How strange is our relationship with our own bodies and their various functions? Like most Americans, I was raised to hide as much of mine as possible. That was fine with me, because my body was always lumpier than most. “Shirts vs. skins” in gym class was less an activity, more an existential crisis.
So when I learned that generations of my ancestors got naked together for sauna, I had a lot to process. I was told that “no one cares,” but I cared. It was hard to shake the teasing I had received when I was young.
But as the years went on, I learned to love the sauna, even without clothes. Truthfully, I still prefer to go alone, but my circle of trust is slowly expanding.
Part of the hangup is the strange connection between normal, harmless human behavior and shame, along with the paranoia over sexual deviancy written into our cultural norms.
A Minneapolis city council proposal to lift a decades-old ban on bathhouses sparked a boomlet of debate and speculation. Much of the ado centered on sex. And while no one seems to deny that sex occurs at some bathhouses, there remains a broader question of what exactly we’re afraid of when we encounter different cultural traditions.
In today’s column (gift link), I look back at the suspicion cast upon Finnish American immigrants to Minnesota’s Iron Range 100 years ago. What would you think if you saw your neighbors — mom, dad, the kids — walking naked to a little building behind their house? If you didn’t know about sauna, its traditions and sacred status in Finnish culture, you’d be pretty skeptical. In time, however, you might grow to understand. Certainly that’s the case in Minnesota, where the sauna tradition has long since gone mainstream.
Read “For Iron Rangers like me, bathhouses are decidedly unsexy places,” in the Tuesday, April 21, 2026 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
