http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24328773 Today, Finland is a nation of 5.3 million people and 3.3 million saunas, found in homes, offices, factories, sports centres, hotels, ships and deep below the ground in mines.
Saunas have become common in Norway too. My father built a sauna in our house way back in 1970, but today I use the public sauna in a nearby community. It's easier and saves time, you don't have to spend hours to heat it before you can use it.
Some thing disgusting about placing your arsehole where someone else's has been. Me, I think that shorts are a reasonable pre-caution. But each to their own. KTK
it's a common norm (at least in Finland) in public saunas to use disposable little seat covers made of tough paper. When you invite your friends to your own sauna one usually either has a big e.g. linen/cotton towel on the seat bench or provides everybody their individual little linen/cotton/paper seat covers. Anyway one washes before and after sauna, so the "disgust" has more to do with personal fobias than anything concrete. Wearing shorts in sauna is unhygienic and bad manners - unless you have a personal injury or something to hide.
I built a homemade sauna a few years back but forgot about something called carbon monoxide. Don't use a woodstove without proper ventilation. It was neat getting the temperature up to 130 degrees F, sitting there for 15-20 minutes then stepping outside into 10 degree weather. Might build another one some day & I'll use a better heating system.
Well a towel strikes me as a reasonable pre-caution but why it would be more hygenic than shorts is a question. KTK
The seat covers are either washed in a washing machine after every use or thrown away - depending on the material. The swimming shorts are often not. In the public saunas swimwear is forbidden just because of that. Also in the swimming halls the chlorine of the swimming water is not good for the health, when it evaporates in the heath of sauna.
But if the swimsuits are in chlorinated water for any length of time they are likely to be more steril than if they had been washed a few days ago and simply not used. The chlorine argument is a valid one except that if the sauna is near a pool you are likely to get more chlorine in the air from the pool by far than swim wear would bring into the sauna. I also suspect that very few types of bacteria especially those that whoose perfered invironment is the human body would do well in the temperature and humidity conditions of a sauna. I suspect the biggest health benefit of towls, swimwear, or seat covers is not sitting on hot nail heads (which are common in the construction of saunas over here anyway).
I suppose the rules in swimming pool saunas are reasoned by some members of the younger generation, who might otherwise want to go to sauna in their dirty, unwashed swimming (or even ordinary) shorts before going to pool. Actually in public swimming pools the swimming shorts are banned anyway, because one cannot be sure that they are only used for swimming. Only "speedo" style is allowed. Think you are right about the "health hazards" and the benefits of avoiding the hot nail heads...
Well to be honest with you we own a hot tub which I suspect is much more un-hygenic that a sauna. I think that chlorine is a good thing. If nothing else the lesser of evils. KTK
In Scotland, saunas are used for a different purpose it seems. Any of our Scottish members wish to enlighten us? Police ask for condom ban in Edinburgh saunas http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-24632997
