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Free condoms, STI testing, clear guidance about safe sex, and, more recently, information about PrEP, are all standard practice at bathhouses and similar facilities. Venues that facilitated on-premises sex became crucial centers for information and prevention during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and long afterward. Though many sectors of the service industry, from restaurants to salons, operate under government health regulations, few have a similar history to bathhouses of direct intervention during an acute public health crisis. But COVID-19 has upended life as we know it, and bathhouses facilitate two social needs that have been thrown into especially sharp relief: Sex and public health consciousness. In so many ways, the road ahead for these businesses looks challenging and uncertain. are gone, too, with more likely to follow. Watergarden in San Jose, Calif, and Crew Club in D.C. Some have shuttered permanently, including, most recently, New York City's historic Westside Club. are either closed or operating at limited capacity. COVID-19 has only accelerated an alarming trend research suggests that the number of bars serving LGBTQ patrons has declined by nearly 40% since 2007, due in part to gentrification, the rise of digital means for social and sexual connection, and broader overall acceptance lessening the need for queer safe spaces, particularly in urban areas.Ĭurrently, the majority of bathhouses and sex clubs in the U.S. Many nightlife venues have thrown in the towel or are relying on the life support of crowd-funding campaigns. The pandemic has been disastrous for LGBTQ businesses, which are weathering dire straits like much of the economy, from bars and hotels to retail. The July legislation has simply allowed for new bathhouses to potentially break ground and operate in the future, however, once coronavirus conditions allow for other types of businesses to open as well. A few critics were outraged at the idea that public sex might be happening in person while public school was not.
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That San Francisco's reversal came as another epoch-defining virus circled the globe seemed like a cosmic course correction. Bathhouses, and other businesses that facilitate sexual contact, have since proven to be pivotal vectors for disseminating health information and facilitating screening and prevention measures for HIV and other STIs.
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As public health measures, the rules were incredibly misguided. The bygone regulations, which prohibited locked doors and unmonitored play spaces, had been in place since 1984, as HIV/AIDS decimated the queer community, paranoia was near a fever pitch, and reliable information remained scarce. Its timing, of course, could not have been more curious. For owners of public sex venues, would-be patrons, and anyone who considers that San Francisco is literally the gayest city in the country, the legislation was historic. In July 2020, San Francisco lifted restrictions that had effectively barred gay bathhouses from operating there for over three decades.