Steamy

[mrissa]

[Poll #435024]

Comments

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Though I haven't been in a traditional Finnish sauna - only the version you get in UK health clubs and spas.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Right, but I want to know your associations with "sauna" so I know how carefully I have to step here. So the kind of sauna you've been in is the kind you associate with; it's good data.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

There are also 'sauna and massage parlours', which are an entirely different kettle of steaminess.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh. True. But I think most people know that a home sauna in a Nordic home is not the same thing.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

It has to depend on the previous relationship of the characters. If there weren't one, they would likely have to, you know, talk. And we all know that ain't happening.

[cpolk.livejournal.com]

The saunas I've met in hotels are lame. they are never hot enough.

but you say sauna and I think of going downstairs into the basement, and pushing my way through saloon doors to a room with wooden floors and benches and the thermostat control, disrobe, and then through aother set of saloon doors into a room with small white tiles on the floor and up three walls; the fourth has a door that simply pushes open and in there is the sauna, with cedar walls and ceiling and tiered benches, and an electric heater with stones on top, a wooden bucket and a beaten copper ladle.

I knew one house that had the sauna in a seperate building in the yard, but usually down in the basement.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Grew up with a sauna in the family. We did not go roll in the snow afterwards, but I always thought really hard about doing so.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, and the sauna was in the garage. I think that's odd. Past the cars, past the deepfreeze and extra fridge and workbench... feet aching on the super-cold cement floor, until stepping onto the fake-lawn astroturfy stuff that carpets the sauna. Cedar lined, two benches (one high on the wall, one low and moveable); wood stove with volcanic rocks on the top, and an old paint bucket of water with a tin dipper. Backwoods sauna in Michigan!

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

You don't have an option for "no, saunas are orthogonal to sex".

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's actually the only place it's happening, for a lot of traditional Finnish men.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah. That's what my auntie has, too. Some of our friends have theirs in a separate building, but mostly out to the lake.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, if it's really orthogonal, I'd say it would depend entirely on the relationship of the characters, and the fact that they were in a sauna should make no difference.

I don't think they're orthogonal myself, but more on that in a later post, once I've gotten more data.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I'm used to thinking of them as orthogonal, but then most of my experience in saunas has been with the ones attached to public swimming pools in Britain, and occasionally at a con in the US, and primarily - in combination with jacuzzis - as ways of untensing my back.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

It depends on the previous relationship of the characters and, to me, their gender. Two guys, my mind goes to old mobster movies where everyone is sitting around in white towels talking about whacking guys (in the killing sense).

If they're of the opposite gender (or of the same gender but I have some reason to suspect one of them might not be straight), then I'm more likely to think of it as sexually charged.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Interesting poll. I've been thinking about saunas lately, along the lines of "I have GOT to get one of those for my house." Winters are too damn long and cold and dark around here. I think it might actually have health benefits, since cold and flu viruses (particularly rhinoviruses) thrive at somewhat lower body temperatures. A daily visit to the sauna for 20 minutes or so might serve to nip an infection in the bud. Not to mention all that lovely steam to soothe your parched sinuses and lungs.

I experienced a traditional Russian Banya in Kodiak Alaska while I was a guest of some native Alaskans. They build theirs separate from their houses. (No basements in Kodiak, really.) There's a changing area, then you go into the banya and there's wooden benches and hot rocks and a ladle and also a hose with a spray head for bathing and dry beach grass for washing (which is just as good as any loofah sponge). People go in single sex groups, or married couples go in together, all by themselves. Everyone goes in the banya, babies, kids, old people. It's very hot, but very relaxing. In the context of my experience, if two unmarried people of the opposite sex went in together, it would be a little bit scandalous. Of course we don't ask what the married couples do in the banya. (Being married couples, of course, they probably *talk*.)

It doesn't snow much in Alaska, but a dip in the Gulf of Alaska will serve equally well. (I didn't try that one.)

In Kodiak they also keep smokehouses as outbuildings, and smoke a lot of salmon. I mean a lot. Every once in a while a kodiak bear will break into one and eat everything in it. I think it's sort of funny that you have two outbuildings, one for smoking salmon and one for steaming people. (And also that every once in a while you have to replace a building made of two-by-fours and galvanized steal and such because the wildlife has demolished it...)

Depends on the story

[greatestofnates.livejournal.com]

It mainly depends on the relationship to me, but also the story/author.

For instance, I imagine a young man and young woman going into the sauna together...

Danielle Steel: Someone comments on how much of a man/woman the other has become since they last met. I expect they hook up by the next chapter.

R.A. Salvator: Someone comments on how much of a man/woman the other has become since they last met. I expect they slay the forces of evil by the next chapter.

Re: Depends on the story

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid that in the context of the rest of this book, they could hook up, fight the forces of evil, manage to get the two of them involved in at least four different political factions, and revolutionize the fields of both magic and computing.

There's a lot going on in it, really.

Re: Depends on the story

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hey, you're you, aren't you!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

When I was in my water aerobics class at college*, I showed up sick one day, and the instructor gave me the option of taking a sick day or of sitting in the sauna for my health. It may have been very good for the respiratory ailment I had, but I overheat easily and fall over, so after 5-10 minutes of sauna, I was out again and lying on the pool deck coughing. I think this is the sort of preventive care that doesn't work if you don't catch the thing and prevent it in time.

*We had to take half a class worth of aerobic something, and I had hoped it would be swimming hard enough and for long enough to qualify as aerobic. Heh. No. Nor was it bouncing around in the water, mostly. Most of it was treading water, sometimes without using legs or without using arms.

[sculpin.livejournal.com]

From my experience, I would expect they had some deep talking to do.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hello, target audience!

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Oh, my! You've made me terribly nostalgic about banya...

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

It hard to say anything about cultural stereotypes and taboos, but generally I wouldn't expect anything sexual from the trip to sauna. For me it is too firmly a place to clean, wash oneself, also to warm up, maybe to heal and relax. I am more familiar with a Russian banya, of course, and I really do miss it - as the kind of place I described. The public banyas are also a communal experience and the communication is a big part of the experience.

So I wouldn't expect to Finnish characters who go to sauna together to have sex there. and would be very surprised if they did. However, if I felt some chemistry between them prior to it, I would be snickering at the mutual nakedness, because, well, I am 12.

Oh yeah, RIGHT

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Like I'm really the only one who thought Blond bikini models gettin it on in the steam room... I think people are fibbing!

Me, i wanted and anwser that included "Teh nekkid!" and "giggle like a 12 year old."

Re: Depends on the story

[greatestofnates.livejournal.com]

Yes I am, aren't I :)

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

"Did you come here to talk or to drink ?"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I love that joke.

My favorite Scando-male joke is, "Did you hear the one about the Norwegian man who loved his wife so much he almost told her?"

My generation chuckles at this. My parents' generation howls with laughter, wiping their eyes and muttering, "That's my dad! That's my dad!" when they have enough breath to speak. My grandparents' generation is still waiting politely to hear the punchline.