Man's Country, Chigo's olst gay bathhoe, closed forever on New Year's Day 2018. Here's a last look si s hallowed halls.
Contents:
- DID CLOSG NEW YORK CY BATHHO THE 1980S STRIP DIGNY OM GAY MEN?
- A PEEK UNR THE TOWEL: INSI THE 500-YEAR HISTORY OF GAY BATHHO
- GALLERY: SAN FRANCIS GAY BATHHOE HISTORY, IN FLIERS [NSFW]
- A S-OLD BAN ON GAY BATHHO WAS ABOUT TO BE LIFTED. THEN, A PANMIC.
DID CLOSG NEW YORK CY BATHHO THE 1980S STRIP DIGNY OM GAY MEN?
To unrstand the eply felt antagonism around bathhoe closur, ’s helpful to unrstand the role the baths played the liv of gay men. * gay bathhouses in the 80s *
In the 1980s, for stance, municipal thori New York Cy closed gay bathho as a rponse to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Timothy Lyle, assistant profsor of English at Iona College (at left), and Stephen Engel, associate profsor of polics at Bat, prent rearch argug that the 1980s closure of New York Cy’s gay bathho was an act of “digny takg” om the gay muny. What did the bathho mean to New York’s gay muny the mid-1980s?
The stutn was one of many gay bathho that the cy closed the 1980s as a rponse to the HIV/AIDS crisis. “They provid space for men to socialize wh one another as intifiably gay men, ” Engel ntued.
A PEEK UNR THE TOWEL: INSI THE 500-YEAR HISTORY OF GAY BATHHO
The Towleroad blog has a great post that reviss New York’s first rerd anti-gay raid on the Ariston Baths Manhattan 1903. 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 * gay bathhouses in the 80s *
“The gay bathhoe took on an even more symbolic value wh the ntext of the 1970s when queer sex acts were articulated as a kd of liberatn om heteronormative nstrats.
GALLERY: SAN FRANCIS GAY BATHHOE HISTORY, IN FLIERS [NSFW]
* gay bathhouses in the 80s *
“In short, the baths were s of muny and kship formatn that helped gay men to teract beyond the rnal. “So to enterta any notn that the closur damaged the digny of gay men, we mt rist the urge to pathologize the public, anonymo, and sual sex stutns, ” Lyle said. The closur and the public bate surroundg them “vlated the digny of gay men a few different ways, ” Lyle said.
The furor exacerbated a tenncy to blame gay men for the epimic. It overshadowed the gay muny’s own substantial efforts to regulate the baths.
The gay muny’s own ph to regulate bathhoe behavrs was a measure of the muny’s termatn and hivens. Workg wh bath owners, anizatns such as the Coaln for Sexual Rponsibily and Gay Men’s Health Crisis unrtook substantial mpaigns to promote safer sex and to make remendatns, to be backed by spectns, for tnal, hygienic, and stctural improvements the bathho. The gay muny’s effort to support the bathho, signed to balance health (and polil) imperativ wh sex-posivy and muny solidary, was aligned wh some official ristance to closg the baths, part on the grounds that closur would nstute excsive ernment terference.
A S-OLD BAN ON GAY BATHHO WAS ABOUT TO BE LIFTED. THEN, A PANMIC.
After nearly 4 s, gay bathho are now able to apply for perms to open San Francis. In the mid-1980s, the cy’s health partment put * gay bathhouses in the 80s *
“Elected officials pated gay men as oversexed animals pable of rpondg to the crisis, ” Lyle argued. “The bathhoe closur perpetuated [a narrative of gay] culpabily, igned pretty ser divisns wh the gay and lbian muni, and produced wh gay men, I thk, a ep distst and even fear of ernment — and one another, to be hont. Nstutnal matter, ” he said, the cisn still privileg those gay unns that are moled after heterosexual marriage, while ignorg “other kds of nnectn at the heart of a queer ethic of public sex.
But a prcriptn for the dg is overpriced, heavily regulated, and acpanied by data llectn that Lyle characterized as state surveillance of gay men’s private liv. “This approach to health, ” he argued, “is problematilly entangled palistic enterpris and state-directed efforts to surveil, police, and make cisns for gay men.
In other words, Engel said, ncealed wh the seemg progrs of sanctned gay marriage and of sex ma safe by Tvada is the same old refal to prehend “queer world-makg practic.