Eleanor O'Keefferelaxes at a hammam - and tries to keep her eyes averted. It begs a question: with so many spas opening in Ireland, how long before we, too, go naked?
Already you feel on the edge of the forbidden, sneaking past the pastry counter at the Grande Mosquée de Paris, the city's central mosque. A man in a white jellabah steps aside, letting me, my friend and a north African woman in a headscarf slip by his intricately decorated metal trays, which are piled high with honey pastries. It's a Thursday- women's day at the hammam, or Turkish bath, at the mosque - and the pastry-dispenser is also the guardian of our modesty.
Men sip mint tea in the shade of the terrace, oblivious to us. The fortress-thick whitewashed walls muffle the noise from the residential street outside, in the fifth arrondissement. The city, and France, seem to recede even farther into the distance as we cross a mosaic-tiled vestibule.
With eye-opening speed you understand the need for the gatekeeper: naked bodies are everywhere, in all shapes and sizes. They recline, reading magazines on cushioned platforms that line the walls of the circular hammam, or sprawl on massage tables, eyes closed. We're not unwelcome, my friend and I, but suspect we're rather irrelevant to the lightly-clad staff shuffling around the domed reception area. In a sea of women shedding head scarves and long robes, we are conspicuously other. When they do give us their attention we pay for a hammam, scrub, and massage, then , clutching three paper slips marked with Arabic, we undress awkwardly.
For some reason we're feeling slightly sheepish. Maybe it's because, somewhat uncomfortably, we've come to this place of worship for a spa. It's like going to Notre Dame for a Monday-night manicure or to Sacré Coeur for a Wednesday waxing. Or maybe it's just that we're feeling pretty white: white in the near-translucent way that only an Irish person can be and white in the sense of genetically lacking cool.
It's true, too, that most of the women here, from slender young girls to voluptuous mothers and grandmothers with infants, seem to be shades of burnished gold. They're also admirably at ease, and although it takes a while to get used to their frank stares - and to avoid inadvertently focusing on naked breasts and bottoms - they are very friendly.
The two main steam rooms - one plain hot, the other stiflingly so - are cavernous. Bright plastic buckets stand by taps along the wall. Women sit in small groups, washing. With the steam and the heat, it's rather Rubenesque, all this unapologetically ample flesh in one place.
A small, leathery-skinned woman mimes to us to take a handful of a soft, tar-like soap and spread it on ourselves, then take turns with the bucket to douse each other. Another, when the heat has caused every pore to expel the city's grime, leads us to an antechamber where a woman with powerful forearms scrubs me within an inch of my life.
We have a rudimentary conversation in French, which she does not speak very well, and as she relieves me of my now-soggy ticket she grasps my hand and smiles. Having given up on words, I smile back, and although it's perhaps not terribly profound, I feel suddenly moved.
I'm as foreign to her as she, hailing from the rolling countryside of northern Morocco, is to me, yet here is where we meet.
Tingling and clean, I exchange my remaining ticket for a somewhat desultory 10-minute massage. It's more of a rub, in fact, and, as it's almost closing time, the masseuse is more interested in chatting with a colleague. They, in any case, are infinitely more interesting than the massage, and my curiosity keeps me alert.
Mint tea is brought in, and, as I lounge idly on the cushioned platform, the north African woman I came in with slowly starts dressing. She wraps herself in layer after layer until only her face and hands are visible. All of a sudden, as she turns to leave the enveloping warmth of the room, we are again from different worlds.
• The hammam of the Grande Mosquée de Paris is at 39 Rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, in the 5th arrondissement. Call 00-44-1-43313820 or 00-44-1-43311814, www.mosquee-de-paris.net