Clothing optional [article]

What exactly is the etiquette to be followed in a co-ed bathhouse where clothes are not allowed? American Brian Blickenstaff tries to breakdown the mental paradigm behind his experience in a German sauna. An excerpt: "Throughout our lives, how often are we actually in the buff? Excluding showering and (for some) sleeping, it happens pretty seldom, right? I mean, the only other time we shed clothing is when we’re getting intimate. Try as we might, it becomes difficult to divorce intimacy from the act of being n u d e, and this coupling casts a certain strange shadow over the proceedings at a place like Friedrichsbad."