[Nyororin]

We love onsen. The same goes for Super Sento - sometimes they`re twice as much fun as real onsen. We`ve probably been to all those in this area (except the very closest one, as it is always packed), and take frequent weekend trips to others further away.

Nakedness is something I don`t really mind. I`m not thin, I don`t have a great body, but neither do a lot of other people in there. In fact, the most common type to encounter in the bath seems to be 80 year old women with pot bellies and pendulum breasts.
I`ve personally never really noticed anyone staring, or really anything more than a sort of "Wow, that`s rare" sort of look. More recently, I seem to draw the "OMG your kid is so cute!!!" crowd though because I take my son in with me.

However, that`s with Japanese in the bath.

I will never again get into an onsen with a foreigner. I have made this mistake twice. Once with family from the US, and once with a friend who wanted me to walk her through the experience. The same thing happened in both cases.
It was incredibly uncomfortable because THEY kept staring at my nudity, and they made a HUGE deal out of it - constantly commenting about the fact that we were naked, overdoing their body hiding motions, being shocked that I wasn`t more humiliated or disgusted with other naked people around, etc. It was incredibly stressful and nothing I will ever choose to repeat.

When everyone else around is comfortable with it, there isn`t anything odd about it.