Standing naked beside a stranger in the women’s locker room at the Brooklyn YMCA, I have felt peace. In this level playing field—surrounded by God’s own variety of skin, bone, and hair—my inner critic, one that speaks with a New Yorker’s speed and volume, just shuts up. This silence follows me into the modest sauna, where I sit blanketed with heat, enjoying the respite.
My proximity to what researcher Keon West at University College London calls “non-idealized bodies” might improve my opinion about my own. West’s studies suggest that even if you aren’t undressed, being around average bodies can increase your own body positivity. Add to that the benefits of nudity—research from the University of Waterloo suggests the positive effects on young women of being around those who are unconcerned with their appearance—and the fluorescent-lit changing room starts to seem a little more appealing. Further studies show that as women age, they tend to develop more body appreciation, focusing on the body’s functionality rather than desirability, a change of priorities that I would very much like to experience. If a few minutes in the democracy of the YMCA locker room can calm down my thigh analysis, imagine the effect of doing it regularly.
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, a new documentary from Estonian director Anna Hints about traditional sauna culture in southeast Estonia, offers a look at the sense of community a sauna can bring. A smoke sauna is specific to the Võro ethnic group, and women of this lineage traditionally conducted some of life’s most important rituals in it, from giving birth to washing the dead. Today Võro women still gather for sessions of sweating, punctuated with cooling in nearby bodies of water; a ritual whisking and exfoliation with carefully chosen branches, usually birch; and moments to sing and pray to the elements and a higher spirit, the group’s understanding of which has changed over the centuries. But the real takeaway of Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is that the sauna is full of conversation.
The film took seven years to make, and it was well worth it: Hints has already been recognized at Sundance with a best-director award, and the film is Estonia’s official selection for the Oscars. Much of it was filmed inside a smoke sauna, where temperatures routinely reach 200 degrees Fahrenheit. While filming, Hints lost several camera lenses to the intense heat and changed her mind about the most important part of the process: It wasn’t just the bravery of the women speaking but that of the women listening—and hearing uncomfortable truths in sometimes uncomfortable temperatures—that made the sisterhood so strong.
In a conversation with Vogue, Hints was emphatic that sauna traditions should be “alive and organic, not captured only as they were in the 19th century.” She explained, “There are [traditional] sauna prayers for a baby girl to be beautiful, to get married, and not become a slut. We don’t have to take that from the heritage. We have a choice of what we take.”
Though men in Võromaa also visit smoke saunas, those gatherings, according to Hints, lack the kind of deep exchange the women share. “They talk about the bullshit, not about the real shit,” she quipped, though she did note proudly that some men in the community have organized a brotherhood group since seeing the film. “Real courage is in vulnerability,” she explained. “We think, Maybe I can share without showing myself fully. But there are no shortcuts.”
The film is so beautifully shot that many frames could almost be moody portraits from the Dutch Masters. But these women aren’t models. The women in the film, many of whom grew up in the sauna tradition, are not free from shame, despair, or sexual insecurity or protected from sexual assault, cancer, or old age. But within their communal sauna, they find a place to share and receive the pain of their sisters in a way that lightens and connects them. I asked Hints what happens to the women, herself included, when they leave the sauna, when the cares of daily life crowd back in. Were they to run into a sister in the grocery store, for instance, can they maintain the patience and empathy they found in the smoke? “Yes,” said Hints. “The intangible space between two people does not go away. In the back of your head, you know you have that safe space.”
Back in Brooklyn, I turn to my YMCA sauna for a combination of health benefits, answers to big questions, and, yes, a sense of sisterhood. Remarkably, I’ve found it all. I’ve glimpsed the acceptance you can find when no one averts their eyes. With the film top of mind, I realize that the clock is always ticking and I’ve wasted enough hours comparing myself to other women. It’s time to hit the sauna.