Funny story: I did live in Finland as an exchange student and those five months comprise three quarters (maybe four-fifths) of the total number of people I've seen naked. My host family (five of them), my boyfriend, my entire study abroad class (>30) and a few other relatives/people naked running into icy lakes; visits to people and sauna/naked/cold lake happened. Proportionally, I spent more time naked there than anyplace in my life, but in my defense, there was a sauna in the shower and fuck yeah I sauna'ed before showering. IT was like being home in Texas.
Five months: so much naked. In a country where I lived in a latitude north of goddamn Moscow. It genuinely did inform how I viewed human bodies (I was seventeen) and my scale for 'normal'. Though most useful was actually seeing so many naked girls and boys in my age group from like ten to twenty countries + Finland. Honestly, I kind of credit that for burning out a lot of possibility for body issues and weight in college and later; my sampling group was like barely five feet to six feet and change and from 'pole' to 'very plump peach'.
But you just made me flash back on like thirtyish of us chatting in a sauna in the country, all naked, maybe five other native English speakers of various nationalities, practicing our Finnish naked (since this was my study abroad group and not native Finns, we were segregated to respect each other's cultures. Before going out to jump in a almost-but-not-yet-frozen-lake and then take a group bucket bath.
(This is way cooler than it sounds; there was a room for this, with hot and cold faucets and dozens of buckets and treated wooden stuff (benches?) to sit on and do your face and problem areas with honey. While naked. Practicing your Finnish with your peeps you just met like an hour ago and can now identify moles even your mother and doctor didn't know about. Good times.)
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Five months: so much naked. In a country where I lived in a latitude north of goddamn Moscow. It genuinely did inform how I viewed human bodies (I was seventeen) and my scale for 'normal'. Though most useful was actually seeing so many naked girls and boys in my age group from like ten to twenty countries + Finland. Honestly, I kind of credit that for burning out a lot of possibility for body issues and weight in college and later; my sampling group was like barely five feet to six feet and change and from 'pole' to 'very plump peach'.
But you just made me flash back on like thirtyish of us chatting in a sauna in the country, all naked, maybe five other native English speakers of various nationalities, practicing our Finnish naked (since this was my study abroad group and not native Finns, we were segregated to respect each other's cultures. Before going out to jump in a almost-but-not-yet-frozen-lake and then take a group bucket bath.
(This is way cooler than it sounds; there was a room for this, with hot and cold faucets and dozens of buckets and treated wooden stuff (benches?) to sit on and do your face and problem areas with honey. While naked. Practicing your Finnish with your peeps you just met like an hour ago and can now identify moles even your mother and doctor didn't know about. Good times.)