Re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring, I found the part where Frodo, Pippin, and Sam arrive at their new home. They line up three tubs in a room, and they’re all supposed to bathe together in the same room.
I don’t find them doing it icky, but as I thought about it, I don’t know if I could be comfortable bathing in a room with just two of my friends.
A large communal bath? I could do that, provided I could keep my towel on. After all, that’s not much different from a swimming pool.
A communal shower? I have done and possibly could do that, although now I wouldn’t like it much.
But to find two girlfriends and simply get completely naked and take a bath? Aren’t baths supposed to be comfort zones? I don’t know if I could…it seems a little too intimate to me.
I’d like to hear from men and women on this, as opinions may vary widely between the sexes. I would consider it the height of rudeness if I visited someone’s house and I couldn’t even get a bath to myself, for Og’s sakes! I realize it’s a fantasy book, but it did intrigue me.
I’m curious to know what your idea of a communal bath is. One that have more than a few people using it at a time? What if it’s a quiet time of day and only a few other people are there?
As a Japanese I’ve used numerous shared baths in hotels. Some are huge, others are small enough that only 3 or 4 people can be in the bath tub at the same time (with a couple feet of space between each person). I’ve never had any trouble using those with friends, colleagues or family. With anything smaller, people usually don’t share them with strangers, just family.
I’ve never been in a room with multiple separate tubs. But I think that would offer even more privacy and personal space than a large tub.
I’ve never been comfortable with it. Body image issues. I resented having to pile into the high school shower with the rest of the kids. And I hear they no longer force it on kids anymore. Good. WTF!!!
Yes, like when I watch Japanese anime and there’s dozens of girls using it, and there is a partition between men and women’s.
If there was only a few people, I’d probably turn around and go home.
Seems we’ve uncovered another aspect of my prudishness! Damn, I keep trying to stomp them all out and more keep popping up. Guess I need to find two girlfriends and three bathtubs.
Yes and no. The nudity part wouldn’t bother me, but I don’t even like to sit in a bathtub by myself if it’s for actual bathing purposes. So, if you change it from a bath tub to a hot tub, hell yeah; the more the merrier. Sitting in someone else’s filth? Not so much.
Consider this: if I had just completed a long overland hike (I think this scene takes place after the Midgy marshes?) and I was in a house that was heated only by a fireplace, so probably only 1 room was warm, I sure as shit would take a bath in the same room as a friend and a cousin of the same gender (or any gender really, if I was grimy enough).
But under normal circumstances it would not be my preference.
Took place after the Shortcut through Farmer’s Maggots fields while being pursued by the Black Riders. They were at Crickhollow still in Buckland (The outskirts of the Shire).
{This is from memory, subject to small errors}
I don’t know about Middle Earth (never having been there myself), but in Japan you sit on a little stool in front of a shower head and wash yourself before you get in the tub. The tub is for hot-water soaking, not for washing. Personally I have no problem with it; I’ve been in Japanese baths before, and in a relaxed atmosphere where it’s taken for granted, it feels perfectly natural.
Then again, as I was telling my boss a few weeks ago, “It takes very little provocation to get me to take my clothes off in public.” (I don’t recall how this subject arose at work.)
As I understand it, each person is in his own seperate tub, right? So it’s not like you’re sitting in someone else’s bathwater.
I don’t have a problem with it, no. It’s not something I’d choose to do for an evening’s recreation (I don’t even like baths), but if it came up I wouldn’t object or anything.
