2 Women in a Male Hamam

• Question: What were 2 women doing in a male hamam?
• Answer: Getting flashed and a naked rub down.

Last week in Istanbul, my friend Brid and I had a fast one pulled on us. We were looking for a hamam (Turkish bath) to while away the afternoon. Brid wanted a good scrub and massage, and I was going along for the ride.

Co-ed Con

Now, I’ve been to quite a few hamams in my time and they’ve all be single-sex ventures. The establishment usually reserves certain days or hours for women. And always the traditional olive soap, dead-skin-removal scrub was performed by a woman. Not this time.

As we walked into the hamam, a man greeted us and showed us to the co-ed dressing area. This surprised me since I thought at least there would be a women’s section and a men’s section, but no, it was co-ed.

I whispered to Brid that I didn’t think that this was right, that I’ve never been to a mixed-sex hamam before, but she assured me that she had been to a fancy Turkish spa at a resort last year and there were men present…..um, okay….

Flashing

So Brid and I go into our separate changing stalls, remove our clothing and try to wrap the sarong-like robes around us, which was difficult because there is barely enough material to cover both our breasts and our backsides.

Thus “dressed” we went into the sauna where a man was lying down. We sat on the opposite bench and he adjusts his legs. I thought he was making adjustments to be a bit modest, but apparently he was just moving into prime flashing position.

He tried to make conversation and Brid, who is Irish and naturally friendly, started talking to the dude. I decided to ignore him and close my eyes. Good thing I did too!

As Brid was being polite, the man was being impolite. He opened his legs to give her a good long look. Within minutes we both decided it’s time to head to the whirlpool and escape the uncomfortable heat.

Nudity

So we’re in the whirlpool area, sitting on the edge of the pool with our feet in the water. After approximately 2 minutes the man from the sauna comes in and asks if we mind if he swims. As he whips off his wrap and jumps into the water, we simultaneously whirl around and leave the room so as not to witness his natural being. That was a close call.

Nudity + Touching

Next we head to the steam room which is lined with marble benches and faucets, spouting warm and cold water. We sit in our sarongs and splash around for about 5 minutes, then the male bath attendant comes in to see if Brid is ready for her rub down.

He tells her to take off her sarong and lay face down on the marble bench opposite, which she does. He then carefully places the sarong over her butt crack, takes the olive soap and proceeds to lather her up, washing her from top to toe.

She flips over and the process repeats itself, her wet sarong barely covering her private parts. Fully lathered, she sits up and is drenched with bucket after bucket of water to remove the suds. She then resumes her face down position for the real scrubbing to begin.

Bathing Bodyguard

Now, I had traveled with Brid for 3 weeks at this point and I saw more of her in that time span then during the entire trip.

See, through mutual agreement, I decided to stay in the steam room during the bath rub to act as body guard. My job was to ensure our man here was professional. I was on the lookout for any inappropriate touching of any kind.

The entire rub down took about 25 minutes. Brid got squeaky clean, and I got pruned as I sat in the steam room on high alert.

After declining my chance at a rub, Brid and I headed back to our changing stalls, wondering what exactly we’d paid for since the bath attendant and flasher seemed to have all the fun.

For a place that’s supposed to get you clean, we left feeling just a tad bit dirty…

Tags: hamam, hammam, Istanbul, Turkey, Turkish spa

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2012 and is filed under Europe.