Gay bathhouse
Gay bathhouses, also known as (gay) saunas or steam baths (and sometimes called, in gay slang in some regions, "baths" or "tubs"), are places where men can go to have sex with other men (note that not only men who identify as gay patronise gay bathhouses). Bathhouses for women are much more rare, though some men's bathhouses will occasionally have "lesbian" or "women-only" nights.Bathhouses vary considerably in size and amenities -- from small establishments with ten or twenty rooms and a handful of lockers to multi-storey saunas with a variety of room styles or sizes and several steam baths, jacuzzi tubs and sometimes even swimming pools -- but nearly all have at least one steam room (or wet sauna), as well as lockers and small private rooms. Bathhouses are not brothels, and many prohibit or discourage prostitution and ban known prostitutes.
Bathhouses are frequently run 24 hours. There is typically a single customer entrance and exit; the customer pays in advance for a room -- typically consisting of a locker and a single bed (though doubles are sometimes available) -- or a locker, which is "rented" for a fixed period, typically from one to twelve hours. After paying the customer is buzzed through the main door. This system allows establishments to screen potential trouble- makers: many bathhouses refuse entry to those who are visibly intoxicated, or to known prostitutes. In some areas, particularly where homosexuality and/or steambaths are illegal or viewed with hostility, this is a necessary safety precaution. For similar reasons, some bathhouses require the presentation of identification, though the majority do not.
Some bathhouses require customers to purchase yearly memberships, while others do not. Many bathhouses offer specials to members or to students or other groups. In some countries, bathhouses restrict entrance to men of certain age ranges or physical types, and even percieved nationality or race, while in other places this is considered illegal discrimination. Some bathhouses hold occasional "leather," "underwear" or other theme nights.
On being buzzed in, the customer receives a (usually white) towel and the key for his room or locker. Many bathhouses also give free condoms and lubricants. Some establishments require a piece of identification or an item of value to be left with the front desk on entry.
Bathhouses are usually dimly lit, and pipe in music via a sound system. They are usually laid out in a circular fashion, or in such a way as to allow or encourage customers to wander throughout the establishment. Rooms are usually grouped together, as are lockers. Bathhouses are frequently decorated with posters of nude or semi-nude men, and sometimes explicit depictions of sex.
As most men go barefoot (though some men choose to wear slippers or similar footwear and some bathhouses require it), floors are usually carpeted; this also prevents customers from slipping. The heat is kept relatively high.
The customer proceeds to his room or locker where he changes out of his street clothes and wraps a towel around his waist (most bathhouses are clothing optional and some encourage total nudity, but in some areas nudity is forbiden in the common areas of the establishments. However, in most bathhouses it is unusual for customers to remain fully dressed in street clothes). The room or locker key is usually on an elastic which can be worn around the wrist or ankle. The customer is then free to wander throughout the public areas of the bathhouse, which may include:
Some bathhouses provide non-sexual services such as massage and reflexology.
Customers typically divide their time between the showers/saunas/jacuzzis and the main areas of the establishment. Customers who have rented rooms may choose to rest there from time to time, while those who have rented lockers must rest in the public areas such as the cafe or lounge.
Customers who have rooms may leave their room doors open to signal that they are available for sex. An open door can also be an invitation for others to watch sexual activity that is already occuring, or to join in. Those who would like to be pentrated anally ("bottoms") will sometimes lie face down on the bed with the door open; "tops" lie face up.
In the past, the baths served as community spaces for gay men. Even now, some men choose to go to the baths with their friends (even though they may not necessarily have sex with each other). While many men talk to each other at the baths, even forming long-lasting friendships or relationships, many others do not, preferring, for various reasons, anonymity. Interested men will usually look at each other; in this highly sexualized environment a look is frequently enough to express interest. A nod signals interest, while looking away or shaking the head is usually enough to signal disinterest, though sometimes people misunderstand or refuse to take the hint. Such men are called trolls. In darkened areas of the tubs and in mazes, video rooms, group sex areas and saunas/jacuzzis (but not generally in the showers, toilets, hallways, gyms, cafe areas and lounges), men are usually free to touch other patrons; it is expected and usually -- but not always -- welcomed. A shake of the head, or pushing away the other's hand, expresses disinterest.
Some establishments encourage sex in public areas (usually exluding hallways, toilets, cafes, gyms and lounges), while some do not; in some jurisdictions such activity is prohibited, and sex must be confined to private rooms. In such areas individual bathhouses enforce these rules to varying degrees, often at their own legal risk. Customers are usually free to watch others masturbating or having sex in public areas, and also to join in, providing none of the participants objects.
Gay men have been meeting for sex in bathhouses at least since the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the west, a time when homosexual acts were illegal and men who were caught engaging in homosexual acts were often arrested and publicly humiliated. Men began frequenting cruising areas such as public parks, alleys, train and bus stations, movie theaters, public lavatories ("cottages") and gym changing rooms where they could meet other men for sex; they also frequented bathhouses, or Turkish baths. Some bathhouse owners tried to prevent sex between patrons while others, mindful of profits, allowed discreet homosexual activity (2).
In the 1950s exclusively gay bathhouses began to open in America. Though subject to vice raids these bathhouses were "oases of homosexual camaraderie" and were, as they remain today, "places where it was safe to be gay," whether or not patrons themselves idenfitied as homosexual. The gay baths offered a much safer alternative to sex in other public places (3).
In the late 1960s and '70s gay bathhouses, now primarily gay-owned and operated, became fully-licensed, gay establishments which soon became a major gay institution. These bathhouses served as informal gay meeting places, places where friends could meet and relax. Gay bathhouses frequently threw parties for Pride Day and public holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, when some gays, particularly those who had been rejected by their families, had nowhere to go.
Another service offered by the baths was voter registration. During the 1980 election, the New St. Mark's Baths in New York, with the assistance of the League of Women Voters, conducted a voter registration drive on its premises (4).
Although most bathhouses do not allow customers to leave temporarily and re-enter, men frequently used bathhouses as a cheap (and sexy) alternative to hotels. This practice continues today.
Gay bathhouses have been blamed for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), in particular HIV, and this has forced their closure in some jurisdictions (see Legal issues, below). There is likely some truth in this claim, at least in the early days of the epidemic, as condoms were rarely used between men before the early 1980s, and bathhouses served as a primary meeting point for same-sex (male) sex partners. As part of their membership agreement, or as a condition of entry, some bathhouses now require customers to affirm in writing that they will only practice safe sex on the premises, and venues frequently provide free condoms, latex gloves and lubrication (and/or have them available for purchase).
Some anti-bathhouse activists argue that these measures are not enough, especially given that it is virtually impossible to monitor sexual activity in a bathhouse, but while acknowledging that closing gay bathhouses may force some men into unsafe or illegal situations in public parks and lavatories, point out that they may be less likely to engage in anal or multipartner sex -- both of which put participants at risk for contracting STDs -- in such situations (5).
In some areas, such fears have prompted the closing of bathhouses -- with their private rooms -- in favour of sex clubs, in which all sexual activity takes place in the open, and can be observed by monitors whose job it is to enforce safe-sex practices.
A related issue is that of drug and alcohol consumption. In some countries, such as Canada, most bathhouses are prohibited to sell alcohol, but in other countries, such as Japan, they are not. Many bathhouses deny entry to those who are visibly intoxicated but do not -- or cannot -- regulate the consumption of drugs (typically marijuana, poppers, ecstasy and cocaine) by their patrons. This is a problem because the use of drugs and alcohol may make people more likely to engage in unsafe sex. Intravenous drug users may be more likely to share needles, considered a very high risk activity, when high.
Gay bathhouses today continue to fill much the same function as they did historically, although the community aspect has lessened somewhat in some areas, particularly in the west, with the increasing tendency of gay men to come out.
Men still use bathhouses as a convenient, safe place to meet other men for sex. Such encounters are frequently, but not always, anonymous. They sometimes lead to relationships, but often do not. Bathhouses are still used by men who do not identify as gay or bisexual, but have sex with men, as well as by those who are closeted and/or in heterosexual relationships.
The advent of the internet has made it significantly easier to find lovers and casual sex partners, and some men who used to frequent the baths may be using internet personals instead. However, for many men the baths offer other attractions: the opportunity for group sex or sex with several partners, public sex, the fantasy areas, convenience and safety, and the use of steam saunas and jacuzzis and other amenities.
Some men also continue to use the baths as a cheaper alternative to hotels.
In 1993 Australia began airing possibly the world's first TV ads for a gay bathhouse. Aired on local TV in Melbourne, the ad is for Wet, a sauna in Wellington.
On February 21, 1903 New York police conducted the first recorded raid on a gay bathhouse, the Ariston. 26 men were arrested and 12 brought to trial on sodomy charges; 7 men received sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years in prison (6).
In California the "Consenting Adult Sex Bill," passed in January 1976, made gay bathhouses and the sex that took place within them legal for the first time. In 1978 a group of police officers raided the Liberty Baths in San Francisco and arrested three patrons for "lewd conduct in a public place," but the District Attorney's office soon dropped the charges against them (7). In 1984, however, fear of AIDS caused the San Francisco Health Department, with the support of some gay activists, to force gay bathhouses in the city to close as a public health measure. They were soon replaced by sex clubs, which have no private rooms and therefore allow monitoring of sexual activity (8).
On February 5th, 1981, 150 police raided four gay bathhouses in Toronto, Ontario, the Club Baths, the Romans II Health and Recreation Spa, the Richmond Street Health Emporium and The Barracks. The Richmond Health Emporium was so badly damaged in the raid that it never reopened. Nicknamed Operation Soap, the raid resulted in the arrests of 268 men who were charged as found-ins ("found in a bawdy house") and 19 others who were charged as "keepers of a common bawdy house." There was an immediate and angry response from both the gay and lesbian community and others who condemned the raids as unconstitutional, and over 3000 people gathered in downtown streets in protest. Over 1400 people joined the "Right to Privacy Committee" to set up a defense campaign for those charged in the raids and to organize a second demonstration which took place on February 20th, and included over 4000 people who gathered at Queen's Park and marched to Metro Toronto Police's 52 Division (9).
In 2000, Toronto police raided a women's night at a gay bathhouse called Club Toronto. Police, some of them male, entered the establishment and walked around, taking the names and addresses of some 10 women.
In December of 2002, Calgary police raided Goliaths, one of the city's oldest baths, resulting in charges against 19 men.
Singer Bette Midler is well-known for getting her start at the famous Continental Baths in New York City the early 1970s. It was there, accompanied by pianist Barry Manilow (who, like the bathhouse patrons, sometimes wore only a white towel) that she created her stage persona "the Divine Miss M." In an interview in the Houston Voice, Midler said,
Layout and typical amenities
According to "The History of Gay Bathhouses," starting in the 1970s bathhouses began to install "fantasy environments" which recreated erotic situations that were illegal or dangerous: Orgy rooms . . . encouraged group sex, while glory holes recreated
[public] toilets, and mazes took the place of bushes and undergrowth
[in public parks]. Steam rooms and gyms were reminiscent of the
cruisy YMCAs, while video rooms recreated the balconies and back
rows of movie theaters. A popular NYC bathhouse
called Man's Country provided a full-size model of [an] Everlast
truck where visitors could have sex in the cab or in the rear[,]
which served as an orgy room . . . Man's Country also offered
a . . . fake prison cell made of rubber bars (1).
Many bathhouses have small shops selling such items as cigarettes, pornography, sex toys, latex gloves, massage oils and lubricants, razors and shaving cream, aftershave and cologne, toothbrushes, hair products, and related items. Some also sell condoms, shower gel, shampoo and conditioner, but these are usually provided free.Etiquette
History
Gay bathhouses and STDs
Bathhouses today
Legal issues
America
Canada
Bathhouse celebrities and the Continental Baths
Despite the way things turned out [with the AIDS crisis], I'm still
proud of those days [when I got my start singing at the gay
bathhouses]. I feel like I was at the forefront of the gay liberation
movement, and I hope I did my part to help it move forward. So, I
kind of wear the label of 'Bathhouse Betty' with pride
(10).
Other famous performers who appeared at the Continental include Melba Moore, Peter Allen, Cab Calloway, The Manhattan Transfer, John Davidson and Wayland Flowers. As word spread of these appearances more and more heterosexuals began to attend the shows, and the gay clientele began to go elsewhere. Realizing that it was losing its most important customers, the Continental made the decision to discontinue these performances at the end of 1974. Unable to lure back its original clientele, the Continental reopened as a straight swinger's club which closed in 1985 (11).References
Related topics
External links