Hacker News Reader

Comment by deanc | Hacker News Reader

Regarding the Liquidrom...

> Perhaps more than anywhere else, this is where travellers can experience Germany's "textile-free" culture head on.

Understatement of the century. I visited here about 7-8 years ago. The big dome pool pictured has a unique acoustic property of transferring sound from one side of the giant pool to the other. You can expect to hear the heavy breathing of amorous couples from about 20-30m away as if they were next to you. That said, aside from the inappropriateness that seems to be common nowadays in these high-end spas, it was a beautiful venue.

View on HN

Any kind of inappropriateness or sexual activity is usually both forbidden and frowned upon in textile-free spas - even staring is considered extremely rude. That said, sure those things happen, but by any means are they not representative nor to be expected.

If you go to a sauna, enjoy being allowed to just be for once, without any need to hide something. I promise you it’s transformative to see hundreds of other naked people at once, and realise your body is perfectly normal and okay.

I think the boundary is somewhat fluid. Haven't seen actual inappropriate behaviour in a spa yet (and I think especially saunas are mostly spurring the imagination of people who never visited one: you're usually too exhausted from the heat and/or humidity to even want to do anything)

However it's clearly a place for couples to go to and especially in the actual bathing area (i.e. not the saunas), you can whitness a lot of "public displays of affection".

Whether this this upsets you or not, is something that everyone has to decide for themselves I guess.

Seems to depend on demographics. The more you go towards early 30s expat age, the more likely you are to find that behaviour. Went to a spa in Berlin where I thought your description was quite accurate.

Otherwise I’d say it is actually precisely as parent poster described it. If you go to less “trendy” places, you’ll find you can really relax.

Yeah, I think my spa was one of the "trendy" ones. They did put up signs reminding people not to have sex in the pools, though they weren't at the "guards" stage yet. So I imagine there must have been some incidents.

As I said, it was more an issue in the (textile mandated) bathing area, not so much in the textil free saunas though.

It's good to know there are still other spas around.

Unfortunately it has become an issue in other places as well. In Switzerland we have also a saltwater tranquil bath with very little light and they had to put „guards“ because of the increasing amounts of couples enjoying themselves in these baths.

Source: https://www.20min.ch/story/zu-viele-paeaerli-vergnuegten-sic...

Also here in Finland [1]. I’ve seen it pretty much everywhere I’ve been in Europe.

[1] https://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/vantaa/art-2000009990317.html

Some of these spas (e.g 47 in Baden) would be perfect for relaxing with the caveat of avoiding weekends and school holidays. In these times they are crowded with families. Their idea of a good day at the spa are often at odd with mine... If you don't need a pool, the Stadtbad in the Volkshaus in Zürich is a great place for steam bath, sauna and relaxation

I live in Finland. I’m well versed on sauna etiquette and my own body ;-)

Ah, my excuses then. This has been a recurring theme with American friends, many of which happen to hang around here :)

The dome pool is also the one part where you are required to wear a swimsuit. I'm pretty sure the reason is that if you didn't, let's put it like this, that water would become a health hazard pretty quick.

Swimsuit or not, people can behave inappropriately. Let me put it this way, the couple were having some form of sex and thought they were being discreet. The acoustics betrayed them.

I mean I don't doubt that it happens, but the swimsuit rule probably cuts down on it. And to be fair, that pool is possibly the sexiest place in Berlin.

Is Liquidrom nudist now? I used to go there when i lived in Berlin in 2010 and it was absolutely not nudist.

There are areas where you must wear clothes (zB the central saltwater pool), areas where you are forbidden from wearing clothes (saunas), and areas where it's up to you (hot tubs, cold tubs, usw.).

I was last there three to four years ago, nudity was required except in the pool, there you had to wear a swimsuit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com