PANTIES PARADOX
Secrets From
A Swedish Sauna
By Jeanne Rudbeck

You can learn a lot from underwear. This revelation struck me as I stood in the changing room of my new health club and day spa. My husband had presented me with a membership. He was hoping that a daily session in a sauna might warm my heart, which had become considerably colder since we'd moved to 59 degrees north.

It had never been in my life plan to relocate to a country where wearing boots and a hat isn't a fashion statement but a means of survival.

The posh spa-bath in central Stockholm is frequented by what are called here "luxury housewives,” such as the spouses of diplomats or international businessmen. Who else has time to spend whole days getting toned and trim? Sometimes I went in the morning; sometimes after work.  Often the same women were there at both ends of the day, rowing the rowing machines, trekking the Nordic track, wearing a glassy-eyed-zombie look on their faces.

I endured the stationary bike on the setting for flat terrain for ten minutes and one class of Ashtanga yoga before accepting that I was a failure in the fitness Olympics. I decided to spend my time lounging around in a fluffy white robe in the collective changing room, observing the kind of women who spend nine hours on exercise and weight machines. I'm not a voyeur, but the membership was expensive. Better use it.

Roll over, Milton Friedman. At the spa I formulated my own theory of free markets versus socialism. I am the first, as far as I know, to base an economic theory on a bra and thong. I call it the panties paradox, and it goes something like this: capitalism goes hand in hand with sensible underwear; socialism with luxury lingerie. "Hand in hand" is not perhaps the right term, considering the parts of the anatomy in question. But you'll get my drift.

I have been wearing Jockeys for Girls since I was, well, a girl. They've served me well for many years. Not the same ones, I hasten to add. My brother gave me my first pair. He had bought them for himself, by mistake, thinking Jockey was synonymous with men’s briefs. When they turned out to be bikinis for girls he passed them on to me as a Christmas present.

Back in the spa changing room, ensconced in a lounger, I noticed that American and British women wore, like me, practical white cotton. Calvin Klein boxers were as daring as they’d go. Here's a Secret, Victoria: despite your presence in every mall across America, there are still many of us running around in what Hugh Grant called Bridget Jones' "scary" underpants.

I had expected Swedish women to be similarly under-clad. After all, decades of socialism had drilled into them the dogma that frivolities like makeup and feminine fashions were symptoms of capitalist decadence. Clothes should not distract from higher pursuits, like attending Party meetings for lectures on the evils of the free market and the singing of the North Korean women’s working songs.
If you've got it, don't flaunt it is the rule. Jeans are pretty much the office uniform. If a Swedish woman shows up for a meeting dressed like her counterpart in London or New York, she encounters envy disguised as disapproval: "Oh, aren't you elegant today" is not a compliment. Equality means never being better dressed than your sisters in socialism. The streets of Stockholm are filled with blonde bombshells looking as though they have jobs lugging crates of beer. No fluff, no puff and definitely no Chanel slingbacks.

Cosmetics are an instrument of male repression. Mind you, with their perfect skin and knife-sharp cheekbones, they don't really need makeup. Still, the Nature Girl look Scandinavian women are famous for is more necessity than virtue. The government places a draconian tax on cosmetics so that a jar of Clinique is three times more expensive than in the States.

Beautiful, thick blonde hair is covered six months of the year by an ugly wool hat, so no one worries about good or bad hair days. And why bother with bling if you're going to have to cover it up with gloves, mufflers and a ski parka.

Once she sheds this drab outerwear, however, the Swedish woman reveals the laciest of bras, the stringiest of thongs, though on bodies that look as though they'd been caught in some catastrophic nuclear flash. This is the Stockholm Tan. The medical term is Third Degree Burns and it is a result of too many sessions in the club's sun beds. To keep that fried skin from shriveling she anoints herself lavishly with expensive creams from Paris before donning the dismal ski parka again to return to work pushing papers at the Ministry of Equality Between the Sexes.

A twist on my knickers theory of economics says that while socialism bred conformity, communism provoked only rebellion.

No women enjoy being a girl like the Russians. There are no plain wrappings, inside or out. Still in recovery from the drab decreed by Communism, three ladies I called the Troika would sweep into the changing room swathed in layers of mink, which they discarded to reveal French designer clothes and underwear by LaPerla.

The Troika ruled the sauna. They'd stretch out full length on the benches, eschewing even a tiny towel. Though a maximum of 15 minutes per sauna session was advised, the Troika could lie for hours, eating oranges or grapes, like the emperor’s concubines at some Roman buffet. Now and then they'd saunter out for a cold shower and a nip from the little flask of vodka kept in their locker. I credited the combination of vodka and sauna for their glowing complexions, until the day the Troika started discussing facelifts while peeling their oranges. (Russian beauty tip: the oil from orange peel is an excellent moisturizer.)

They were talking about Jane Fonda, whom they'd seen on CNN. The movie star said that she admired Nordic women for shunning the quest for eternal youth. "They don't bother with surgery or Botox,” she told Larry King. "They live in their faces."

The Troika found Fonda’s remarks hilarious. All three had had "work,” but they disapproved of the typical American face: “Is too much, too over-done.”

“Like everything American,” said Svetlana. “There is no subtlety. Americans pump Botox into the face like it's landfill."

The Troika was planning to travel to Latvia or Lithuania for more "work."

Several months later Svetlana reappeared at the club. She had been suffering from excruciating headaches and the left side of her face was permanently immobilized, the undesired result of the work she'd had done.

She was still wearing LaPerla underwear though.