Sweden, 1981. Married couple Ivar and Pål set out for a gay sauna, hoping to try out something new and add some zest to the partner stereotype. They head for an establishment that operates by the motto: “What happens in the sauna will remain inside the sauna”. They both hope they’ll leave the place just as besotted with each other as they were when they arrived. 1981 is a film which blends explicit eroticism with fragile love in a tale of everyday life and the kind of excesses one should only treat oneself to once in a while.