When I studied abroad in Italy in the late 80s, I lived in a pensione with a group of German students (and other Americans). While the American students would head to hallway bathroom/showers in pajamas, robes and slippers, the German students would stride down the hallway totally nude but while holding the little dish towel that passed as a bath towel in front of their genitals. It was quite a show! None of the Americans would think to complain, however, because the German students were young and beautiful.
Relaxation rooms - different from changing rooms. Bare bottoms on soft upholstery- eeeewwww. Bare bottoms on tile steam rooms, well if you didn’t choose to put your towel there…I would make a bit of a negative feedback if it were the one, but not the other.
I’m so sorry your kid got a icky vibe. Most kids aren’t used to spa environments, good heavens at my age I still feel strange, but I’ve never seen a bunch of naked folks just hanging out chatting.
@doschicos Nothing will turn you off to nudity (or card playing) more than a mixed sex German spa full of folks who are my age.
It always seems like the ones you don’t want to see naked are the ones that are “hanging around” naked, protesting that they’re too comfortable to put any clothes back on, lol. I hope the hotel has a policy that if you’re going to sit down naked, you put a towel down first!
Maybe your son dodged a bullet - it doesn’t sound like the best place to get a therapeutic massage. Good massage therapists are very concerned with a client’s comfort level and respect their modesty. Hard to see how they can operate well at this $1000/night hotel.
One would hope that the naked men had the common sense to put down a towel.
Again, him being 16 should not enter into the equation. He was uncomfortable, I get that. But some adult men might have been uncomfortable as well.
One other thing that I forgot to mention in my earlier post, which may or not be the case for this situation, but many Europeans vacation in FL and may not be aware that social nudity is less common here. If that were the case, the mgr might not have expected these men, or anyone, to be sitting around shooting the breeze in the nude. In most of Europe, gang showers are still the norm, not the exception. Regardless, you and your son were the customers and the establishment should have been more accommodating after the fact, even if I would cut them some slack before the “incident.”
I will say that I do find the American habit of putting on underwear while still wrapped in a towel is very amusing.
I am thinking that it might have been the age of the men that threw OP’s S off. He was used to changing in a locker room with other 19 year old boys or maybe with his dad in other situations. If these guys were 70’s or 80’s he might really have gotten an “eyefull”.
Yup–I think that’s the case^^^
Not that “they should have known better”
And as @skieurope mentions, large expensive resorts in FL attract a lot of European tourists.
LOL - he’s 16. The guys could have been in their 40’s and he thought they were elderly. 
@greenwitch, the OP clarified in post #31 that “the area was a very small waiting/locker room” more than a relaxation room.
@musicamusica I will say that in my travels that the older Germans I’ve met are among the more fit middle to upper aged folks vs. other nationalities. All that hiking with their dachshunds keeps them fairly fit.
LOL.
I don’t mean to make light of OP’s son’s visual distress but this thread has been very entertaining.
I just might have spent time at naturist resorts (I will deny it if you ask me about it in person!). After the first few minutes, you don’t think about it. Yes, the average age of the other people is about 60. It’s a really friendly group of people. And it is common courtesy to ALWAYS sit on towels.
Well I am still guessing that is was both the visual and whatever the older men said to this young man.
They were a den and he was a new cub. Betting they thought they were friendly but really were obnoxious.
And perhaps the S does not really want to go into details with his mom regarding the banter.
@skieurope - oh ok I thought he was a freshman in college. But if they were only in their 40’s they would have been around his dad’s age and I am sure he has changed with his dad.
My husband is a gym rat, he complains all the time about old men walking around naked in the locker room. I think its just an old man thing. I guess I surprised this bothered your son so much since you said he has been to nude locales in Europe.
I can see how the young guy felt uncomfortable. My experience of Florida (with ex inlaws), is that a lot of outspoken banter can be the norm, and it could be less than comfortable, if aimed in his direction.
Once upon a time, perhaps at age 19, some of us were the naked hippies in the Esalen baths, as well as other California and AZ hot springs, and it was blast! Really our norm at that time and place. I spend little time in CA these days, and am unsure as to whether it is still a clothing optional culture in some places. As it was when I was in an elementary school with showers, and we changed without a concern for clothing or not. Somehow society has really tightened up on the clothing, or perhaps the Midwest is just that much more concerned about these things. My kids would be far more uncomfortable than I was at their age. But I also grew up with a European dad, who thought nudity at home was no big deal.
In Japan a few years ago, I was at a bath and went in the women’s side with sis in law. It had been a long time, but the attitude there is that we all have bodies, and it is no big deal to be naked together, no matter your shape or size.
Dachshunds - also referred to as wiener dogs; how apropos!
One difference between now and the old days is the ubiquity of cameras. A quick Google-images search for Esalen hot springs makes me wonder if bathing suits might not be a good idea in today’s environment, given the number of idyllic photos that make it onto Pinterest. Doubt that all those folks signed release forms!
It’s possible the older men who have no compunctions holding conversations naked in the locker room might have grown up in environments when gang showers and hanging out naked in locker rooms was more the norm that it is more recently.
And if some were old enough to have served in the military during the periods when the draft was in effect, they likely spent large moments naked or nearly so in extreme close quarters for long periods during training and other venues.
Read an account of a Vietnam War soldier going to an open-air latrine open to full view of his fellow soldiers on a remote firebase due to expediency and some security reasons.
Also, some of the older navy ships had communal toilets for enlisted sailors like the Romans of antiquity.
http://www.steelnavy.org/history/items/show/93
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01/ancient-roman-toilets-gross/423072/
My BIL and nephew report this is the way it is at the Jewish community center where they belong. Naked old guys sitting in the room, talking, reading the paper, taking a spritz, going to the pool (with a speedo, which to me is questionable in itself). They can spend all afternoon there on a Sunday, most of it naked. Young kids come in (although I do think there are several locker rooms as it’s a big club), old guys, no one cares. OP’s description and BIL’s sound the same. Guys just hanging for all to see.
It’s their club. It’s what they like. OP didn’t say if this spa was only for hotel guests or if locals belonged (very common even in resort hotels for locals to belong).
Back in my youth, my brother used to go to the YMCA with his boy scout troop and swim naked. NAKED. Girls could only go in the Y on Sundays and could only swim on Sundays when everyone wore suits. Naked. I just could never understand it.