Steaming hot & naked

A conservative South Indian gets naked in public

In 2019, N and I visited Japan for the second time. This time we went north to the island of Hokkaido. And there, for the first time in my life, I did what I had never done before - get nude in public. I wrote about Japan in a post in 2019 and promised I will write specifically about the visit to the Onsens there as a follow up story.

This is me keeping that promise by writing a follow up a full four years later.

How does a conservative South Indian get naked in public for the first time in his life? 

One possible answer: he visits a Japanese Onsen. 

He first arrives at the deserted locker room adjoining the hot spring bath. The lights are bright and there are no shadows here. Unsure if this is where he needs to strip down fully, he lingers. Also, there is the small issue of him never having bared like this in public in his thirty-five years of existence.

As he is contemplating the path to nirvana a trio of chattering Japanese men enter the room. They give a cursory glance at the uncertain brown man lurking in the locker room and go about depositing their things in the lockers. The South Indian now pretends like he is carefully stowing his things in the locker. He watches in his peripheral vision. His bathrobe isn’t off yet.

The men strip down fully and pick up a little towel that’s not much bigger than a handkerchief. It’s a tiny strip of hope to hang on to.

Eventually, the South Indian sheds, like a reluctant snake, and picks up the tiny towelette. He holds it in front of his crotch like a shield. But he also doesn’t fully commit to this for he’s seen the other man walk in, with things that dangle dangling, not bothering to wrap them up. His covering would be an aberration. If there is one thing he wants less than being nude in public it is calling attention to himself in public.

So he steps into the onsen and there are about 8 people there. And a communal, naked hot spring bath beckons. 

One small step for him. A giant step for his genitalia. 

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The journey to my first public nudity is a long one. Thirty-six years in the making, shedding semi-victorian-era sensibilities of a South Indian. About five years back, when I heard about onsens or being nude in them, I’d probably have said something like “over my dead body”.

So, what gives?

Age, for one. Age apart from giving you back aches also destroys shame. When given a chance, it gives you the ultimate gift of being free in your skin, both metaphorically and literally. The metaphorical can-of-worms can lie unopened for this one but the literal comfort in my skin is still a fairly new phenomenon. For many years, I wouldn’t enter pools in public because that entailed stripping down to swimming trunks and exposing parts of my body to the public. The horror! 

From someone who wouldn’t even strip down to swimming trunks to get into a pool in public, I’ve transitioned in the last half a decade. If you don’t like to see my flabby middle, it's your problem and not mine.

The second reason that contributed to my shedding was that this was Japan. There’s something liberating about being whatever in Japan. For an extremely conservative country, it is also the home to much weirdness. This felt freeing.

Travel Escapes Part 2: Japan edition

Besides, I feel an inherent level of comfort amongst Asians that will never be replicated with Westerners. Perhaps it is in some of the fundamental cultural matches around humility, minding one’s own business, and a cultural sobre-ness that resonates with me more than the brash, in-the-limelight, confidence of a Westerner. Let me put it more simply: An average asian feels like an introvert (like me) whereas an average Westerner feels like an extrovert (that makes me slightly uncomfortable). 

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Back at the onsen, it’s steamy. The South Indian walks to the row of showers by the side to first sit, his naked ass on the little seat. He washes himself and then hesitates.

This is the moment of truth - the walk from the shower spot to the steaming onsen in full view of all the men marinating there. A little ramp walk, in the nude.  

To distract you from the kind of sight this would be, let me talk about the onsen itself. 

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This was a public onsen in Toyaku Onsen Hokkai Hotel near Lake Toya in Hokkaido. The hotel is situated on the edge of Lake Toya, a large caldera lake, with a tiny island at its center. Mt. Usu, a stratovolcano stands on its southern side. It’s a beautiful place and we chose this hotel because this was among the handful of places with a natural onsen. 

Just a few days back, N & I were in the homeland of onsens in Noboribetsu, a town with hundreds of onsens and public baths where even the water that gurgles down the road is steaming and mineral-rich. The whole town smelt a bit like a chemistry lab thanks to Jigokudani (or hell-valley), a large crater as dramatic as it sounds, in terms of volcanic, sulfurous steam erupting from the depths.  

Despite being at the mecca of onsens, our onsen experience there had been a slightly watered-down version because, being too shy to be nude in public, N and I decided to do a private onsen. Still natural but a separate private bath.

While it was a refreshing experience in and of itself, the fact that we had missed out on the ‘true’ onsen experience rankled us. I suppose FOMO was more powerful than our reticence to be nude in public and somehow in Toya, we decided to go for it. 

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Even as the South Indian walked, things dangling, towards the steaming hot public onsen, N was doing her walk of shame in the women’s public onsen adjacent to ours. He dips into the bath and finds himself in a quiet corner, away from all the other sausage wielders. It’s very pleasant, this hot bath. Steam rises from it like a friendly ghost and it isn’t too long before he feels his anxiety around public nudity slipping away and a zen emerging. 

It takes all of a minute after he is inside the onset for him to shed any inhibition he may have had (of course, once in he didn’t have to parade his junk in public). 

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If you are ever within striking distance of an Onsen and debating whether you should do the full public version of it, don’t. Just go for it.

Here are some reasons:

1. Everyone else is nude too. 

2. It’s such a natural thing culturally that no one even gives anyone else a second glance.

3. How many chances do you get to be completely nude in public? 

4. No one cares about your junk.

5. Eventually, you will be dust and you will be forgotten so you might as well just do new, interesting things. (ok, didn’t mean it to get this dark)

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In any case, the combined effect of the minerals, the hot water, and a general sense of triumph at having done something terrifying was leaving our South Indian feeling giddy. After a while, he notices a smaller extension of the bath on the outside, under the cool air, with a panorama of the lake. Feeling adventurous, he makes a gutsy decision to go for it. 

Out he comes, things a-dangling again, and parades himself to the area outside. The chill air hits him, reminding him that he is now outside nude.

He dips in steaming water while the outside air is a very cool and nice 18 degrees. He sits there and watches the blue lake. 

At some point, a father and his little son came to sit in the same smaller onsen. Everything is a bit intimate here given the size of this pool - a wrong stretch of the legs and you could be feeling some unwanted things. But it all feels natural now.

The father is ‘the extroverted kind’ and begins chatting up. He lives in Hokkaido and likes Indian food. The South Indian enjoys and enthusiastically continues the conversation with a stranger while being completely nude in a bath with him. 

Is this really him?

They should package and sell this sulfurous steam, he concludes. 

Could be Worse,

Tyag

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If you’d like to read more about Japan trips, it’s here: