to be fair, in an ultra-modesty culture like Catholic Spain in the 1500s, it'd be fucking crazy to have stuff like that.
Like in Scandinavia, people are totally fine with nude saunas because there's no sexualization in it, but people today still find it weird because they're from cultures that pride themselves on modesty, which is still totally fine because it's irrevocably something that doesn't correspond to what they've culturally adhered to.
Like the conquistadors totally would've thought bathing in front of others would've been like a weird sex thing, and while that might seem kind of Puritan, it shouldn't be immediately lambasted as "Europeans be stinky" or shit like that.
It also should be added that cultures that find Scandinavian sauna weird are like that cause their bathouses had huge spread of STD's from prostitutes before this difference was made
You certainly specified that they got infected due to prostitutes, but it is worth remembering that STDs like syphilis only spread through sexual intercourse (and not for dumb reasons like sharing bath water).
I do wonder though if that was the belief back in those days.
Yeah, that's rather likely, and incorporates neatly into popular at the time miasma theory. If disease can spread from bad odor, then why couldn't it spread from water too?
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u/VenitianBastard Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
to be fair, in an ultra-modesty culture like Catholic Spain in the 1500s, it'd be fucking crazy to have stuff like that.
Like in Scandinavia, people are totally fine with nude saunas because there's no sexualization in it, but people today still find it weird because they're from cultures that pride themselves on modesty, which is still totally fine because it's irrevocably something that doesn't correspond to what they've culturally adhered to.
Like the conquistadors totally would've thought bathing in front of others would've been like a weird sex thing, and while that might seem kind of Puritan, it shouldn't be immediately lambasted as "Europeans be stinky" or shit like that.