense, i also heard that they keep their "saunas" at like 65 C, so to be fair they probably need to wear clothes to not freeze to death :\
(@shakutech)
Oh, that sounds absolutely miserable. D: No sauna spirit living in these "saunas" to begin with. And not only are they wearing clothes in the sauna, when somebody corrects them they are scared of ~the gay~.
So what's the big deal with this, you might wonder if you're not Finnish.
Sauna is the cornerstone of Finnish everyday culture and life, it is not a luxury or a gimmicky sport. You might compare it to having a bathtub. It's an everyday thing, nearly all houses have one. If you live in an apartment, then your building almost certainly has a communal sauna. There could also be communal saunas at your local waterfront location. Your city hall probably has one. It's also part of all major celebrations in Finland. It used to be the first part built of a new home because it offered both warmth and a way to get clean. Back in the day people were born in sauna, they were healed in sauna, and they were washed for the grave in sauna.
Sauna is basically, even though not consciously treated as such by most people, a holy place for cleansing your body and soul. It's a place of relaxation but also socialising because you can go to sauna with anyone and in sauna, everybody is equal. No ranks exist in sauna. You could be in the sauna with the President and address them by their first name. Families can go together, friends and colleagues can go together, total strangers of all ages can go together - naked. Typically saunas are separated between men and women outside of family setting, but mixed saunas are not uncommon. Sauna is, and I cannot emphasise this enough, not a sexual space.
To put it very simply, sauna functions as follows: there is a woodburning stove (or electrically heated rods in a modern sauna) that heats stones that heat the sauna room. You pour water onto the hot stones to create steam (called löyly which also means spirit - this word is not used for any other type of steam). When you "throw löyly" (pour water on the stones) the steam first goes up and then the heat seeps down creating a pleasant, tingly sensation of heat/warmth. After that, relax and enjoy! Leave to cool down (take a shower, swim, roll in the snow etc.), come back and repeat as many times as you want to.
Finnish saunas are commonly anything between +75C and +110C depending on the sauna (remember that this is air temperature, it's different from water temperature). There are many factors (size of the room, ventilation, electric vs. wood burning stove etc.) that contribute to what temperature feels best for each individual sauna, but the point is that it needs to be hot and steamy (the humidity level in a sauna is typically around 50%).
So you can imagine why going in sauna with your clothes on and sweating all over with them is extremely gross. It's very unhygienic. You are supposed to wash yourself before entering. In communal saunas it's polite to have a bench cover to sit on (single-use ones are usually provided) just to keep things extra clean.
Because any sweat and dirt will stick to the wooden benches and walls and stink up the whole space every time it's heated. For similar reasons, you're not allowed to wear swimwear at swimming halls, but also because the chlorine stuck to your swimsuit will evaporate in the heat.
Also there absolutey is evidence of the health benefits of sauna. In the interest of these gym bros, this thirty-year study shows that men who frequent sauna are at reduced risk of fatal cardiovascular events.
#every day i get online and read about foreigners committing sauna crimes #yall need väinämöinen
