The city of San Francisco will consider revoking a 1980s law that banned bathhouses in the city.
In the 1970s, bathhouses acted as magnets for gay men, both to meet other singles and to experience music, dancing and social time. That changed with the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, which prompted major cities like New York and San Francisco to shutter the popular gay bathing spots. Laws required the removal of private rooms and video booths, as well as to have a “monitor” on-site to make sure nobody engaged in unsafe sexual practices.
Related: Parents furious that talent show auditions are being held next to a gay bathhouse
Now the City by the Bay will consider removing those regulations entirely. “Our current regulations for adult sex venues were put in place as an emergency measure at the height of the AIDS crisis when San Francisco was desperate to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS,” said City Supervisor Raphael Mandelman said a statement. Mandelman is openly gay, and the spearhead of revoking the arcane restrictions. “Decades later, with the emergence of PrEP and in light of San Francisco’s reduction in HIV diagnoses to under 200 for the first time since the 1980s, these regulations — including a ban on private rooms and required monitoring of patrons’ sexual activities — have no public health rationale and need to be changed.”
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Mandelman hopes to enact new regulations that would allow traditional bathhouses to reopen, as well as require them to offer condoms, STD testing and education. “When properly operated, by providing access to safer sex educational materials and supplies and HIV and STD testing, these venues assist rather than impede our efforts to control the transmission of HIV,” Mandelman said.
If enacted, the new restrictions would go into effect this July.
Jared MacBride
Comeback – I hate that word – it’s return.
Paton41
I think I’m resistant to HIV. In the eighties I frequented the bath houses and sex clubs in SF. Loved Animals and the Slot. The Animals bath house was clean but the slot was good dirty if you know what I mean. The bath houses today are bad dirty and the ones I have been to are in need of drastic repairs.
Kangol2
Bath houses never went away in certain places (Chicago, NYC, San Diego, etc.) though their numbers have plummeted over the last 40 years, primarily because of the AIDS pandemic, but they are safer than meeting unknown people for sex in your private home, are not illegal unlike public sex venues, and can manage admissions (through fees, requesting an ID to verify name and age, etc.), mandate rules for anonymity (no cameras inside, etc.), and promote safe(r) sex, providing PrEP and condoms, lube, shower facilities, etc.
Kangol2
Not just syphilis, but a wide array of STIs. The other things bath houses could do is provide free on the spot testing for STIs, including HIV. So many people have these illnesses but have no idea they do until things reach the dicey stage.
Thad
There’s actually a new bathhouse in…Louisville. Yes, Kentucky.
Cato
Vapor in Louisville has actually been around for nearly a decade. The staff are very friendly and the facilities are well-maintained. Whenever business brings me to town, I make sure to set aside a few hours to stop in. It’s one of the nicest bathhouses in the country, along with Flex Spa in Cleveland.
evanxx
David Reddish credits the emergence of PrEP as the main reason there is no public health rationale for the ban on bathhouses. Wake up…. PrEP is only half the reason the ban should be lifted. People who are “undetectable” are much safer for non-transmission of HIV than those on PrEP. PrEP is 99% safe, while undetectable men are absolutely ZERO risk. Condoms are only about 87% safe. I agree that the ban on bath houses is completely unnecessary. It’s much safer than bringing a stranger home from the bar, more private, and much cleaner because the men in the bathhouses are freshly showered and sober.
Jenniferp412
I volunteer at a gay health clinic. The people that come in for testing that test positive for HIV are about 90% under the age of 22. Not to mention herpes, gonorrhea and syphilis. We have to ask questions when we do the tested on how often each person uses condoms. I know some of them lie but the vast majority of young people state “I do not use condoms often” or “I do not use them.” If they do open these places back up, I hope they make each person that wants to attend to go through training on how to be safer during sex.
frapachino
All the finger pointing uptight SJW types will have something new to rail against.
Kangol2
You’re the main one who brought up something negative, Rustyspam/frapachino (sic). It’ll be your right-wing pals with “something to rail against,” and not progressive LGBTQ people, who are sex-positive and pro-PrEP.
Malibu Eric
From age 16-20 I was a weekly regular at the gloriously hedonistic bathhouses in San Francisco. Then of course everything changed. Currently here in Portland, OR there are 3 very open, very, very busy bathhouses in prime real estate locations. Did they ever really go away?
Patrick
They never went away in Denver. Two very nice ones have been here for over 30 years, & there was another one for a few years. Plus, one in Colorado Springs for many years.
passingthru
But there is no place like the old Denver Ballpark!
brahbate
Hot!
winemaker
Rafael Mandelman is an idiot if he wants to bring back bathhouses. Statements encouraging reopening these places are no surprise coming from this idiot. I’ve lived in San Francisco for over 35 years and saw too many guys die from AIDS .BTW: his supervisorial district the Castro is a dirty bum infested cess pit, with urine, feces and dirty needles littering the streets, crime and lots of empty store fronts. Instead of cleaning up the place and doing something positive for his district and its residents this fool proposes a neighborhood bath house. San Francisco idiocy and progressiveness at its best at work here.
Johnathan
Oh please.. San Francisco was perfect until Silicone valley / wealthy foreign investors did their gentrification, everything that made San Francisco the best gay city closed including bath houses , made it unaffordable for liberal free spirits ,artist etc. To live there. Hopefully bath houses returning will bring back the true energy of San Francisco.
Chrisk
Johnathan
I agree and as someone who lived there in the past what destroyed SF was the re-gentrification. Now you have to be wealthy to be able to afford living there or have been there since the beginning. This in turn has exploded the homeless population that Winemaker is now bitching about. Lets face it. If most of us here were forced to live in SF we too would probably be homeless and shitting in the streets.
As you say. The true spirit of SF is long gone now.
stephen_25
Pharmaceutical companies need to be held to greater account I personally believe.
They all make too much money in prevention or treatment.
I am sure they have cures for syphilis gonorrhoea and all the other nasties. As well as for HIV but they make billions in treatments rather than cure.
sillyme
Of course in treatment they get their all mighty dollar and if they release a cure well then they go broke and have to wait for another major illness to hit like norvid19 and then they will offer treatment only and have a cure so that they can make way more money still. Greedy asswipes they will be getting theirs in time for karma will take care of them in the long run.
Aires the Ram
If it weren’t for Pharmaceutical companies doing research, and bringing life saving drugs to market, at enough profit to fund the billions it cost to bring just one drug to market, we’d have nothing to treat anything. So before you go off screaming “those evil capitalist drug companies”, consider for a moment what our lives would be like, and how short they’d actually be, if not for the work of these “so-called” capitalist entities that we refer to as Pharmaceutical Companies. If you want them destroyed because they won’t “give” everyone drugs for free, then you’ll have NO life saving drugs. Understand that???
Naw, I didn’t think so.