Loose Lips	Loose Lips Archive

Miss Poubelle does not know how long there have been gay bathhouses. The idea of a bathhouse itself, is of course, quite old. In an era in which few people had facilities for bathing at home, there were public bathhouses in many places and many times. And in some countries, such as Japan and Turkey, public bathhouses continue as a place for pleasurable relaxation even now that they are not strictly necessary for cleanliness.

Saunas, steambaths, and whirlpools continue as adjuncts to many gyms and health clubs. But a stand-alone bathhouse that is not oriented towards gay men is a rarity in the United States. Of course, Miss Poubelle is sure that there was always gay sex in the older style of public bathhouse. But that sex was presumably covert and not explicitly acknowledged by the management.

View our poll archive

When did the first bathhouse appear that was openly oriented towards gay men seeking sexual partners? The 1960s or 1970s? Or are they an older phenomenon? Perhaps some kind readers of The Guide can enlighten Miss Poubelle on this part of the history of gay institutions.

Regardless of when they first appeared, the golden age of the gay bathhouse ran from about 1970 to the mid-80s. The starting point was the Stonewall riots and the gay liberation movement of the late 60s, and curtains on the golden age began falling with the emergence of AIDS in the early 80s. The word bathhouse during this time came to denote a particular type of facility, which generally had three crucial parts:

1) some combination of showers, saunas, steambaths, and whirlpools
2) darkened public spaces, such as video rooms, mazes, or orgy rooms
3) a series of small private rooms with lockable doors.

Many bathhouses around North America continue to operate on such a model, and there are still some fine examples of classic bathhouses.

But as the AIDS crisis arose, municipal authorities in many cities sought to close the bathhouses by enacting legislation that made illegal one or another features of the traditional bathhouse, and this has led to an odd diversity of arrangements, as bathhouse owners and their patrons try to work around the legal prohibitions. Bathhouse has now come to denote an odd variety of establishments, and we have few expectations about the layout of a bathhouse in a city that is new to us.

In San Francisco, for example, private rooms in bathhouses were banned, while the other aspects remained in place. So at one San Francisco bathhouse, you can still do everything you like, but you must do it on bunk beds that are arranged in several large public rooms. This has turned out to be a bonanza for exhibitionists and voyeurs. At a classic bathhouse, the handsomest patrons often ended up together in locked rooms, while the less blessed wandered the halls and mazes. But in the San Francisco-style bathhouse, everyone gets to watch as the beautiful people fuck each other.

In other cities, the authorities banned the water facilities, so there are no showers, no whirlpool, etc. Gay sex establishments without any baths are usually now called sex clubs. In cities with both bathhouses and sex clubs, the kinkier sex seems to migrate to the sex clubs. It may be that certain kinds of kinkier sex naturally thrive in exhibitionist environments. Perhaps part of the thrill of getting whipped or pissed on comes from the knowledge that others are watching your humiliation.

But there is something deeply illogical about this as well. Sex clubs are the places where some of the dirtiest sex goes on. At some of these places, you can get fist-fucked, drenched in piss, and covered with snot, but you can't take a shower afterwards! Presumably even the piggiest among us would like to wash ourselves off before taking the cab ride home. Sex clubs without any showers are still found in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and no doubt in many other cities as well.

Another municipal response to AIDS was to ban almost everything but the private rooms. This is the situation found in some New York City bathhouses. In these businesses, there are private rooms and showers. And almost nothing else. In places like this, the beautiful disappear behind doors, never to be seen again, while the rest wander about with no place to go. Miss Poubelle visited such a location where the sauna and jacuzzi were closed by order of the department of public health. There was essentially no public space, save for a small video room. And an employee of the bathhouse would show up at the door every few minutes and scold any patrons who were feeling each other up, making for the least erotic bathhouse experience ever.

What is apparent is that in every city where the authorities have tried to ban the bathhouse, gay men continue to find ways to meet each other and have sex. If the legal restrictions are too severe, they organize private, underground sex parties. And if any aspect of the classic bathhouse set up is prohibited, gay men respond by finding another way to keep on having sex.

In the US, regulation of such facilities is left up to city governments with little coordination, so that the national pattern is not so apparent. From Miss Poubelle's viewpoint, it seems clear that banning private rooms, water facilities, and public rooms has almost no effect on men's behavior. If she were appointed national bathhouse czar under the Bush administration, she would impose only these regulations: every bathhouse or sex club must have facilities for washing, provide free condoms and lubricant to patrons, and distribute information about safe sex. The rest of it is up to us.