Steam, Silence, and Straight Talk: Inside the Hot Tub Circles Where Men Finally Drop the Act

There's a hot tub in the foothills outside Boulder that holds eight men, forty-one minutes of good conversation, and zero pretense. Every other Sunday, guys in their thirties through sixties sink into the steam, peel off their towels, and talk about their divorces, their dead fathers, their drinking, their fear of turning into their own dads.

Nobody talks about the Broncos.

"That's rule number one," laughs Marcus Delgado, 52, who co-founded the group three years ago after a buddy's suicide shook his circle of longtime friends. "We realized we'd known each other twenty years and never once had a real conversation. We could talk football for six hours. We couldn't say 'I'm not okay.'"

Delgado's group is part of a quiet, spreading experiment: men's discussion circles that meet at clothing-optional hot springs, Nordic spas, and private backyard tubs across the US — from Harbin-style springs in Northern California to converted stock tanks in Texas Hill Country. The formula sounds like a punchline. In practice, attendees say, it's the most honest room they've ever been in.

Why the Tub Works When the Bar Doesn't

The obvious question: why naked?

"Because a suit is a costume, and so is a hoodie," says Dr. Ellen Voss, a Boulder-based psychologist who studies male friendship and has consulted for several of these groups. "Men in America perform a version of themselves in almost every setting — work, the gym, the bleachers. When everyone in the circle has nothing on, everyone is equally exposed. There's no hierarchy of gear, no gym body flexing, no who's-got-the-nice-watch. It flattens the field in a way nothing else does."

There's research underneath the anecdote. Surveys consistently show American men reporting fewer close friendships than previous generations — the now-famous May 2021 American Perspectives Survey found the share of men with zero close friends had jumped to one in six. Loneliness researchers have been sounding the alarm for a decade. Meanwhile, the standard fixes — bowling leagues, church groups, happy hours — keep hitting the same wall: men can be in a room together for years without ever going deeper than fantasy football.

The nudity, organizers argue, isn't a gimmick. It's a shortcut.

"The first ten minutes are awkward for everybody," says Ray Kowalski, 44, a HVAC contractor who joined a group that meets at a rented lodge hot tub outside Traverse City, Michigan. "And that's the point. You get through the awkward together. After that, the walls are already down. Somebody starts talking about his custody battle, and you realize nobody's judging your gut or your scars because they're standing right there too."

The Rules of the Tub

Every group has its own constitution, but the overlaps are striking:

• No sports talk. Not because sports are bad, but because they're the default. The tub is for the stuff that never comes up.
• No advice unless it's asked for. "Men want to fix things," Delgado says. "We had to explicitly ban it. You get to vent without a guy jumping in with a solution."
• What's said in the water stays in the water. Non-negotiable.
• Towels are yours to manage. Nobody comments on anybody's body, ever — including their own. Self-deprecating weight jokes are gently shut down like any other deflection.

That last one matters more than it sounds. Voss notes that body shame is often the surface layer covering the deeper stuff. "A guy who won't take his shirt off at the lake is telling you something. When he gets in the water anyway and nobody flinches, that's often the first crack in the armor. The real conversation follows."

Not a Nudist Thing — and They're Clear About That

Organizers are quick to distinguish these circles from naturist communities. Most attendees don't identify as nudists, don't vacation at clothing-optional resorts, and spend the rest of their week fully dressed and fully ordinary.

"This is a tool, not a lifestyle," Kowalski says. "For two hours, the clothes come off and so does the performance. Then I go home and coach my kid's soccer team."

The groups also skew deliberately toward men who've never done anything like this. Recruitment is low-key — a buddy dragging a buddy — and organizers say the casual setting lowers the stakes that scare guys off therapy or formal men's groups. There's no facilitator with a workbook, no church basement, no $200 hourly rate. Just water, steam, and the understanding that everyone showed up for the same reason.

The Deeper Current

Skeptics will call it a trend piece waiting to be written, and maybe it is. But the men in these tubs describe something that sounds a lot like what the loneliness research says is missing: regular, unguarded, face-to-face time with other men who know the real them.

Delgado puts it simply. "I've sat in that water with guys I've known since high school, and heard them say things they never told anybody. You can't unsee that. You can't go back to talking about the game afterward."

The steam rises. The conversation turns to a layoff, a relapse, a marriage that might be ending. Nobody checks a phone. Nobody leaves early.

As one attendee in Northern California told us before sinking back into the spring: "Turns out the hardest thing a guy can take off isn't his clothes. It's the act."

Have you been part of a clothing-optional men's circle — or does the idea make your skin crawl (fully clothed)? We want to hear about it on the show. Hit us up at livenudemenpodcast.com.