Bathhouses, Wasdin says, can provide a neutral, safe space to meet and have sex. Even finding hookup partners via apps comes with its own degree of risk, either in going to a stranger’s home or having them come to you, as does meeting at bars and good ol’ fashioned cruising. But even still, bathhouses have historically provided a certain amount of safety and ease to the gay male community that can’t be denied.Īnd Wasdin says that continues to this day. Supreme Court decision striking down homophobic anti-sodomy laws have certainly made it safer and actually legal to seek out same-sex hookups. The explosion of dating apps and the landmark 2003 U.S. You know, even just meeting with your friends to hang out and chat was dangerous in this country.”
But, there was always this concurrent side that was just as important, especially in the 60s and 70s, as bathhouses emerged and became popular. And having, you know, a lot of sex is awesome. “We don’t run from that, we don’t hide from that because, you know, sex is awesome. “Yes, they’re about sex,” says Gary Wasdin, executive director of the Leather Archives & Museum. To the untrained eye, gay bathhouses like Steamworks are mere dens of iniquity, where taps on the bathroom floor, a lingering glance, or a door ajar says much more than you’d expect but to the initiated and the experienced, they are indeed that, but also so much more. It looks more like an armory or a warehouse than anything else.īut in true if you know, you know fashion, the space opens up once you’re inside, past a check-in counter to a complex that includes a gym, a steam room, and saunas, as well as private rooms and public spaces to have sex-often called “play spaces”-and the opportunities they present. There aren’t any posters or advertisements on the side of the building.
On its exterior, Steamworks is rather unremarkable. It’s month eight of the pandemic, and while some might be wishfully thinking about enjoying a drink from their favorite bar or ordering their favorite meal in person in the hopefully not-too-distant future, others are waiting for when they can indulge in pleasures that are harder to order to-go.
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