Gay Baths

In the “good old days ” (i.e. a few decades ago) before the AIDS crisis, no visit to another city was complete without checking out its best-known “tubs”—Denver’s Ball Park, Beverly Hills’ Club 8709, and San Francisco’s Ritch Street Baths were the equivalents of the Rockies, the Hollywood sign, and the Golden Gate Bridge as must-see spots. Baths or bathhouses (known in Europe as saunas) were one of the most popular meeting places for gay men, and one of the few places where sexual contact was, if not guaranteed, at least expected.

Which was pretty much their undoing. During the mideighties, political forces both within and outside the gay community decided that bathhouses were loci of unsafe sex practices. Compromises were attempted in some cities: Literature about AIDS was strewn all over the bathhouses’ public areas, and machines selling condoms and spermicidal lotions were placed next to those selling Dr Pepper and Sprite. In some cities, doors were removed from the rooms, and in San Francisco, “monitors” were appointed to rove the baths checking that people were not having sex or sucking without condoms. But as the death toll from AIDS rose dramatically, these half measures came to seem less attempts at preserving civil rights than a way of preserving a lifestyle—glamorized in the seventies—that seemed fatally outmoded.

Some gay bathhouses do still exist and are, oddly enough, more prevalent in smaller cities than in larger ones, and mostly in the American South and Midwest and in Europe. (Although recently the few remaining in large cities have expanded as a result of increased popularity.) Lately sex clubs have replaced them. Should you find yourself near a bathhouse, you may want to go in and at least look around.

Lockers (cheaper) and rooms (more expensive) are usually available, the former often in a gymlike changing-room area. The rooms are usually small plasterboard cubicles containing a bed, a lamp, a tiny shelf, and nothing else. Bathhouse amenities generally include a pool or Jacuzzi that can hold anywhere from four to twelve people. Also likely are showers, saunas, and steam rooms; sometimes there’s a dormitory area or a small gym or workout room; also there’s a lounge with a TV or video screen for porn flicks or even old movies. A night at a bathhouse can be a boring or an eye-opening experience. And who knows? You might even meet someone you’d like to see again. If you decide to have sex, be certain it’s safe sex. Even before the AIDS crisis, sexually transmitted diseases were a constant bathhouse problem. The same caution should be exercised in sex clubs.