Naked in Berlin

裸风盛行在柏林

Siobhán Dowling disrobes in Berlin and becomes one of the locals…

作者 Siobhán Dowling 

Display on nudism in the former East Germany. DDR Museum Berlin, by Karl Gunnarsson

It’s ladies day at the sauna in my local gym in East Berlin and I’m almost mesmerized by the amount of flesh on show. I’ve found myself sharing the small wooden enclosure with three elderly East German ladies all of whom are blessed with ham-like thighs and the most impressively enormous pendulous breasts.

女士日，在我常去的一家东柏林健身房桑拿室里，我被一堆热情展示的肉体深深折服了。我才发现我和三位上了年纪的东德妇女——拥有被祝福过火腿般的大腿和令人一眼难忘巨大下垂的胸部，共同分享着小木屋。

我悄悄溜进去的时候她们正闲聊，很快就跟我攀谈上。她们告诉我从小长大的地方是怎么剧烈变化的，还是护士那时忙得脚不点地哪有时间去咖啡馆拍拖，哪像现在街坊里的时髦妈妈们。我点头微笑出着汗，一直感到隐隐的羞愧，因为我是个爱尔兰人，更因为我一丝不挂面对一群陌生人。

我学着习惯一件事，在这样一个不管场合三七二十一想脱就脱的城市里，桑拿，健身房，羽毛球场，公园，朋友甚至看见过商店里一双拖鞋一个钱包的人自在飘过，德国人乐于一丝不挂，无论什么体型尺寸。夏天，你在大街上一周内没遇见一个古铜色全裸的人几乎是不可能的。

作为来自保守国家的我，这一切对我确实是个创伤性的打击。然而最后我发现我别无选择除了加入这一切，别去管那些煎香肠，啤酒馆，真正的融合还是在于是否能和德国人坦诚相见。

The women are nattering away as I slink in and soon draw me into their conversation. They tell me about growing up in the area and how much it has changed. They all worked as nurses and in their day they had no time for hanging out in cafes with their strollers like all the current trendy mums in the hood. I nod and smile and sweat, all the time slightly mortified because I am Irish and NAKED IN FRONT OF STRANGERS.

It’s something I’ve had get used to in a city where people whip off their clothes willy-nilly. In saunas, at the gym, badminton courts, the parks, a friend even reported seeing someone wearing just a purse and flip-flops in a shop, the Germans are happy to let it all hang out, no matter what the size or shape. In the summer you can barely go a week without encountering a bronzed-to- within-an inch-of-leather figure coming at you.

Coming from a nation that should get a prize for the ability to put on swimsuits with one hand while clinging for dear life to the corners of a towel with the other, this can be a traumatic encounter. And eventually there is little choice but to join in. Never mind the bratwurst and the biergartens, the sign of true integration is being able to get naked with the Germans.

And far from being some kind of army of extras in a Leni Riefenstahl film, they are not really that dissimilar from us. A bit taller, a bit less pear-shaped, not quite so pasty, but they have scar tissue, purple veins and knobbly knees too and the weight of gravity works as much on their breasts and buttocks as on the rest of us.

It’s just something they have no absolutely no self-consciousness about. Nudism has been something of a cause in Germany since the 19th century and in the 20s became associated with all kinds of utopian ideals. FKK, Freiekörperkulutur (free body culture) is as ingrained as having mayonnaise with your chips or a strange obsession with white asparagus. In the former East it was particularly popular, a sort of escape from the preponderance of uniforms, pins and badges that declared one’s loyalty to the communist regime. In nudity everyone truly was equal.

热衷裸体的人并不像雷妮•瑞芬舒丹电影中描述的那样极端健美，他们其实跟大多数人的身材相似，不过略高，少点梨形身材，多点轮廓感，他们跟我们一样会有疤，粗红的血管，鼓出的膝盖，胸臀受重力的影响一如常人。

裸体主义跟自信完全是没有关系的。它主要起源于德国19世纪，20世纪的乌托邦思潮。柏林人对于裸体的感情就跟蛋黄酱之于薯条，白芦笋之于春天。尤其是在前东德，这是一种对制度，徽章，盲目忠诚的逃避。裸体面前，人人平等。

Public disrobing has become easier over time. It is simply quicker and easier to perform a clean strip at the swimming pool or sauna than all that rigmarole of hiding the bits that everyone else is displaying so nonchalantly. And the city is also full of great Turkish baths where you hang about semi naked for hours, popping in and out of the saunas and steam rooms and sipping mint tea. No one is batting an eyelid so in the end you don’t too much yourself, at least not too much. Somewhere the Catholic schoolgirl within is still uncomfortable with so much brazenness.

My first real plunge was back in the mid 90s. I shared a ramshackle flat with two other Irish lasses in the former East. The toilet was out on the landing and there was no bathroom but for a few blessed months the contraption of a shower that had been erected in our kitchen worked fine. It took half an hour to heat up the water in the tank per shower, and we often had another 3 or 4 people sleeping on our floor, but that was what mornings were for, to sit around drinking tea and coffee and talking about maybe looking for a job as a cleaner that afternoon… or tomorrow… or next week.

在柏林呆的越久越不在意别人的眼光，在泳池或桑拿换衣服明显比小心翼翼躲开众人更方便快捷，尤其别人都满不在乎这么做。这城市里充斥着一流的土耳其浴场，你可以在里面舒适的躺个把小时，出入于桑拿房和蒸气室来杯薄荷茶。没有人会大惊小怪，最后你也会自得其中。当然天主教的乖乖女还是会觉得不自在。

我第一次受到打击还得追溯到90年代，我和另外两个爱尔兰人住在前东德一间摇摇欲坠的小公寓。厕所在外面，没有浴室，但所幸几个月后厨房里竖了支淋浴，它工作良好，每次洗澡水都要花半个小时用水箱加热，厨房里总是3,4个人睡在地板上，早上的时候大家围在一起喝点茶和咖啡，聊聊是不是要去找个清洁工的活做做，不是下午，就明天，或者下周。

FKK image by Andreas Kluth

Then the shower broke and our neighbour downstairs came to the rescue. Martin, an East Berliner, had the luxury of a bachelor pad all to himself, though this consisted of one room, with open plan kitchen and shower. I didn’t know Martin that well, I had arrived to the city later than the other two and had managed to avoid this exhibitionist cleansing ritual by having a boyfriend not too far away with a tremendously fabulous bathroom. Then me and the fella sort of split up and it was perhaps the white tiles, the gleaming taps and the shower nozzle that I missed the most.

后来有天淋浴坏了，我们楼下的邻居救了我们。马丁，一个东柏林人，奢侈的拥有一套房，尽管厨房淋浴都是开放式的。当时我跟马丁不熟，我比其他两个人来的晚，而且我总是极力避免这种暴露狂仪式似的淋浴，基本总是到男朋友那里去，他有个美轮美奂的浴室。以至于我和他分手后，我想的最多的可能还是锃白的瓷砖，闪光的水龙头，光洁的喷嘴。

于是我踢啦着带着毛巾洗发水去马丁那，一点都不紧张。他推开门，穿着他的扎染T，满眼疲惫，栽进他的摇椅开始听音乐配乐。马丁只听配乐。来吧，我暗自念道。我迅速把衣服脱了扔在地上，冲进淋浴，用女人能用的最快的速度打了肥皂冲洗干净，在火速穿上衣服，道谢然后跑上楼。

几个小时后我的室友享受完她的沐浴大笑着回来。

“听说你当着血腥马丁的面脱衣服” “额，是啊，不跟你们平常一样么” 

她不相信的哼了一声。我顿时明白了，哦不，像她们这群教养良好的淑女，总是带两条毛巾，一条挂在淋浴的一侧，挡住屋主人时不时的余光。

从那以后，马丁对我就友好多了，不是那种奇怪的方式，不过是一种更尊重和接纳的方式，仿佛在说，嘿，妞，你现在也是我们一伙的。

A few hours later my flatmate came back from her own shower hooting with laughter. “You stripped in front of bloody Martin!” “Er, yes isn’t that what you guys have been doing?” She snorted in disbelief. Oh no, like the demure well-brought up ladies they were, they always brought an extra towel to hang over the side of the shower, shielding them from their host’s gaze

From then on Martin was a lot friendlier to me, not in a creepy way, just in a way that implied acceptance and respect. That said: Hey, Mädel, you are one of us now.

About The Author

关于作者

Siobhán Dowling 是出生于都柏林的记者，现居柏林，曾为明镜国际版做记者兼编辑，并为包括洛杉矶时报，华盛顿时报，星期天商业邮报和爱尔兰时报网站 供稿。

Siobhán Dowling is a freelance Berlin-based journalist originally from Dublin. She has worked as an editor and journalist at Spiegel International and has written for several other publications, including The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Times, The Sunday Business Post and the Irish Times website. This article was reprinted with kind permission from Siobhan and excellent website The Antiroom, where it first appeared.