# A low wide, long bath. For oil. Oh, and sex. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 7, 2005, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-low-wide-long-bath-for-oil-oh-and-sex/320502 "2005-09-07T12:41:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![abby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@abby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abby)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-low-wide-long-bath-for-oil-oh-and-sex/320502/1 "2005-09-07T12:41:12Z")
I cannot remember where, I read about a turkish bath being described as a place where you go and get covered in oil, and they scrape it off with these wooden blades, something you did when there was no water, to get “clean”. Searching with Google, “turkish bath” seems to be pretty similar to Roman bath, three seperate large (12 ppl plus) hot, tepid, cold, and having nothing to do with oil, or scraping it off. So I have mis remembered or they mis-wrote. but now I want to know what that place was. It was a raunchy story, about two ppl having sex in this place, lots of oil, and it happnned in like a large… pan, like, six feet by six feet with low sides 12" high, tiled, and 1" deep with some sort of oil. I need to find a location like that for a photoshoot, but if I don’t know what it’s called, that makes it difficult. Can anyone offer any tips? Thanks. a ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-low-wide-long-bath-for-oil-oh-and-sex/320502/2 "2005-09-07T12:45:45Z")
I just call it “my house.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-low-wide-long-bath-for-oil-oh-and-sex/320502/3 "2005-09-07T12:50:51Z")
By the way, according to this: [http://www.channel4.com/history/timeteam/snapshot\_rom\_bath.html](http://www.channel4.com/history/timeteam/snapshot_rom_bath.html) > [@](#): > > The public baths were used by all sections of society. Those who could not afford to hire an attendant to scrape away the dirt and oil from their bodies with the sickle-shaped strigil did it for each other. (Oil and scraping took the place of soap and washing in Roman baths.) So, from this cite, it appears the Roman bath did involve oil and scraping. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-low-wide-long-bath-for-oil-oh-and-sex/320502/4 "2005-09-07T12:52:01Z")
all over japan except now they are called soapland. Seems the turks found it offensive that these combo sauna/whorehouses were called “turkish baths” so the name got changed. Where turkish bath comes from I’ve no idea. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-low-wide-long-bath-for-oil-oh-and-sex/320502/5 "2005-09-07T14:04:10Z")
They do have Turkish baths, not too unlike Roman ones. In _HMS Brilliant_, a docu-show about life aboard a navy ship, the sailors visited a bathhouse in Turkey for a bath and a massage. The bath was fine, but Turkish masseurs are built like wrestlers and their massage is of a nature appropriate to this, involving lots of hearty smacks and twisting all limbs to the very limits of their movement. One matelot was heard to say that he could have got himself mugged in Portsmouth and it would have cost less and not hurt as much, and another was heard reciting his name, rank and serial number. 😃 But it’s probably less punishing if you’re accustomed to it. And you probably feel immense relief the moment it’s all over.