The Evolution of Gay Bath Houses in America

Naked Men in a Turkish Bath House

Gay men have been meeting for sex in bathhouses since the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. In California, as in other states, all homosexual acts were illegal and considered as "crimes against nature." As a result, men who were caught engaging in sexual acts with each other were subject to arrest and public humiliation. Numerous court records from the turn of the century contain cases of men who were arrested after neighbors, landlords, policemen and YMCA janitors looked through keyholes, or broke down doors to discover men having sex with each other. In an effort to evade arrest, gay men resorted to finding those little-known "cruise spots" around town where they could meet for sex and not get caught. These meeting places expanded as the rapidly growing cities of the 20th century created more and more public places where men could be anonymous and intimate with each other. The list of meeting places included public parks, alleys, YMCA facilities, public restrooms, train depots, balconies of silent movie theaters, cheap hotel rooms, and bathhouses. Historical records from the early 1900's tell the story of how some bathhouse owners tried to prevent their venues from becoming popular homosexual rendezvous by calling the police or hiring private guards. On the other hand, there were some bathhouse owners who enjoyed the increased profits earned from the patronage of gay men, so they allowed men to engage in homosexual activities as long as they were carried out discreetly. In fact, one particular 1933 account pointed to the "fat tips" a bathhouse manager could receive from the "patronage of pansies provided their actions do not result in police proceedings."

Stauch's Bath House, Coney Island - sometimes frequented by gay men Gay men on the prowl frequented and sometimes made sexual contact at most of the baths at Coney Island in New York, including one particular bathhouse where professional male models, bodybuilders and their admirers gathered in the 1930s. But two bathhouses, Stauch's and Claridge's, had the reputation of being a homosexual rendezvous. In the book titled "Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay World, 1890-1940," author George Chauncey explains that Thomas Painter and a man who worked at Coney Island in the 1930s recalled that homosexuals "felt free to camp it up on the sundeck," and one of the men even remembered seeing men dressed in drag there. Painter described Stauch's Bathhouse in 1939-1940:

"Coney Island (has) one truly amazing bath...It gives the visitor the impression of being exclusively homosexual. If one visits the roof there is the spectacle of at least a hundred naked males practically all of them homosexuals, with a few hustlers and kept boys about, lying around in the sun...The more direct homosexual expression is reserved for the steam rooms. There, in an atmosphere murky with steam---so murky, indeed, that one cannot see more than a few feet ahead---with benches around the walls, fellation and pedication are not at all uncommon...If one stumbles over a pair in the act, one mutters a hasty apology and goes on quickly in another direction."

Chauncey goes onto explain that following World War II, when police increased its anti-gay activity, Stauch's management made a great effort to control its patrons' behavior, but with only limited success. One particular man recalled this about the place, "They had a private detective, and he would come in an old shirt and a bathing suit, and would sneak around the corners, trying to see two people going in the same little cubicle." The man went on to explain that if the detective saw something peculiar, he would pound on the door and say, "Only one person in the booth!" "He couldn't do it fast enough, though," another man remembered, "There were too many of us, it was a big place, and everybody knew who he was." As a result of the management's efforts, Stauch's Baths took on the appearance of a straight bathhouse, but the gay presence remained there.

It wasn't until the 1950's that exclusively gay bathhouses started to crop up in America. These places were still subject to vice raids, but the police generally allowed them to operate because they were discreet "outlets for the vast homosexual life in the city." Some accounts describe these early gay bathhouses as oases of homosexual camaraderie and as "places where it was safe to be gay." Generally, in gay bathhouses, patrons felt that they were more protected from blackmail and harm than in the "straight" baths, plus the gay baths offered a much safer alternative to sex in public parks. In May 1954 the earliest-known guide to San Francisco's gay bars and baths was printed and handed out at a meeting of the Mattachine Society, the Bay area's first homosexual organization. With the warning that it contained "Confidential and Unofficial" information, the mimeographed sheet listed Jack's Baths, the Club Baths on Turk, the Palace Baths on 3rd Street, and the San Francisco Baths on Ellis. In Los Angeles, the gay community had similar venues to patronize.

Joe Therrien, a gay office manager for the YMCA in the 1950's, remembered when gays visited the YMCA to cruise the showers, but the mounting gay hatred that was sparked during the McCarthy Era made it increasingly difficult to have sexual encounters there. In fact, it wasn't long before the Los Angeles branch hired a security guard to patrol the showers and steam rooms. "That's when I began redirecting men to the bathhouses in town," said Joe Therrien. "I would tell them about a Turkish bathhouse on 4th Street in Los Angeles. Although not advertised as a gay bath, there was a lot of action going on there."

Joe Therrien, gay manager of the Los Angeles YMCA circa 1950

In the late 1960's and throughout the 1970's gay bathhouses evolved from being discreet places that were talked about in hushed tones to the modern, fully-licensed establishments that operated to serve the needs and desires of the gay community. In addition, these new bathhouses were primarily gay-owned and operated, so they tended to attract an exclusively gay following. No longer clandestine, this new generation of bathhouses soon established themselves as a major gay institution that could respond to the social issues that were taking place at that time. The assortment of bathhouses which opened during this period each boasted a unique character and clientele. For example, during weekdays businessmen could always be found at the Wall Street Sauna in New York, while students preferred the ten-story Man's Country on Fifteenth Street; admission $8 (but only a buck on Tuesday nights). S&M types, on the other hand, found a niche at the New Barracks, especially on Thursday, which was known as "Dollar Dick" days. In Los Angeles, the scene was similar because many of the hottest studs in town waited in long lines to get into the 8709 Bathhouse, which was so drug-friendly that it was jokingly referred to as "The Pharmacy." In San Francisco, if you were into heavy-duty bondage and fist-fucking, you could get a room (with a sling) at The Slot on Folsom Street, where the word raunchy was probably coined. If that place was booked-up for the night, you might find accommodations at another bathhouse, the Handball Express, also for fist-fucking, although not quite so extreme.

Here are examples of some of the many important changes that bathhouses went through following the birth of the Gay Liberation Movement in the late 1960's and early 1970's:

One of the most important developments in the history of the gay baths involved gay ownership and the founding of one particular bathhouse chain in America. In 1965, Jack Campbell and two partners opened their own bathhouse in Cleveland. According to an interview, Campbell had been impressed with the amenities offered at various San Francisco bathhouses, so he decided to open his own facility with "a better, cleaner atmosphere" than some of the sleazy places he had visited on the east coast. Thus, the Club Bath Chain was born, complete with amenities such as television rooms, vending machines, Jacuzzis, shag carpeting and wood paneling. As business boomed over the next year, Campbell and his partners soon decided to open another bathhouse, the Sixth City Sauna, followed in 1967 by another using the name The Club, in Toledo. By 1971 the Club chain included fourteen bathhouses across the United States, offering student discounts and special rates for men who arrived in pairs on "Buddy Nights." By 1973 the Club Baths had almost 500,000 card-carrying members, which was not surprising since the 70's was the decade that saw the largest number of gay bathhouses open their doors to the thousands of men who would make their corridors buzz to life. "There was so much business to go around," said one bathhouse owner in Chicago, "that competition was not a problem." Large cities could easily support two or three bathhouses, each of which had hundreds of customers a week renting a locker or a room for the night. In fact, thousands of men considered the "tubs" as the choice for an evening's pleasure instead of a bar or a disco. One survey done by Jay and Young (The Gay Report, 1979) determined that 54 percent of the respondents visited the baths more than once in their lives, and 20 percent of the 5,000 men surveyed described their visits as "somewhat" or "very" frequent.

San Francisco Gay Bath House Ad - Club Baths

This Club Bath Chain ads was among many that were printed in gay magazines of the 1970's, such as Folsom, Blueboy, Numbers and Drummer Magazine.

One particular Club Bath advertisement from the late 1970's advertised their facilities as such: "If your (membership) card doesn't offer you 1400 rooms, on 64 floors, with 30 steam rooms, 25 saunas, 24 whirlpools, and 8 swimming pools, then you haven't got THE CARD."

More facts about the Club Baths:

In the late 1970's, statistics showed that the average Club customer was white, between thirty and thirty-five, earned $12,000 a year, and stayed at the Club for approximately five hours during which he climaxed three times.

A factor in the evolution of California bathhouses was State Representative Willie Brown's "Consenting Adult Sex Bill," which was passed in Jan. 1976. As a result, gay baths and the sex that took place in them became legal for the first time in California history. During Jan. 1978, in an effort to test whether this new California law applied to bathhouses, San Francisco police officers raided the Liberty Baths on Post Street and arrested three patrons for "lewd conduct" in a public place, but the District Attorney's office soon dropped the charges against the three men. In a written statement the DA's office concluded: "There's no question this was a private place."

Liberty Gay Baths - San Francisco circa 1970s

Several bathhouses of the day featured weekly "Movie Nights" where Hollywood films were shown, especially gay cult classics such as "Some Like It Hot" and "The Women." At the same time, Hollywood produced two major films situated in gay bathhouses: "The Ritz," which was modeled after New York's Continental Baths, and "Saturday Night At the Baths." In addition, Terrence McNally's 1973 play "The Tubs" was set in a bathhouse, as was A. J. Kronengold's "Tubstrip."

In the 1970's, as the gay press and the voice of gay liberation came of age, newspapers like the Bay Area Reporter, Kalendar, The Sentinel, The Crusader, Databoy, Coming up! and The Voice were distributed freely in the bathhouses as well as in the bars.

One of the factors which made the holidays more festive for gay men was the fact that many bathhouses threw parties for their patrons on holidays such as Gay Pride Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve. These parties were a great service to gay men whose families had rejected them and for whom holidays represented a gloomy time of year. Holiday parties at the tubs, especially for those who attended them regularly, were social events among like-minded people that affirmed their sexuality and offered a welcome alternative to loneliness and isolation. "I would go to the Ritch Street Baths every year on Thanksgiving and Christmas," said one San Franciscan, "because at home my family always gave me a hard time about my lifestyle. At the baths, it was different. Everyone was in a festive mood. Plus, you could have more fun at the tubs than at home chatting with your grandparents."

In the 1970's many bathhouses installed "fantasy environments," which recreated erotic situations that were illegal and dangerous outside the confines of the baths. Orgy rooms at the tubs encouraged group sex, while glory holes recreated the toilets, and mazes took the place of bushes and undergrowth. Steam rooms and gyms were reminiscent of the cruisy YMCAs, while video rooms recreated the balconies and back rows of movie theaters. A popular NYC bathhouse called Man's Country provided a full-size model of a Everlast truck where visitors could have sex in the cab or in the rear which served as an orgy room. Of course, if one preferred prison sex, Man's Country also offered a fantasy environment featuring a fake prison cell made of rubber bars.

Gay Orgy Pic