Saunas — or bathhouses — have become emblematic symbols of queer culture around the world, providing safe spaces for gay and bisexual men to meet and entertain rituals that are both sexual and social. Historically, same-sex relationships have been persecuted throughout several time periods, in all corners of the earth, forcing our community to find public spaces that would provide the needed privacy and discretion for sexual encounters. However, the tradition of public baths dates back to the 6th century BC, in Ancient Greece, where there are many records of homosexual activity, and the first known sexual encounters amongst men in bathhouses date back to the 15th century.
Our story begins in Florence, Italy, in the late fifteenth century, where as many as one in two men had come to the attention of the authorities for ‘sodomite behaviour’ by the time they were thirty. Florentine men were believed to entertain same-sex experiences as part of their sexual routine — making for an interesting early portrayal of fluid sexuality amongst males. It was in 1432, after multiple suspicions of boys having intimate meetings, namely inside local bathhouses, that The Office of the Night was created precisely to police “homosexual behaviour” amongst Florentines. Up to seventy years of denunciations and interrogations resulted in hundreds of arrests — leaving an extremely detailed record that enabled author Michael Rocke to later on, in his 1998 essay ‘Forbidden Friendships’, study these events and draw an interesting portrayal of queerness amongst Renaissance Florence.
Florence wasn’t, however, the only place where gay sex was being hunted by the authorities back then. After the Spanish city of Granada was conquered in 1492, Queen Isabel of Spain ordered that all public baths in the city be restricted in a bid to put a stop to homosexual reunions. Almost four centuries later, in Paris, in 1876, the well-known local sauna Bains de Gymnase was raided by the police after six men were found to be engaging in what was considered ‘an offense against public decency’ — resulting in all of them, including the place’s manager and two staff members being prosecuted.
New York City was met with a similar episode, roughly 30 years later, when two undercover police officers went into the Ariston Hotel Baths and reportedly witnessed numerous men having oral and anal sex. These reports resulted in a violent police raid and in the arrest of more than thirty men, while having charges of sodomy brought against half of them — turning this incident into a turning point in queer history, after which many more anti-gay police raids would take place in the Big Apple. Thankfully, these forceful manifestations of hate didn’t deter the community from gathering in public saunas. In fact, by the 1930s, some of these establishments, such as the Everard Turkish bathhouse — later nicknamed ‘Everhard’ — were frequented almost entirely by gay men looking for a cruising spot.
The 1950s were marked by the opening of multiple new venues all over New York City that were specifically referred to as gay saunas. After two decades, these had become important to the gay journey of most men looking to find self-expression and explore their sexuality in a society that wasn’t even close to welcoming them.
Across the ocean, London’s Savoy Victorian-style Turkish Baths, whose regulars included beloved American actor Rock Hudson, had become a favorite spot for the community. According to writer and journalist A. J. Langguth, these represented ‘a twilight arena for elderly men who came to sweat poisons from their systems and youths who came to strike beguiling poses in Turkish towels’. Moreover, Bermondsey’s Baths were praised as “quite fabulous” by Kenneth Williams in his diaries: “In the Grange Road baths in Bermondsey, however, all restraint could immediately be discarded with the small towels provided to cover your nakedness.” Bondi Junction Steam Bath, Australia’s first gay sauna, opened in Sydney in 1967, followed by multiple other new bathhouses emerging across the country’s big cities. These were enabled by the legalisation of homosexuality in New Zealand and most Australian states during the 1970s and 1980s.
However, with the arrival of HIV in the early 1980s, the gay community became an easy target for politicians and the media alike. Following numerous raids, came new jurisdictions in the United States banning bathhouses entirely, claiming that allowing these establishments to remain open would pose too big a risk to public health. These new rules made it effectively impossible to operate a bathhouse, after which so many of the establishments were forced to cease their activities that it went as far as to menace their survival. The events in the United States had worldwide repercussions, resulting in the banishment of gay saunas in a handful of other countries.
By the 1990s, gay bathhouses started emerging again, reinforcing a much-needed sense of community, and providing, once again, safe spaces for gay encounters. Though they are still not as popular as they were during the 1970s, gay saunas are to this day crucial places that have become more and more welcoming and specific, providing a lifeline for countless people who want to explore their sexuality. These establishments can also provide a sense of anonymity, as saunas are not always identifiable as such from the outside. On the other hand, the fact that, in some parts of the world, bathhouses are now able to advertise outside of the gay press is a testament to an encouraging evolution in mentalities. Wet On Wellington, a sauna in Collingwood, Australia, aired possibly the world’s first television advertisement for a gay sauna in 2003.
“I think bathhouses are important because people need that human touch at the end of the day. We need to have that contact with someone, whether it’s long-term or just for 30 minutes. It just seems to make people happy and fulfilled,” said Jameson Farn in an interview with PinkNews about his book Bathhouse Babylon, a recollection of his experiences of managing gay saunas over thirteen years. Though repeatedly threatened for centuries, gay saunas have survived, and are still celebrated — by artists, filmmakers, and writers alike — as colourful symbols of the incredible resilience of queer communities around the world.
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