“Consensus culture” just helped me understand something about Finland that I couldn’t quite put to words yet. For a supposedly politically forward thinking country, I have found a surprising lack of imagination and vision from people when you learn about their politics. I guess it’s because it would break an illusion of consensus that makes people feel like they are on the good side.

In a way, I prefer the US where people are more direct about their ignorance, maybe even taking it as a virtue, rather than how Finns seem to pretend to be woke when they aren’t

Would you be willing to expand a bit more on the gender issue?

Yeah that's cool. Glad we can agree that saunas are nice.

I don't know tbh but apparently they were a pretty common part of the night life there before the 80s , so I guess we have to look back to what they did then

bath houses are ostensibly "day spas" with massages, hot tubs, steam rooms, etc. where people usually (not always) go hide in their rooms to have fun. if you have body image issues, this is probably not the best place for you because the environment is skewed to favor conventional standards of attractiveness.

sex clubs usually don't have day spas things and almost never have private rooms; so people have fun in the shared areas where they can be easily seen by everyone and their activities effectively become live action porn that inspires all who watch to engage in their own fun. if you have body image issues, this is the best place for you since the collective arousal makes you forget about your own issues and everyone is always someone's type.

bath houses are much more common than sex clubs now-a-days since most municipalities hate sex clubs, but are easily fooled by the day spa veneer of bath houses

I don't know about bath houses at all. The sex club I went to though you have to go through a quick orientations n where they're basically like "don't be a prude, do be respectful" and some hygiene and consent things. They're very, very clear about consent and have specific words and ways to phrase things to prevent miscommunication. Some general rules surrounding certain activities like a couple things weren't allowed because it's too difficult to properly sanitize or could be too much of a physical risk (like knife play falls under both).

The actual sex part though it had two floors. Areas were set up for "scenes" on both floors but the upper floor was mostly for chill vibes, cuddling, socializing, and things that took a bit more time to set up like big rope play scenes. Lower floor was where most of the sex-sex happened it had more beds and whatnot.

They provided sheets, towels, cleaning supplies, honestly can't remember if they provided condoms because I always brought my own stuff but can't imagine them not being available. There was also a locker area which is fun everyone showing up and seeing the mix of people changing clothes or like me just getting ass naked out the gate.

Socially it's actually really chill. You go up to someone you're attracted to, chat a bit about the kinds of things they like to do or have done to them, then are basically like "yo wanna hook up" or "not my vibe tonight but you have fun". You get rejected often, you also reject others often too, but there's a ton of people there so more than likely you'll find somebody. I'd say maybe half the time I went I realized I didn't even want to fuck that day so I'd just find people to make out with or, my personal favorite, get involved in a nude cuddle puddle (those are super fun you have no idea whose limbs are whose and the conversation inevitably turns into talking about tattoos. Occasionally someone will be like it's shuffle time and everyone stands up and recompiles in a new configuration).

It cost like I wanna say $30 to go, but they had a sliding scale. There's also a monthly membership fee but that isn't like an automatic thing it's basically I believe for legal reasons they need to be a private club and that's how they do that. The membership was like $10 and I would only go sometimes so I just paid for that the same time I bought an event ticket. There were a variety of event types they'd do but I basically only went to the LGBTQ ones because I'm queer af. Wanted to go to one of the dance party ones but never got the chance before I moved.

I know, that's why i said "random cis people" instead of talking about saunas in general.