To me it was an important step in the right direction for her corruption.
But that said, I think if the scene had been written better most people wouldn't have had a problem with it. I bitched about it when the update came out, but I'm still upset by it. While not every scene can be like the Ellie/Julia/Sophia pool scene in terms of quality, I think the sauna scene was L&P at his weakest. The entire scene was poorly constructed; the writing was weak, it used the bare minimum renders possible, and overall it felt rushed. I have never felt before that L&P mishandled a scene, but I was never more bored than when clicking through the uninspired sauna scene. While the renders are as nice as ever, the scene really turns into a drag when DeShawn and Sophia have a "conversation". I say "conversation" because really it was just the narrator telling us about their conversation and that it was good. Then, when we finally do get some payoff, it was short and lame even by AWAM standards. I wasn't expecting a full-on sex show, but literally two more renders would have gone a long way. Instead, it was something like 5 renders from when Sophia finds them having sex, to when she interrupts them and they stop.
The scene felt like an encapsulation of every single issue I've ever had with this game.