Privacy policy.

Once upon a time, I was in Greece with my family. I think I was 18 or 19. We decided to spend the day at the beach, so I packed my swimsuit, towel, and a grass mat (I’ll forever associate the smell of wet grass mat with cheap travel around Europe) and off we went. On the sand, swimmers and sunbathers lolled beneath the flaming sun — some reading books, some chatting beneath umbrellas, some watching their friends splash in the surf.

Nearly all the women, I quickly noticed, were topless.

So, yes, this is the part of the story where I, an American young woman alongside her mom and dad and younger sister, must make a choice. Bare all (50% to be clear) like the locals? Wear my bathing suit — a one-piece — like I normally would? Or stay in my sundress and fake being just fine with my feet in the sand?

I stared at the beckoning sea, until a compromise presented itself: change into my suit, swim, and then try sunbathing with the top rolled down, like a convertible, but on my stomach. Not bad, yes? Not too weird with the parents right there … not so proto-Puritan I may as well have worn a coif and a waistcoat. I wrapped my towel around myself like women do in shampoo ads — fabric pulled snug around the body, just beneath the armpits, with the final top corner tucked demurely into the terry folds. Then I wriggled and bent, shimmied and futzed, as I tried to pull off my underwear, step into my bathing suit, and yank it up to my chest, all while keeping that damn towel in place.

It was a mortifying, wobbly dance of ridiculousness, all while countless glamorous women of every age serenely sunbathed — hair perfectly in place, demeanor calm, manner cool, and tits up (excuse my French) to the heavens.

So, privacy.

I respect it, even when doing so may seem olde-fashioned, out of place, or inconvenient.

And even when it’s completely awkward.