I Don’t Know About These Fancy Bathhouses, Man
Wellness giants have finally figured out how to get people to pay a premium to sit in a room wearing as little clothing as possible. This may sound like a deranged Sims staging, but in fact, it’s another resurgence of a centuries-old practice, modernized and adapted for another generation of urban-dwelling socialistas. Behold: the “new” and “improved” luxury bathhouses you’ve likely been hearing way too much about.
It turns out that, while most of us can’t shuttle ourselves between a chamber of sweat and arctic wetness à la sauna verité somewhere in Finland, many of us do desire some kind of ritualistic self-care facility where extreme temperature therapies are part of the point. Here in New York City, as most stories go, it was only a matter of real estate.
Bathhouses are not new, of course. They’ve been a staple of civilization since its beginning — pre-indoor plumbing, when bathroom activities were communal. They’re historically spaces where gay men socialize — so much so that New York shut down most public bathhouses in the 1980s in a controversial attempt to curb the spread of HIV. Now that bathing is something we all do at home, bathhouses are less common (at least in the US, where we love privatization and hate public nudity). But mainstays such as Spa88, The Russian and Turkish Baths, Spa Castle, and King Spa have long been providing New Yorkers (and those willing to travel to Fort Lee, New Jersey) with a humble shvitz and soak. Aire Ancient Baths and Great Jones Spa were the fancy outliers for a real “treat yourself” day.
Lately, though, outfits such as World Spa, Bathhouse™, Lore, TMPL, and Akari have cropped up, catering to millennials and Gen Z’ers who want to soak in a sleek space wrapped in travertine tiles that speak in thinly serifed fonts. If the hype is to be believed, these are the places to network and do wellness at the same time. Last fall, The New York Times wondered if going to the bathhouse might solve the loneliness epidemic. (The website for Othership, a Flatiron bathhouse that offers “guided ice bath experiences,” bills itself as a place “to regulate your nervous system, process emotions, and connect meaningfully with other human beings.”)
If nothing else, these places promise to help you feel good and look good doing it: Their ads feature dim, ambient — if not bisexual — lighting around the pools, models lounging leggily on the cedar sauna benches, and high-contrast photography highlighting texture shots of sweat and ice. Everyone is young and fit. It’s all very Fidelio.
Bathing clubs do seem to be a compelling answer to the question of a third space — somewhere to simply exist in a chic, luxurious space that’s good for your health. And listen: I am pro bathhouse. I love going to the spa with friends to decompress in a peaceful and intimate setting that doesn’t call for dressing up. These decadent new hubs of humidity, however, are not it.
There are crucial differences between these new “bathing suit” bathhouses and the longstanding nude options. At a bathing suit bathhouse, you pay upward of $75 to spend an allotted 2-3 hours amongst hot people in tiny pools under the uunz-uunz lighting. I’ve been to most of them, and they all seem to be frequented by people taking selfies, couples canoodling, and that one person having a loud business call in the locker room. Absolutely no one is showering before entering the baths — a heinous offense if you ask me. I can always tell what kind of bathhouse I’m in by the oily, sparkly sheen floating on the water, remnants of the body oil someone failed to wash off after banking their thirst trap content. The whole setup reminds me of those fake private jet sets you can rent by the hour to take photos. You’re not there to relax; you’re there to be witnessed relaxing.
For a genuine bathhouse experience, you need to get naked. These old-school establishments are decidedly more humble and usually separated by gender in the wet areas. There, a sense of order prevails. (I do think nudity prompts people to shower before getting in the baths, and to adhere to etiquette more generally. No one wants to be admonished in such a vulnerable state.)
The Korean spas, or jjimjilbang, fit the bill. These bathhouses are such a common part of a national culture that they’ve largely adopted similar formats and offerings. Here, bathhousing is not an aesthetic experience, but a personal care ritual that actually works.
Take, for example, the Korean body scrub. The first time I went to a Korean spa, it was by invitation from a relatively new friend who evangelized the scrub as a “life-changing” treatment that she had done once a year to feel renewed. She didn’t give any disclaimer that it was not for the delicate. For a price I can only call “not nearly enough,” an elder auntie in a black one-piece swimsuit welcomed me to a space reminiscent of the set of Dexter. I lay atop a cellophane-wrapped table as she splashed me with buckets of warm water and used a textured cloth to go to town on every crevice on my body. (Yes, every crevice.) The fat, gray slugs of dead skin rolled off me like eraser dust.
It was an exhilarating, if mildly violating, experience. I felt like a child being scrubbed by the stern orphanage nun so a new family would find me pure enough to adopt. Adding to the stimulation: This was a group activity. At any given time in a Korean spa, other patrons are being scrubbed in the same room. There’s something nice about suffering in solidarity. And 30 to 60 interminable minutes later, I emerged, as red, soft, and glisteningly smooth as a freshly molted lobster.
It didn’t get any more photogenic from there. After the soaking and scrubbing, we donned our spa uniforms: an oversized T-shirt-and-shorts combo that reminded me of when you forget to bring proper attire to gym class and have to use whatever’s in the lost-and-found bin. The sets are charmingly color-coded and also entirely unflattering. Yet they are ideal for sitting in a sauna, hitting up the cafeteria, then having a nice post-meal nap. (Korean spas usually offer day passes, and many are 24-hours or stay open late, so you can spend an entire day and night alternating between soaking, sweating, and souping — all for much less money than a rush hour pass to your local bathing-suit bathhouse powered by Bitcoin mining.)
These nudity-required bathhouses are everything that the faux bathhouses are not: industrial, functional, even a little hierarchical. The presence of naked elders who won’t hesitate to tell any disturbers of the peace (or hygiene) to knock it off is crucial. There’s no hyper-branded protocol encouraging a specific kind of socially integrated experience. There’s no marketing arm overstating the benefits or luring you in with attractive models in their social media content. There’s no marketing at all, really. The centuries-old experience speaks for itself.
It may seem ironic to prefer to be nude among strangers, but at these OG bathhouses, the lack of pretense is palpable. Skin-sloughing violence aside, the wholesome nature of my beloved Korean bathhouses offers a feeling of equanimity among bathers of all ages; you’ll often see multi-generational families calmly going about their business. (I know the idea of kids in a bathhouse is not relaxing, but it seems to be a “train them young” situation because I’ve never witnessed one misbehaving.)
There’s something reverent about experiencing nudity in a non-sexualized context — no strutting, no sucking in, no posturing — just bodies of all ages and sizes in repose, caring for themselves. At a time when bodies, nude or not, are mostly viewed through a screen (where the waists always seem to be snatched), this is a merciful haven. We’re all just here to wash ourselves and do the rounds in a variety of hot little rooms studded with different crystals and minerals.
Some people will inevitably appreciate the à la carte format of modern wellness spaces: the personal privacy of the bathing suit, the structure of follow-the-leader group sessions. You can certainly expect them to deliver on a certain performance of luxury. After all, that’s what social clubs are really offering: belonging that can be bought into. At the end of the day, it’s all about how this stuff makes you feel. We all sweat, scrub, and soak (at varying price points). But some of us have to stuff a wet bathing suit into our bags on the way out, and some of us do not.
