Spas in Australia and "corporate" nudism
Wife and I recently got back from Germany and Oh My! Baden-Baden is just delightful for people like us. They really do things differently to us.
Friedritchsbad is a wonderful large multi-room Roman style hot spring spa. Deluge showers, cold plunge pools, shallow spas, warm pools and large saunas and steam rooms, all strictly textile free. There are professional attendants (dressed all in white!) to give you a massage and a scrub, or wrap you in in swaddling in a warmed room. Surreal!
Next door isCaracalla Spa. Downstairs is a massive themed warm pool, that extends to outdoors. Textile only. But Upstairs is strictly a-natural. Saunas of every temperature, hot and cold pools, deluge showers, a sun deck, and a crazy outdoor cold shower right next to a hut that had the hottest sauna I've ever been in (pretty sure my lungs got burned!)
The two businesses are a multimillion dollar corporate operations. You pay at the front desk for a few hours of access, get abracelet, and dressed attendants help you once inside.
Hotel spas are also interesting. Most good ones have one, often with a strictly textile-free sauna and at least a cold water drench or pool. These are often unattended. Had a "cute" experience with the Mrs when we walked in naked on an American couple, who were in their bathers. They had somehow missed the "no clothes" sign. Probably assuming we didn't speak English, she said to him "I think we're supposed to be naked". They left almost immediately (I felt bad for them). Over the next half hour I moved to a few different temp saunas and was delighted to walk in on them again later, this time naked. Good for them!
Since getting back, I have been yearning for this casual kind of experience where you can rock up, pay a few bucks, and get access to some great, well finished facilities. I know there's a gender segregated spa in Brisbane, but I want to hang with the Mrs.
A key factor is - the mixed German experience was not creepy for the Mrs (who is not really into the lifestyle). You're not a guest on someone's home acreage either (implied meet and greet, she just likes to "soak" and relax).its a commercial operation - well run, well built and finished. And the public "get it". I'm afraid here the public do not get it and there would be a significant creep problem.
Ultimately I think there are probably not enough genuine nudists to support a corporate offering like the ones in Baden-Baden.
Would you use one if it was available?
Winkler
Oh yes! I wish there was both the facility and the attitude to accommodate this style of freedom. If there is something like this in NSW, please let me know!
I hear ya Davenoob. Pretty sure there's nothing like it in Aus. I'm in Brisbane and we have a couple of spas, but one is gender segregated and Korean style (so no clothing) but is not nice - and my experience is the guys are there for other reasons too. The other spa is newer so I am unsure of it, but appears to be textile only.
I know there's a Korean style one in Sydney too, but pretty sure its also gender segregated.
I think the key here is: Australia just doesn't have the culture to pull this off. Possibly every nudist in Australia would at least want to try it, but we're not that common (in terms of what is needed to keep a business like that running - the infrastructure investment and upkeep would be horrific). There'd also be the problematic people there for other reasons, which would scare away the genuine peeps.
But I am totally hooked. I think many people would be hooked too, if they had the chance to try.