Our society is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with nudity. What has caused this shift and is this just a consequence of an increasingly conservative mainstream or has the queer community followed suit?
Words by JJ Croucher
Design by Yosef Phelan
I sit in a sauna at a spa in central London; the room is creaky and smells of sandalwood. A stack of disposable flip flops wait at the door. We are buried beneath the knotted train tracks of Kings Cross St Pancras, and the tiny room rumbles whenever a train departs for Paris.
In 2026, our lives feel more like the trains that trundle on around us: directed but disembodied, lit by a clinical blue hue, refusing to stop to take in the view. Here, things feel different. There is a software engineer waiting to find out if he’ll be laid off by Meta. An American businessman visiting London to buy his daughter an apartment, she wants to escape Trump. There’s an older man from Ireland waiting to be called up for a massage. He won’t stop asking me about rugby. Despite our woes, the space feels soft and open. In the dark, with no phones, tongues get looser. We are all in the nude, and no one seems to mind.
