Why does everyone in New York love Othership when I hate it?
My thoughts on New York’s hottest sauna experience
Last June, I went to Othership - a sauna and cold plunge experience in Flatiron. When I was invited by a friend’s boyfriend, I thought I would be sitting in a sauna, sweating and chatting with my friends, then trying my hand at a cold plunge. We planned to go to SUGARFISH after. I headed to Flatiron on a warm Tuesday evening with my swimsuit in my bag, completely unprepared for what I was about to experience.
In the ten months since that evening, it seems everyone loves Othership. Well, everyone but me. The “social sauna” was founded by couple Robert and Emily Bent in Toronto. Their Flatiron location officially opened in July 2024. Since then, brands began holding event after event there and influencers can’t stop talking about it. On Instagram, @thevibeagency claimed Othership was the “new destination for corporate wellness activities!” One TikToker called it the “best money” she’s spent in a long time. Another said the very online phrase of, “Run don’t walk [to Othership].”
What was happening? And why did I disagree with the entire Internet?
My distaste of Othership isn’t rooted in an aversion to saunas or cold plunges. I actually love a sauna. It isn’t even rooted in the act of being in a swimsuit around strangers, although I don’t like that very much. No, it’s much, much deeper.
I was raised Catholic. And while I am no longer practicing, and haven’t ever really believed in the core messages of Catholicism, its culture is imprinted on me. Catholics are notoriously good at suppressing our feelings. Quiet, internal suffering for the greater good is an age old practice. We are taught to confess our sins to priests sitting behind slatted windows, starting our confessions with, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” Our first Reconciliations (the act of confessing sins) are in second grade. At mine, I begged for forgiveness for being mean to my brother. Sorry Cy.
This repression doesn’t often result in godly people. The sins must come out one way or another. Many Catholics are alcoholics, numbing their feelings with wine just like Jesus intended. And as the 2016’s Best Picture Spotlight explores, the repression can yield something much darker than the love of a drink. In my childhood, the repression just bred angry teachers who expected their students to be perfect. But, as any Catholic knows, once a year, we retreated to let our emotions out.
My first Catholic retreat was in eighth grade. It was called the Luke 18 retreat, and according to a recent Google search is named after a Bible verse which reads, “But Jesus called for them, saying, ‘Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’” Basically, let’s get all the eighth graders together to talk about Jesus because we’ll need them to start paying their tithes during mass. Honestly, the retreat was fun. I got to hang out with my friends for an entire weekend, sleepover at a parishioner’s house, and read kind letters from my family.
But as with every Catholic retreat, there were moments of deep trauma dumping that I found incredibly uncomfortable. First, because I was raised Catholic and sharing these things out loud felt wrong! Hide those traumas inside your soul! And two, because I was a very lucky kid who experienced basically no trauma. The shock of learning other’s realities made my skin crawl.
As I continued my Catholic education, I went on more retreats. I don’t remember any trauma dumping in high school and this is probably because I have a happy, bright blindspot for my high school experience. But with college came a new level of trauma dumping. Looking back at St. Joe’s, my small Jesuit college in West Philadelphia, I now see how odd of a school it was. To me, a girl from Missouri, it was a brand new experience. But for most of my classmates, it was high school round two. Many were from the Philadelphia area and nearly all of us went to Catholic high schools.
Every spring, hundreds of students went on the Appalachian Experience, or APEX. In groups of 20-30, we drove in white sprinter vans to small towns throughout Appalachia to help build homes, feed the hungry at soup kitchens, and share our learnings with each other. APEX gave me an incredible amount of love and appreciation for Appalachia, a part of America that is so blatantly ignored it should be criminal. But APEX also showed me the power of the trauma dump. During my first APEX, our leaders gathered us together on Wednesday night. As we sat in a large circle, members of my group started sharing their traumas one by one. I was shocked and sad and sobbed until I had a headache. I didn’t share anything that Wednesday but felt heavy with the stories of those in my group.
The next year, our leaders once again gathered us on Wednesday night for a new round of trauma dumping. This time, I bravely shared that I had no trauma to share. I told the group, through tears of course, that I didn’t like being described as bubbly because I am so much more than that. Someone else shared after me and revealed a frightening update on their health.
Years later, after I’d come up for air and out of the St. Joe’s haze, I realized how odd those experiences were. Circles of twenty somethings across Appalachia confessing their deepest and darkest secrets. We could no longer turn to the priest behind the slatted window so we turned to each other. But instead of sharing our life experiences in healthy ways, we did it all at once. Word vomiting and crying our way through it.
At Othership, I sat in the sauna in my black one piece. I was next to my friends and giggled as we all sweated. Our sauna leaders - who were the couple who owned the place - began the session. They picked up bath bombs filled with essential oils and threw them into a steaming pit. They swirled towels around and above their head, doing some sort of a dance. They hugged each other sweatily, telling us they were in love. Then they asked us to picture the person we hate the most. To think about that person as a baby, then a toddler, then in grade school, and on and on until they were old and wrinkly. They told us to forgive that person - the person we hated the most. I grew angrier and angrier with each breath.
Here were two sauna owners, completely unqualified to actually run a trauma session, asking a room of complete strangers to forgive the person they hated the most. I scanned the sauna and saw mostly women. I wondered if the people they hated the most were men, too. It felt like a glamorized version of an APEX retreat. We then took showers and went into the cold plunge room. My friends excelled at the cold plunge, staying in the icy baths for two full minutes. I hopped out after 30 seconds. Our experience leader grabbed a sound bath bowl and played it next to each of our ears. I stared right into his eyes as he smiled back at me.
We moved back to the sauna, the heat welcomed after spending time in the cold plunges. The experience leaders started the group share. In a matter of moments, I was transported back to those circles on APEX. I was no longer in my swimsuit sitting in a fancy sauna in Flatiron but in an old farmhouse in West Virginia. One girl in the sauna began crying about her mother, how they had a bad relationship. She told us the meditation allowed her to forgive her. A guy spoke about a recent break up, how heartbroken he was, and how the experience was helping him move through that. My entire body wanted to roll its metaphorical eye. I thought I’d left the trauma dumping sessions back in college, but here I was listening to strangers share their traumas to me on a random Tuesday.
After class, I was sure my friends would agree with me.
“That was weird right?” I asked.
To my surprise, they all loved it. Only one of them was raised Catholic and she immediately told me she understood my hesitancy, how closely the experience resembled a retreat. But shrugged it off as something fun. No one was impacted as much as me. No one left a little ticked off.
Now, Othership is a go-to. People across the city flock to it. My friend even hosted his birthday party there. And they are opening a second location in Williamsburg. Just like the Catholic Church, they are multiplying, growing, sinking their claws into all the trendy neighborhoods. Othership calls themselves a revolution. I think they are just a new version of a Catholic retreat, but for the non baptized.
If you aren’t ready to become a paid subscriber, but enjoy my work and you have the capacity to leave a tip, I’d love you forever.
