A Peek Unr the Towel: Insi the 500-Year History of Gay Bathho | Hor, the Queer Social Network

Contents:

• GAY BATHHOE EROS TO OPEN S NEW TENRLO LOTN FOR PRI WEEKEND
• BEFORE IT BURNED DOWN, THIS BATHHOE SERVED AS A HAVEN FOR NEW YORK CY’S GAY COMMUNY
• A PEEK UNR THE TOWEL: INSI THE 500-YEAR HISTORY OF GAY BATHHO
• DID CLOSG NEW YORK CY BATHHO THE 1980S STRIP DIGNY OM GAY MEN?
• NEW YORK CY GAY TRAVEL
• A S-OLD BAN ON GAY BATHHO WAS ABOUT TO BE LIFTED. THEN, A PANMIC.
• EXPLORG THE REVIVAL OF GAY BATHHO NEW YORK CY AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNY
• GAY BATHHO NEAR ME

GAY BATHHOE EROS TO OPEN S NEW TENRLO LOTN FOR PRI WEEKEND

-- Jaguars assistant strength and ndng ach Kev Maxen has bee the first male ach major Amerin men's profsnal sports to publicly e out as gay, tellg he ma the cisn bee he didn't want to hi who he is any longer and to possibly spire others siar suatns.It's a cisn and move that drew praise and support om owner Shad Khan, who was a vol and emphatic supporter of a cy ordance that expand protectns on the grounds of sexual orientatn, genr inty and genr exprsn."I don't want to feel like I have to thk about anymore," Maxen said the piece published Thursday afternoon. Outsi lebacker Carl Nassib beme the first active NFL player to e out as gay and to play a game 2021.The Associated Prs ntributed to this report. His sensibily as a gay artist has shaped and elevated the magaze’s athetic, but he has to keep his creativy check lt Mx be seen as a magaze for gay men.

BEFORE IT BURNED DOWN, THIS BATHHOE SERVED AS A HAVEN FOR NEW YORK CY’S GAY COMMUNY

But fish strong, as the nflict over Richie’s bathhoe project grows and Mx has to nsir whether ’s too risky for the magaze to speak to gay men, or even gay moments like this, the historil fictn feels not entirely historil. And though I was never an aficnado of the Bathhoe scene, the gay history buff me cid to do some rearch and even I was a b surprised by the strong historil and social signifince bathho have had on the gay muny Ameri.

Bathho Amerin ci first beme popular wh the general public the late 19th and early 20th centuri due to a lack of tenement plumbg and bathg facili, but would rema popular wh gay men long after bathtubs beme standard apartment featur. The Everard NYC (which long ago received the nickname – The Everhard) was nverted om a church to a bathhoe 1888 and was known to have a gay clientele even before the roarg 1920’s. In addn to providg spac for gay men to meet and have sex, the baths also provid a type of muny space and meetg place for gay artists and tellectuals durg a time that gay sex was still punishable by law.

Bathho would ntue to be one of the most popular plac for gay men to ngregate well after the morn gay rights movement began the late 1960’s wh the Stonewall rts. And though gay bathho saw a cle populary begng the 1980’s wh the advent of the AIDS epimic, many gay bathho ntue to fill the same functn they always have: a safe place to be gay and have gay sex.

A PEEK UNR THE TOWEL: INSI THE 500-YEAR HISTORY OF GAY BATHHO

When the 30-year-old bathhoe and sna Eros left ’s old home on Market Street near the Castro December 2021, the cy's only remag gay sex club said they had a new home led up.

DID CLOSG NEW YORK CY BATHHO THE 1980S STRIP DIGNY OM GAY MEN?

The three-story Romanque edifice was home to the cy’s olst ntuoly operatg gay bathhoe, a haven for gay men at a time of rampant prejudice. June’s signatn as Pri Month honors the June 1969 Stonewall Uprisg, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar New York Cy’s Wt Village, fought back agast a police raid. Fieler Trbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberatn, his 2018 book about the 1973 fire at a New Orleans gay bar that killed 32.

As public bathg fell out of fashn the early 20th century, the Everard started attractg a new dience: gay men, who equented the bathhoe as early as World War I.

NEW YORK CY GAY TRAVEL

When the gay liberatn movement rose om the broken bottl of the Stonewall Uprisg, a new generatn of gay men—experiencg a measure of sexual eedom for the first time morn history—created a market for more bathho. In the 1970s, before the bleak years of the AIDS crisis reamed attus about gay timacy, the ubiquy of sex was, for many men, a pivotal part of beg gay. Reflectg on the era a 1994 piece for Out magaze, wrer Brooks Peters observed that “the baths [were gay men’s] Bastille, a hard-won symbol of aterny, equaly and liberty.

“It certaly was important at the time to have a place where gay men [uld] go and cise and have sex wh each other—but also meet each other, ” says Eric Newman, a Los Angel-based scholar and cric who has lectured LGBTQ studi at the Universy of California, Los Angel. Back their newsrooms, reporters and edors hammered out stori about the smokg heap that had “tered to homosexuals, ” as the Tim put .

A S-OLD BAN ON GAY BATHHO WAS ABOUT TO BE LIFTED. THEN, A PANMIC.

” The article took pas to expla why anyone, nearly a to the gay liberatn movement, would want to patronize a place as n-down and dangero as the Everard. A physician whose lleagu and fay had no ia he was gay explaed this way: “I was willg to put up wh a lot the way of dirt and mattrs fir bee I thought the place would never be raid.

EXPLORG THE REVIVAL OF GAY BATHHO NEW YORK CY AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNY

“If you were any kd of profsn, havg anybody else fd out that you were gay would be disastro, ” says Charl Kaiser, thor of The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life Ameri. For many the muny, the cy’s failure to force the Everard to rrect s safety vlatns—well known prr to the blaze—unrsred a feelg among gay men that their liv were simply not worth much the ey of officials. In a June 1 edorial, staff at the GaysWeek newspaper took aim at “gay bars and baths of qutnable legaly whose owners bribe and pay off for permissn to ignore buildg, health and safety s.

“The wonr is that the gay muny hasn’t suffered more such tragedi nsirg some of the firetraps the area, ” the piece ntued. Twelve days after the blaze, rears of the gay magaze Michael’s Thg me upon a full-page ad appealg for donatns to be sent to the Metropolan Communy Church (MCC), one of the first ngregatns Ameri to openly wele LGBTQ people. The succsful fundraisg effort “shows that, when faced wh a tragedy, the gay muny n actually e together quickly and effectively and lovgly—spe all of the homophobia, ” says Michael Bronski, an activist, thor and historian at Harvard Universy.

GAY BATHHO NEAR ME

After the fire, Voeller of the Natnal Gay Task Force told the Tim that “you uld often meet an off-duty p or fireman at the Everard. The long-fotten Everard serv both appreciatn and ntemplatn, says Greggor Mattson, a soclogist at Oberl College and the thor of the 2023 book Who Needs Gay Bars?

“Plac that were relatively private—and this clud gay bars wh back rooms, bathho and public cisg s—were important, and still are, bee as gay men we don’t have a lot of mols for what sex n be or what timacy looks like, ” Mattson says. The Everard Baths, one of the most legendary of New York’s bathho, was a refuge for gay men probably sce s openg 1888, but fely by World War I.

One of the most legendary of New York’s bathho, the Everard Baths was a refuge for gay men probably sce s openg 1888, but, as documented, om at least World War I until s closg 1986. Gee Chncey found that raids by the New York Society for the Supprsn of Vice 1919 and 1920 here produced the arrts of numero gay men.