Turkish Baths -I Lost my Dignity Yesterday

Our group was just taken to a traditional Turkish Bath yesterday.    Years ago my friend Kristen had relayed her Turkish bath experience to me so immediately I was a little bit panicked.   I had no desire to lounge around a room full of other woman talking about the weather pretending I didn't notice they were naked.  I do not like to sprawl naked in front of other people much.  As word of my bath knowledge spread all of the non Europeans became nervous ( Europeans are naked sprawlers and simply don't understand our North American apprehensions).  Our guide Mate (Meh-teh) and the guy that owned the spa insisted that you are not naked,  you get to wear this  cloth (looked exactly like a giant tea towel) at all times.  The group then began to treat me like an alarmist. Anyway , there appeared to be no other place to go and I always hate to be rude or cause a scene so in we went.  We put on our tea towels , had clay masks put on , had a sauna, showered off ( still in tea towels) and then waited in the steam room for our bath. The group was relaxed at this point convinced they would always have their tea towels on. I knew better and when the bath lady came in to ask who wanted to go first I jumped up. Better to be naked with strangers rather than someone you have too see the next day.  

We entered a room with a giant marble slab that had around 9 or 10 woman on it all at various stages of their bath. All but one were completely naked. Bath foam everywhere. I questioned what microbes were growing here on the surfaces.  I saw no disinfectants :) I was then passed off from the nice kind looking lady to her complete opposite. .. thats all I'm saying.....and she was kind of big.  This lady grabbed my towel and took it. I tried to grab it back and told her I wanted to keep it.  There was one lady on the marble slab with her towel on.  To this the Turkish lady yelled NO very firmly and pushed me down onto the marble slab.  She showed my face into the pillow ( kind of made of pool floaty material) that I know had not been disinfected from the last person as I had seen her walk away.  All I could think was "microbes , microbes , there are microbes on my face. I am going to end up with some weird face rash".  She then proceeded to bath me which was not relaxing as I had someone else's feet in my face and I was aware my feet were in someone else's face.  Plus.....I just don't find it relaxing to have another adult women bath me. That's not a character trait I have.  So I was simply hoping to get through it when her hand "slipped" down my bum crack. On the second slip I became alarmed it wasn't an accident. On the third slip I lifted my head to tell her I did not like that but she just shoved my head back into the pillow and held it there firmly with her hand while saying "shhhhhhhh".

When she came to wash the top half of me I thought the worst was over. But then I felt a heavy weight on my head.  It was then that I realized she was resting her belly on the back of my head.  She was standing at the top of me and when she had to reach over her pot belly got in the way

 So she simply lifted it up and rested it on the back of my head.  It was at that moment that the very last drop of my dignity left me.

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