One of my most frequent stress dreams involves being naked in public. I’m walking through the mall when I realize I’ve forgotten to don pants, for example, or I’m sitting at a restaurant, puzzlingly topless. I grew up in an achingly conservative, Christian family tucked into Middle America’s middle class, where everyone changed with the door locked, and our thick family photo albums held almost no bare baby butts. At my Lutheran grade school, storm-eyed teachers dragged girls into the hallway and had them stretch their arms toward the sky, touchdown-style, and if, at the zenith, a sliver of skin revealed itself above the waistband — demerits all around.

So I always figured my prudishness — my refusal to skinny dip, my shock at college friends who went streaking, my non-participation in the Free the Nipple campaign (though I applaud it) — stemmed from my upbringing, the environment endlessly buttoned-up and modest. I never would have guessed that getting naked in a foreign country would finally make me feel comfortable in my own skin.

I visited Marrakesh last summer, Istanbul and Cappadocia in the fall, and Casablanca this spring. Beautiful, haunting places where I covered my arms and legs out of respect and then baked in the hot sun. And, in each steamy city, between visits to mosaicked mosques and pauses to listen to the chorus of calls to prayer, I indulged in hammam (or Turkish bath) treatments, an ancient spa ritual that's a normal part of life for locals. Many women head to the bathhouse once or twice a week, stripping off their headscarves (and, well, everything else) to chat with friends in a steam room before reclining on a tiled table, in full view of their neighbors, for a full-body wash n' scrub.