Within seconds, a white-trousered attendant had scooted over and hoicked me out. Horrified, I assumed that I’d failed to spot the relevant gender signage, but no: that wasn’t the nature of my misdemeanour. What I had failed to do, he explained, was unhook my halter top and drop the briefs, thus transgressing continental spa etiquette. I should have strolled in towel-less and in the buff, unfettered by Gucci Lycra and unabashed about what God had given me.
I loitered outside, wondering whether to fling off my kit, flit back in and ask the boys — and by then, two girls — to budge up, but try as I might, this English girl just couldn’t bring herself to strip. So I skulked back to the swimming pool with my towel between my legs, still reeling from the fact that in a single minute, I’d clocked as many willies as I’d seen in my entire lifetime.
What’s more, as I took my walk of shame, naked women started leaping from saunas into icy plunge pools. As their breasts lifted like life rafts, I realised I wasn’t even keen to join my own kind, and it prompted me to ponder this: was I a prude for not going nude in public?
Partly, it’s a vanity thing. While I’ve got a pretty good bod, there are bits and bobs — but mainly boobs — that I don’t consider to be my finest features and, therefore, am shy about. My reluctance also stems from my upbringing. When I was a child, it was the norm to wriggle into swimwear under a towelling tepee or roll up bathing costumes under vests, then roll vests over heads. But while my shyness has only ever been a problem abroad, especially in countries where they beat their butts with birch from birth, I’ve noticed it’s becoming more of an issue over here.
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At most home-grown spas or gyms, I swear that more women are strutting about as if they’re limbering up for a pole-dancing set or a spot of burlesque — all they need is a couple of feather fans. The new Bath spa — horrors — has unisex changing rooms. And then there are the eco-naturists, another growing band, presumably spurred on by aged calendar girls and that game bird at the Chelsea Flower Show. I mean, is it strictly necessary to emerge from the shower, grab a towel and commence a sawing action under your crotch while simultaneously waxing lyrical about Fairtrade bananas?
Then there’s the whole topless-sunbathing thing to contend with. Suddenly, women who usually scurry to a fitting room to try on a cardigan throw caution and bikini tops to the wind, and start nonchalantly slurping daiquiris while slathering their breasts with factor 15. This makes me nervous, partly because I worry that my eyes will start darting, Father Dougal-like, to those bits of their anatomy I never see the rest of the year (which makes me look a bit suspect), and partly because I’m expected to follow suit. Which I don’t. So, ironically, I get stared at for not exposing myself.
It seems that in UK spas, too, there are more male therapists around, ready to perform treatments such as naked Mexican-wave therapy. I’m sorry, but this makes me run for the hills. In my world, having your breasts squeezed and pummelled is a fourth-date manoeuvre, minimum. And if two men are doing it simultaneously, it’s an orgy.
That said, many of my friends think my embarrassment is ridiculous. “It’s just perpetuating the idea that there’s something to be ashamed of,” says one. She keeps telling me that nobody looks or cares; that I’m being anal. To which I reply that being anal on a sauna seat is another, somewhat unhygienic, aspect of mass nakedness that worries me.
Anyway, who is she kidding — nobody looks? We all know we check each other out. If I see a woman with thighs that resemble a button-back settee, I feel rather smug. (Of course, if she has voluptuous breasts, I feel jealous, and if she has wild and woolly armpit hair, I feel slightly queasy.)
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That said, I admit that, in some circumstances, naked can be nice. I’ve been skinny-dipping in the sea and I loved the delicious sense of freedom — then again, it was dark.
Finally, I never wear paper knickers for a massage because: (a) the therapist generally does the dance of the seven folded towels; and (b) if you wear one of those one-size-fits-nobody J-cloth thongs and a hand accidentally slips underneath, it feels like a far greater violation of privacy.
So, as pathetic as it may seem, I’m really in no hurry to join the rush to go starkers with strangers. I shall simply carry on being a wallflower in the changing room. And steer clear of all steam rooms on the Continent.