Real men go to spas. The beauty and health industries made a serious marketing misstep when they created that mythical man, the metrosexual. You don't have to be a narcissistic, materialistic, urban dandy to enjoy the grooming and relaxation regimens that spas offer.

With that in mind, Vancouver's Absolute Spa group has added ownership of the spa at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver to its roster, which already includes favourite celebrity hangout Spa at the Century, among others in the Lower Mainland (www.absolutespa.com/). Renovations mean the Hotel Van space will focus primarily on men, and when they are completed (and if they live up to the company's professed intentions), clients can expect more from the new digs than Enya with an injection of testosterone.

Guys who are uncomfortable with labels that connote ambiguous sexuality should be able to appreciate a spa experience without being pigeonholed. Feeling good about oneself is neither a masculine nor a feminine attribute; it's universally human.

"We're seeing a big increase in men coming into the spa," spa manager Joan Dunlop said over the phone. "They're all ages. We see businessmen and construction workers. What's really noticeable is the number of men booking appointments for themselves. It used to be [for] their wives or girlfriends."

Since 1987, the number of men visiting spas has quadrupled, according to the Lexington, Kentucky--based International Spa Association, and today, men comprise 29 percent of North America's spa business. China has a long history of public facilities where men meet to bathe, soak the steam in, enjoy a massage, and socialize. Shanghai's new white-collar crowd is flocking to the first modern, full-service spa for men, David's Camp. Kabul's public bathhouses for men are reopening. They had been closed down by the Taliban, which considered them an offence to Islam. This contradicts the widespread cultural significance of the traditional hammam (Turkish bath). Dating back to antiquity across the Arab world, hammams cater to gender-segregated, predominantly male bathing, grooming, and hanging out. (Vancouver's Miraj Hammam Spa [www.mirajhammam.com/] has separate time slots for male and female clients.) In Europe, spas have enjoyed the patronage of men of means for centuries, from the hot springs of Bath, once a seasonal centrepiece of English society, to the thermal pools of high-end Baden-Baden to Swiss sanatoriums--precursors to the growing trend of "medi-spas" as immortalized by Thomas Mann in The Magic Mountain. A Mann's man might also find himself at the Baltic seaside in the spa resort of Travemíƒ ¼nde, of Buddenbrooks fame.

Absolute isn't the only spa that has caught on to the male market. Men are more than welcome at Yaletown's Skoah Spa (www.skoah.com/), for instance, which, as its Web site proclaims, has "no whale music, no bubbling cherubs". Its extreme facial ($150) includes a foot treatment and a scalp massage--and "bed head guaranteed".

And weekend getaways centred around hot-stone massages aren't just de rigueur for stagettes anymore. Groups of men and hetero couples might opt to visit the Semiahmoo Resort, just south of the Peace Arch border crossing. The seaside hotel (www.semiahmoo.com/) has recently renovated its spa, which offers such men-friendly services as a sports massage, which aims to diminish the buildup of lactic acid, boost circulation, and ease muscle pain (about $106) and a refining back treatment, in which a therapist cleanses and exfoliates the skin from the neck to the hips (around $118). Whistler's Taman Sari Royal Heritage Spa, in the Summit Lodge (www.summitlodge.com/), gets even more male-oriented, with its executive men's facial ($100). The elegant centre, which has locations in Japan, China, Singapore, the Czech Republic, and Indonesia, also attracts men with its detoxifying Merapi-volcano body wrap ($160) and the Javanese lulur massage, which incorporates turmeric, rice powder, and other herbs.

While sitting at the Absolute getting a manicure ($40) or a pedicure ($55), fellas might want to ponder the important role spas and their permutations have played as purveyors to male identity and community throughout the millennia. Relaxing into a Y-Spa facial ($99), they should contemplate all the wheeling and dealing that has gone on in spas throughout history. Whether treating themselves to a 60-minute sport massage ($90), finishing back wax ($55), or Moor mud body wrap ($90), it would behoove them to consider that in many cultures around the globe, what we now call spas have been integral to social perceptions of athleticism and male body image. During full-on treatment packages like the Absolute Man ($275 for a 60-minute massage, facial, manicure, and pedicure) or the VIP Package ($600 for a four-hour customized treatment, including a private butler and aesthetician), they'd do well to remember that the fates of entire nations have been sealed in spalike settings.

For the epitome in grooming and nation-building, or -destroying, it can truly be said that all roads lead to Rome. Perhaps the Absolute could put together a Spartacus package named after the senators who swapped conspiracies within the confines of the thermae, as Roman bathhouses were called: a Gracchus Facial, a Crassus Body Slough, and a Glabrus Rubdown, topped off by your choice of manicure, pedicure, or back-stabbing. Perfect for a pick-me-up prior to a mass crucifixion along the Appian Way.

The Romans picked up where the Greeks, and before them the Egyptians, left off. At first, the therma was exclusive to males, soldiers in particular, but by the end of the first century AD, it was accessible to all free citizens regardless of gender. At the peak of their popularity in 300 BC, more that 900 such establishments dotted the city. Women, who were charged twice as much as men, visited the bathhouses from dawn till noon; men, from noon till dusk. The first room they entered was the apodyterium, where they changed and stored their belongings, kept safe under the watchful eye of a slave. Exercise in a gym, the palestra, was followed by a trip to the tepidarium, where a slave oiled them down then scraped the liquid off with a carved wood strigil. Next, the steam room, or caldarium, or a dry sauna, the laconium. A visit to the frigidarium sealed their pores, followed by a massage with fragrant oils.

The Absolute is a far cry from Roman days and the Latin term salus per aquam, or "healing from water", from which we get spa. It's more egalitarian, for starters. Patrons can look forward to soothing, neutral surroundings influenced by feng shui, as well as their own choice of music, video games, and sports channels and the ability to check e-mail and stock options. And if their stocks go belly up, staff will be able to recommend the appropriate aromatherapy to calm them down.