A BATHHOUSE
(THIS PROBABLY ISN'T FOR YOU)
Recently, I’ve become obsessed with bath houses. It started with me attending this bougie, new-age spot, Othership in Flatiron. This was my first time finding a Finnish-style sauna in New York. When I returned from Austria a few summers ago, convinced that the only thing helping my hyperthyroid was a daily sweat, all I uncovered were these trendy, one-person, infrared boxes that cost sixty-five dollars for forty minutes. I tried the at-home sweat blankets and the Higher Dose pop-ups inside ABC Home, but eventually I tired of the whole thing. Nothing came close to the sauna culture I’d grown to love in Europe. Sure, I’d heard rumors of these Russian places in the East Village and even some Korean Day spas in Jersey, but all of them felt code for: “clandestine, gay sex.” Something I wasn’t currently in the market for.