It turns out, that bathing in Hisui was done communally- No longer a luxury afforded only for religious cleaning pursuits (you would hike to a temple and be considered cleansed.), and now accessible to the common man, this was achieved by bathhouses.
So, there is a bathhouse in Jubilife, and people do expect you to get clean and have good hygiene. And, it is a mixed gender bathhouse, as this was the norm before westernization began to take place from the likes of Galar. (In the present day, they have bathhouses, but they are separated by gender.)
A similar deal would be present for the Clans, although the Pearl Clan has the hot spring so perhaps they simply use that instead. At any rate, bathing with other people isn’t considered weird. It’s just how you bathe, especially since private bathrooms aren’t a thing. They do not know what ‘germs’ are yet, but they have had the epiphany that washing soldiers prevented infection, so handwashing, cleanliness, and soap are all novel and important discoveries! (although they are distinctly immigrant Unovan ideals, soap would not catch on in Galar, Kalos, and elsewhere until later.)
But, Felix does have a sense of privacy and uneasiness, being from the 2020s. Even if he doesn’t overtly remember why, just that it had to do with being trans. So, he probably comes off as shy and skittish to others, preferring to try to bathe when other people aren’t around.
As for Volo, not only did the Celestic bathe in public, but would use their bathhouses to socialize and read as well- it was a social event that even the rich would rather participate in willingly, rather than the privacy of their own home. There was an ancient celestic....stigma against men and women bathing, with the women’s room having only one entrance and used in the morning, while men’s baths had 5 entrances. By Volo’s time, bathhouses became stigmatized as brothels ‘where men and women could mingle in the nude and performed sex acts’, although they were still insanely popular despite the church’s disapproval. Those who wished to avoid the bathhouses used portable metal tubs, or simply bathed in the rivers and lakes.
Volo didn’t see anything wrong with the bathhouses, generally chilling and going with the flow in them. When his town was destroyed, it was a luxury that he lost, so he has mixed feelings on whether he should bathe in a metal tub at home, the wilderness, or use other’s bathhouses. But, he hates bathing alone, hence when he has a partner, he choses to help wash and groom them.
