A Guide To Getting Naked In Front Of 30 People
Terror is supposed to be cathartic. Whether that’s actually true or not, it’s what I keep telling myself as I slowly take my clothes off in front of 30 people, terrified. I had agreed to meet my friend at a jimjilbang and it was only when I arrived, after paying, that I realized everyone was completely naked.
Jimjilbangs are spas, usually open 24 hours a day every day of the week. On the Saturday night that we went, the place was packed. Attending one with a close friend is a deeply intimate ritual. I’d never seen any of my close friends naked. I was worried that people would think my body was weird.
As I climbed into a hot tub feeling more exposed than I’ve ever felt in my life, I became uncomfortably aware of the myriad of naked people looking at my awkward body. You can’t help but look at everyone around you. I started examining the women who surrounded me. At first I noted which bodies were larger or thinner or shapelier than mine, but gradually those thoughts disappeared. No two bodies in this spa looked even remotely alike, and I completely lost all sense of how an “ideal” body looks. I realized everyone looks so vastly different that it’s impossible to even try to compare.
I’d spent my life wandering through a world where bodily ideals are everywhere. I don’t think I had ever even seen women’s bodies in a non-sexualized context before. Even more jarring, I was in a place that was defined by its lack of a male gaze — men are strictly forbidden. I felt an unfamiliar level of peace. In a jimjilbang, no one sets expectations for you, a shocking departure from my everyday experience living in Los Angeles, where no one must see you when you’re vulnerable and makeup-less. There’s a social contract in the real world where it’s just accepted that women wear makeup as part of a daily performance. There was no need to perform here, though, where the self-beautification process is public. Everyone knows what you really look like, so there’s no point in hiding.
In the co-ed area, you’re required to put a spa uniform on to use the saunas, which are made of different materials like clay, jade and ice. We sit in the ice sauna for a while when two men enter. I hadn’t seen any men for several hours and I was put off by their presence. One of them immediately started talking to us and asked for our phone numbers. I’d grown so used to not being around men in that short time span I was inside the women’s area and was livid that it took some guy less than 20 minutes to accost me. He and his friend sat there, staring at us. Looking us up and down. I’m sure it’s no different from the amount of stares any woman receives on a daily basis, but being away from it for even a small period of time reminded me how terrifying it is to be the subject of someone’s unwanted gaze.
I went back to the hot tubs where men aren’t allowed and I wasn’t going to leave again.
I’ve been to the jimjilbang a handful of times since then and each time is a revelatory escape that allows me to re-examine the way I look at my body. Now I smile to myself when I see a new person awkwardly climbing into the hot tub, unsure. Terror isn’t cathartic. Loving your body in a world that doesn’t want you to is.
