Why are laundromats sexy?

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 208 points –

Everybody always presents laundromats in tv shows and movies as this sexy place where you meet horny singles who aren't wearing underwear because it's in the wash.

But in real life, that just isn't true. The laundromat has angry people who don't want to be there, and nobody EVER has sex, or takes their clothes off.

So why are laundromats always presented like that?

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Because some of those angry lonely people are writers, and they have a lot of time to think.

Correct answer.

The people there are mainly bored because they are waiting. And sometimes creativity arises out of boredom.

Daydream, “lots of time to ‘daydream’”

Let’s be honest half the stuff a guy writes is about how to win a girl over and the other half is having sex with said girl.

You must watch very different movies than I do. I immediately envision something dank and dark with flickering lights.

Wow, what kind of lame laundromats have you been visiting?

My last three laundromat visits involved anal.

You're supposed to remove your clothes from your anus before you go to the laundromat.

I won't make that mistake again.

The scientific reason is that the 350 watt drum connected to the dryer motor vibrates at 55 hertz which stimulates the female solar plexus. This creates a chain reaction and urges males to assert dominance and proceed with a mating ritual. When you combine this with the enticingly large sums of cash at a typical laundromat, you can see this is a devastating combination. The scantily clad hot body people is a side effect, not the cause.

That reads like something out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The laundromat has angry people who don't want to be there,

I live in a college town. The laundromat nearest me has a bar.

I've seen one laundromat/bar like that, and instantly thought it was genius.

I miss Sit and Spin in downtown Seattle. Cafe in the front, bar and event venue in the back and laundry on the side.

Leaving the dancefloor to move your laundry from washer to dryer would be one of the most surreal experiences I think I can imagine.

Similarly, 'hell yeah ____ is doing another live show tonight, better grab my dirty laundry'

aren’t wearing underwear because it’s in the wash

??????? Do these people only have one paif of underwear??

Hey everyone! Take a look at mister "I have two pairs of underwear" over here!

Sometimes, just for a lark, I wear both pairs at the same time! Hahahahaha!

I have multiple pairs of underwear but I hate h going to a laundromat, so I used to wait until I was absolutely out of everything and the clothes I was wearing were oversoiled.

I have laundry facilities at home now, but when I'm double-plus depressed, I still will wait until I have absolutely nothing to wear.

Yeah I'm tired of all this laundromat sexy-washing.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

When they announced that movie won at the Oscars, I swear I thought what they were trying to say was that all the movies won.

I want to know what TV shows you are watching

Most of the stuff I watch have something bad happen in a laundromat, like getting chased by armed thugs

I feel like it's kind of a meet-cute trope in older sitcoms

As I listed elsewhere in the thread I've seen it several times, but I think Hollywood's use of laundromats (or apartment building communal laundry rooms) are used for 3 scenarios:

  • The meet cute. It's a plausible place for people in different social circles to interact. The manic pixie dream girl and the uptight single lawyer both need to do laundry, so that's where they first meet. Easily contrived shenanigans with the props, underwear jokes etc. write themselves. It can also play with a dynamic that you don't often see in a dating environment: You meet someone in the bar or the club or at school or at work or whatever and you get to present the most polished version of yourself. Meet in the laundry room and now we get to see if you have some domestic skills which can indicate where in life the characters are.

  • The domestic date. Characters that already know each other decide to visit the laundromat together because one or both has to do laundry and it's the only time they can have free. Thinking about the production side, I bet it's less of a pain in the ass to film than a dinner date, because you don't have to worry about continuity of the food etc. Easy reason for two people to be sitting in an environment together with nothing better to do than just talk, maybe you can busy their hands folding laundry or emptying/filling machines. Lots of opportunities for movie language, too. You can look down the rows of machines to frame the two in closer, you can look at them through the clear washer doors, either with it open or as if from inside one of the machines, etc.

  • The excuse to be mutually half naked. At least two people and almost always mixed company are going to wash the clothes on their backs with nothing to change into, so they're going to sit around together in their underwear pretending very hard this is normal. This is mostly just a recipe for cheap cheesecake.

This is fun. Hey can we talk about some more weirdly common TV and movie scenes?

Well, off the top of my head:

  • There was an episode of Dr. Who during...I think David Tennant's career? It was one of those that didn't actually have much of The Doctor in it, some guy had noticed The Doctor appearing throughout history and wanted to try and meet him, so he managed to run into Rose's mother, at a laundromat. Who proceeded to flirt with him as she loaded her underwear into the wash by saying 'and here I am flashing you me knickers.'

  • There was a show from the 90's that no one remembers called Relic Hunter. In one episode miss relic hunter, her assistant and I think the client of the week duck into a laundromat as a place they can look through a dossier, but the owner insists that they have to wash something to remain on the premises, because they needed an excuse to peel Tia Carrere to her skivvies.

  • The episode of Futurama where...let's see if I remember this right? Bender gets mangled and paralyzed, meets Beck, hires him as a washboard player(?) and then the rest of the cast follow him around on tour, there's a scene where the crew is hanging around in their underwear while all their clothes wash, and it accidentally tie dyes them because of Amy's pink track suit.

  • Early in Friends, there's an episode where Ross...again let's see if I remember this correctly...Rachel was a rich girl and thus had no domestic skills, and Ross offered to teach her how to do laundry, kind of as an excuse to hang around with her to flirt. They also manage to accidentally dye her clothes pink by leaving something red in with them. IIRC Joey mocked him for his choice of Totally Not Snuggle, so he bought a detergent called Uberweisse or something. I think this was in their building's laundry room rather than a laundromat but meh.

  • I think there's a scene in Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog where Dr. Horrible and whatever Felicia Day's character was named where they flirt in a laundromat. My memory of that show has kind of faded to just the Bad Horse song.

In Supernatural, Cass takes off his bloody clothes to wash them, but then he decides to use his remaining bucks on the vending machine instead, and he takes clean clothes from the lost and found.

Because people who never needed to use an annoying thing like to imagine and romantize how they would use it. Completely ignoring reality.

I hate how tv seems to be written by people who have no idea how regular people live. Like how in tv shows, people pop in on someone at home and person is fully made up and dressed, and their homes are always spotless. You pop in on me unexpected and I'm going to be in my boxer briefs, angry that I'm being disturbed, and there are kids toys and laundry all over the living room

I always found it funny how writers portray themselves as upper middle class in New York living in in apartment only the top 1% of writers can afford when the reality is the opposite.

I think it's more that if TV was just real life nobody would watch it

I actually love shoes like Sopranos that pay attention to those details. Why is the soprano home so clean? They have a maid. Then Tony moves out into his mom's old place and it's a shit show, dishes, pizza boxes and beer bottles everywhere. Clothes all over the floor

Seattle used to have a combination laundromat/bar that was called Sit and Spin.

Never had a chance to go. I imagine it was a very horny place. Also at the time median age in Seattle was like 23.

I lived downtown Seattle in the 90s, close enough we just walked to Sit and Spin with our laundry. Best way to do laundry ever.

Also they were reasonably priced since they made most of their money off the cafe (which had really good food).

I'll have some of those memories for life.

Seems like a brilliant idea. There should be more laundromats with liquor licenses.

Something similar in Columbus. I’ve never washed clothes there, but I have been to punk shows there

Don't believe everything you see on TV. There's a reason it's called "the idiot box".

The idiot box, now there's a term that's a few generations old. TVs aren't really boxes anymore, so... The idiot panel?

I think it's because they are a setting where people are there for a separate purpose to meeting a partner, which allows for romance to be portrayed as spontaneous. Also, clothes (particularly underwear, pyjamas and towels) come into contact with the body and imply intimacy.

In my town, junkies hang out at the laundromat begging for money. The cops show up regularly and haul them off. I saw prostitutes outside of it once, too

Oh my pearls!! Are you ok

Bud, if you've ever encountered an angry meth zombie trapped in an enclosed space with you, you'd know the pain.

I'm a recovering meth addict. Eat shit.

Congrats on recovering. Doesn't give you an excuse to be a bitch though.

Congrats on being privileged to never need to go through that hell, and talking down to those who did.

I don't need to justify myself to you, but my response to the other poster was completely valid. If he's using terms like "meth zombies" and denigrating public facilities that allow addicts to enter because of their presence then he deserves every ounce of contempt he gets.

I'll accept a thank you for the explanation but any other response will result in a block.

Theres a difference between addicts and junkies. Junkies have my empathy but I really understand why someone wouldn't want to spend prolonged times in the same space with one.

It makes me wonder how many people don't own washing machines. I mean I consider that was essential as a fridge.

I mean.....it's getting harder and harder to buy a house as an individual. Apartment living is very real. And if you rent in a duplex, you're not going to buy a washer/dryer.

So.....yeah. I'd say not owning washer/dryer starts becoming more common if you're under 45, and gets more common the younger you go.

Do your landlords not have any requirements to provide even a communal washing machine? In Sweden, and probably most other countries, the law says you have to have it within reasonable distance, otherwise the apartment isn't considered "livable".

This is going to really depend on the state, but no most do not require any appliances be provided. California does not require a fridge to consider the property "livable" so I doubt not providing a washer and dryer would make a rental "unlivable" in most US states.

I mean I get that, certainly within the context of the last five years, but laundromats were a staple of American tv since the eighties I feel (that's at least what American tv I've seen).

Then again I'm almost in that age bracket you mentioned. Laundromats aren't a common where I live, though. There's more nowadays, due to the changes you mentioned, but it's not nearly a common aspect of life.

laundromats were a staple of American tv since the eighties I feel (that's at least what American tv I've seen).

A lot of American TV takes place in NYC, and there just isn’t room for lots of apartments to have washers and dryers in NYC. Buildings might have a laundry room, or you go to a laundromat.

The owner of my laundromat claims that it's cheaper to do your laundry there than at home. At first i thought "of course a laundromat owner would say that", but then he argued that his machines are more efficient than the ones we buy and that they are collectively heated.

I still think he's fulll of shit because he only argued about energy costs, not including his rent taxes or profit; but it did get me thinking that it would be cheaper and more efficient to wash our clothes collectively.

I had to use laundromat for several months in 2021 when my appliances were destroyed and supply chain issues left me stranded for about 6 months.

Anyways, they are expensive as fuck and more importantly, a huge time sink.

The time sink is honestly the biggest part. At least when you’re doing laundry at home, you can do other things while you wait on the laundry. At a laundromat, there’s not much to do except maybe bring an iPad or e-reader. Once you’re done folding your current load of laundry, you’re just kind of stuck waiting for the next load to be done.

It always feels a little bit like when you show up 2 hours early for your flight, but then there’s no line at security and you get to your terminal in like 5 minutes. There’s nothing to do except wait. At least at home, you could go hop on your computer and get some work done, get some other cleaning done, or boot up a game console.

If you're washing one load at a time at the laundromat, you're doing it wrong. The one benefit of them is that you can do a lot of loads in parallel.

Depends on how busy the laundromat is. In an ideal world, yes you’re correct. But there are some days where you’re lucky to grab a single washer and dryer.

Some charity events actually allow people to have community laundry day in certain cities across the US

He’s also ignoring the cost of your time. At home I can do other chores or whatever I want as the washer and dryer go. At the laundromat I’m sitting there on my phone waiting. Also transporting the dirty clothes is a pain in the ass with a car, I’d hate it so much if I didn’t have one.

Definitely more common in suburban areas with more single family homes or places with larger apartments.

That said, having to drag all your laundry down to the laundromat or building laundry is very inconvenient and sucks up a lot of time. I don't miss that at all.

Cheap apartments sometimes don’t have them. My first apartment had neither a laundry machine nor a dishwasher (I honestly consider the latter more critical). I’ve also had in building shared washing machines which also sucked but sucked significantly less

Well I mean people have to strip naked in the laundromat to wash their clothes. What, you guys don’t do that?

For real though, I’d guess it’s just because it’s sort of a meet-cute type of location since patrons may kill time there while their clothes wash and dry and might chat with other patrons while waiting.

Lol having sex in a laundromat is not going to go over well

You didn't see the movie "My Beautiful Laundrette".

I mean you can't have a rags to riches romance take place where all the riches are.

In all seriousness, it's probably the culture. A lot of countries/cities do have settings where laundromats are slightly less angry because it's the preferred norm for getting things done.

That, sadly, does not include my local laundromat, which I'm reluctant to tend to during late hours. One could say it's like the real Five Nights at Freddy's there.

I’ve definitely experienced romance in a laundromat, it was a place where I had basically nothing but time and was freshly out on my own. It was a place I could focus on texting someone I was falling for.

Also it’s one of those things I will struggle to avoid any chance I can get in the future because that time translated to an hour and a half long chore that’s mostly waiting where I couldn’t do much else. It fucking sucked lol.

Oh also there’s a bar with live music in a laundromat that I’ve been to, alcohol and punk music can definitely up the vibes

I used to go to this Laundromat and next door to it was a good burger joint that served beer and had great food. Inside the burger joint was a light up board with all the laundromat machines and they would light up green when your load was complete. Must have been owned by the same people and it was a great business model. I'd go have a burger and beer every other week and watch tv in the burger joint till the light told me my stuff was ready

It's a fantasy. If you lived in Hollowoodland where everyone is beautiful, wouldn't you want them all to be in their underwear, sweat glistening on their bare skin, getting all hot and bothered? It sure would beat the reality where everyone is ugly, fully clothed and just wants to get the fuck outta there ASAP.

Be the change you want to see. Strip naked in the laundromat, lead by example...

Because if people wanted to see angry people who don't want to be there, they would just go to a laundromat in real life.

It's kind of what I liked about Baby Driver, the movie acknowledges that a laundromat is kind of a weird place to hang out for a date, but the awkwardness lets the passionate feelings they have for each other shine through.