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.
“Yes, they’re about sex,” says Gary Wasdin, executive director of the Leather Archives & Museum. “We don’t run from that, we don’t hide from that because, you know, sex is awesome. And having, you know, a lot of sex is awesome. But, there was always this concurrent side that was just as important, especially in the 60s and 70s, as bathhouses emerged and became popular. You know, even just meeting with your friends to hang out and chat was dangerous in this country.”
Like many explicitly queer spaces, bathhouses were frequently the target of homophobic vice raids in the 1960s and 70s. While gay sex was an obvious and significant part of bathhouses, the greater conversation about them has largely ignored the civic good also undertaken at these spaces.
Emjay Rawls, who worked at Steamworks from November 2015 to October 2018 and calls it the best job she’s ever had, says that the bathhouse often sponsors events in the community at popular gay bars in Boystown, including Hydrate, Roscoe’s Tavern, and Sidetrack.
The NHBS program, founded in 2003, studies behaviors of populations at high risk for HIV infection, such as men who have sex with men, and is conducted in 22 cities around the country—including Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
And Rawls says she saw a lot of Steamworks patrons there just to socialize. For them, she says, sex felt like a bonus.
