In the late 16^th century, a German pastor, Salomon Schweigger, accompanied the ambassador of the HRE to Istanbul and wrote an ectensive report about his visit.

One of his examples of (perceived by him) moral superiority of Germans over Turkish culture was, that in Türkiye public baths were single gender with obligatory clothing "to avoid sexual arousal", while back in Germany men and women were happily sharing the same bath butt naked without being sexual aroused.

So – German Freikörperkultur is far older than it's name.

In the Netherlands towels are optional in single gender saunas, or at least you have to bring one to sit on but you don’t have to cover your self. That’s my experience with men’s saunas though. Not sure how it works in women only saunas.

In countries shaded with light blue, there are no uniform rules.

purple rules