Great post! Lately I have discovered the joys of hanging out not at gay baths but at the local spa. Nothing explicitly sexual there, but there are a lot more gay/bi men who hang out by the pool area who are just waiting to strike a conversation with anyone, and most of the time the topic is sex, prospects of hooking up, etc. I definitely enjoy walking around naked even if most of the time I'm the only one who dares to drop the towel, partly because of people's admiration of a larger than average penis, but mostly because of the feeling of freedom. I've always thought that there was probably more to it than this, and this post definitely confirms that. I do feel isolated at times, and yes, I do feel some connection with other men, and find it fascinating whenever everyone reveals what they do for a living. Men you probably wouldn't get a chance to talk to outside this context are suddenly buddies, albeit confined within the bath area. I'm getting addicted to this experience and I thought I was turning into a nudist, maybe I am, but this post definitely sheds light on other aspects to this. Thanks for posting.
Why Gay Men Go To the Baths
- Thread starter earllogjam
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Rikter8
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I like the perspective that Earllogjam shared on gay bathhouses. Each city has it's own personality just as each bathhouse. The ones I've been to have a different personality depending on time of day and which day. There is one in mind that is nothing but a drug hang out for 18 to under 21 y.o. twinks on Friday nights; a very tight clique. It's not pot either. It's all about Extasy and "G"; the ones that can kill. The walls are littered with posters warning the patrons of how dangerous "G" is. But you know how invincible young ones are. They're all just working their cell phones calling for more. It's also obvious who the dealers are.
I have had enjoyable times there, but not on Friday nights. It is funny how there is an unwritten code of silence there. I've never viewed it as a place to connect with other males, just a place to admire hot bodies and have sex. It would be great for them to be a place to meet true friends that you could confide in and count on, but it's all a delusion.
There is a variety of amenities there: private rooms of various sizes, sauna, steamroom, outdoor heated pool with a twenty foot high concrete privacy wall, and an elaborate workout facility. Sometimes there is free food and BBQ's around the pool area. I never could sleep there very well because of the techno music playing. Time does seem to fly while there.
There is still the disease factor that needs to be at the forefront of everyone's mind. Just think, one person with an STD can go there and share his particular setback with two, maybe three guys and those two or three with three others and so forth planting the seeds for a significant outbreak in a whole town. EVERY ROSE HAS IT'S THORN !!!!
I have had enjoyable times there, but not on Friday nights. It is funny how there is an unwritten code of silence there. I've never viewed it as a place to connect with other males, just a place to admire hot bodies and have sex. It would be great for them to be a place to meet true friends that you could confide in and count on, but it's all a delusion.
There is a variety of amenities there: private rooms of various sizes, sauna, steamroom, outdoor heated pool with a twenty foot high concrete privacy wall, and an elaborate workout facility. Sometimes there is free food and BBQ's around the pool area. I never could sleep there very well because of the techno music playing. Time does seem to fly while there.
There is still the disease factor that needs to be at the forefront of everyone's mind. Just think, one person with an STD can go there and share his particular setback with two, maybe three guys and those two or three with three others and so forth planting the seeds for a significant outbreak in a whole town. EVERY ROSE HAS IT'S THORN !!!!
Willy_the_Wonka
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I have exactly TWO experiences with bath houses, the first one in 1984 at the Hollywood Spa in "downtown" Hollywood. 23 years old, in L.A. for the day by myself, and around 6pm thought I would check it out with expectations based on what I read in sex mags and the Advocate. I was a little disappointed to say the least. The place was cavernous, a maze of dark corridors that doubled back on themselves, taking you through locker rooms, and just these weird little anti-rooms with open bunks, bleacher-like seating to view porn on video monitors, loud club or K-ROQ type music blaring...the downstairs areas; jacuzzis and billiards tables were deserted and also dimly lit. The few guys that were there wandered around like zombies, clad only in a towel, not speaking a word to each other, just gave each other emotionless glares.... I mostly explored, after paying for a "room", which consisted of a wooden platform with a plastic mat on it for a bed, a video monitor with several channels of porn, a ceiling of chain link (as in fence) opened up to the rafters (as were many areas of the second floor).... the showers were filthy, the restrooms were creepy...the steamroom smelled of rancid piss, and the rest of the place just smelled... and cigarette smoke everywhere.
The crowd there that night was a little scary, too. Stalkers, people that would be standing outside the door to my room when I went in to get away from it, and still there when I came out.
The whole place was just very disconnecting from the interaction, sexual or otherwise, that one would go there to have. I didn't feel comfortable doing this, and left after a couple hours, feeling creeped out,
and never went back. I felt like I had experienced Fellini Satyricon. :scared2: ...well, a dull version of it.
I just chalked it up to it being a personal problem...I was in the closet back then, but had been around enough to know what good sex was about, and this wasn't it. But I also knew I didn't function well in meeting places. Even bars. Rejection was everywhere, cliques that seemed impenetrable, and it was too much for a mousy, shy closeted kid from Orange County.
Fast forward 20 years, and all the life experience 20 years holds....birth and death of a LTR, starting of a business and career, finally stepping out of the closet to everyone, getting on the fast track and making up for lost time, my fair share of sex parties, getting too spun out, getting sober, and STAYING that way....and thanking my lucky stars that in all the wild times I DID manage to have, (as well as being grateful for the wilder times I never did) that I never got HIV (or HTLV-3 as it was called in the 80's)..... Anyways, fast forward to 2004 (a little ironic, dontcha thnk?) ...I am visiting a good friend for a few days, and he has business to attend to on Monday in North Hollywood, where he needs to visit a house he owns, and a client who has asked for a new heater to be installed in for the jacuzzi at... The North Hollywood Spa.
I went along to assist him, not really excited at going to the place...we went mid-afternoon, the job took a few hours to finish. The place was smaller, not a huge, dark and unwelcoming cavern. It was pretty well lit, and along with the usual posters of naked guys, the owner also had old-time movie posters and Route 66 memorabilia hanging up, the staff were friendly and talkative, everything was well lit, the video monitors in the main area were tuned in to regular tv (with the porn playing in the rooms and corridors upstairs), the bar was open and there were guys just sitting around chatting and joking. My friend Peter told me to go ahead and explore, but I stayed close by, as I noticed a sauna adjacent to the utility room we were in, and the glass door revealed anonymous sex taking place, the jucuzzi nearby (and not working) had a guy sitting in it, waiting for it to come back on, the open showers just beyond were clean and had a continuous stream of men; goodlooking ones being followed by ones less attractive, and the steamroom with its fogged up windows and blurred figures indicated the same thing happening there.
It all came back to me, the 1984 evening, but this time it wasn't dark and lurkish and menacing. Even so, I still found myself a little "shy" from it all (probably would have been more uninhibited when I wasn't sober back in the 90's), and after we finished, Peter gave me the tour of the place, including upstairs, and it seemed more sociable, probably in sync with what my expectations were back in 1984. There was even a fenced in roof patio, which I stepped out on, and then back indoors real quick when I saw some chaise lounge missionary sex going on in full sunlight, with a couple older guys standing over them watching. :boggled: (of course realizing that "giving them their privacy" was a moot point!) The owner was even around, a real talkative guy, very welcoming and had a friendly Golden Retreiver that ran all over the place, but had this strange habit of grabbing my leg and humping it furiously to the point that I was trying to get away from him and dragging my leg behind me with him still attached to it! :scared1:
So what have I learned from all of this? I know myself better now than I did then (naturally), and though I love getting my freak-on as much as anyone else, I'm just not into the sex-club or bath-house scene, and there's no reason I need to be. I'm not into the open sex party scene anymore either, and I may be a little reserved in my behaviour, but hey...if this is what others enjoy, go for it. At least I know I'm not repressed. :biggrin1:
Cheers!
B
The crowd there that night was a little scary, too. Stalkers, people that would be standing outside the door to my room when I went in to get away from it, and still there when I came out.
The whole place was just very disconnecting from the interaction, sexual or otherwise, that one would go there to have. I didn't feel comfortable doing this, and left after a couple hours, feeling creeped out,
and never went back. I felt like I had experienced Fellini Satyricon. :scared2: ...well, a dull version of it.I just chalked it up to it being a personal problem...I was in the closet back then, but had been around enough to know what good sex was about, and this wasn't it. But I also knew I didn't function well in meeting places. Even bars. Rejection was everywhere, cliques that seemed impenetrable, and it was too much for a mousy, shy closeted kid from Orange County.
Fast forward 20 years, and all the life experience 20 years holds....birth and death of a LTR, starting of a business and career, finally stepping out of the closet to everyone, getting on the fast track and making up for lost time, my fair share of sex parties, getting too spun out, getting sober, and STAYING that way....and thanking my lucky stars that in all the wild times I DID manage to have, (as well as being grateful for the wilder times I never did) that I never got HIV (or HTLV-3 as it was called in the 80's)..... Anyways, fast forward to 2004 (a little ironic, dontcha thnk?) ...I am visiting a good friend for a few days, and he has business to attend to on Monday in North Hollywood, where he needs to visit a house he owns, and a client who has asked for a new heater to be installed in for the jacuzzi at... The North Hollywood Spa.
I went along to assist him, not really excited at going to the place...we went mid-afternoon, the job took a few hours to finish. The place was smaller, not a huge, dark and unwelcoming cavern. It was pretty well lit, and along with the usual posters of naked guys, the owner also had old-time movie posters and Route 66 memorabilia hanging up, the staff were friendly and talkative, everything was well lit, the video monitors in the main area were tuned in to regular tv (with the porn playing in the rooms and corridors upstairs), the bar was open and there were guys just sitting around chatting and joking. My friend Peter told me to go ahead and explore, but I stayed close by, as I noticed a sauna adjacent to the utility room we were in, and the glass door revealed anonymous sex taking place, the jucuzzi nearby (and not working) had a guy sitting in it, waiting for it to come back on, the open showers just beyond were clean and had a continuous stream of men; goodlooking ones being followed by ones less attractive, and the steamroom with its fogged up windows and blurred figures indicated the same thing happening there.
It all came back to me, the 1984 evening, but this time it wasn't dark and lurkish and menacing. Even so, I still found myself a little "shy" from it all (probably would have been more uninhibited when I wasn't sober back in the 90's), and after we finished, Peter gave me the tour of the place, including upstairs, and it seemed more sociable, probably in sync with what my expectations were back in 1984. There was even a fenced in roof patio, which I stepped out on, and then back indoors real quick when I saw some chaise lounge missionary sex going on in full sunlight, with a couple older guys standing over them watching. :boggled: (of course realizing that "giving them their privacy" was a moot point!) The owner was even around, a real talkative guy, very welcoming and had a friendly Golden Retreiver that ran all over the place, but had this strange habit of grabbing my leg and humping it furiously to the point that I was trying to get away from him and dragging my leg behind me with him still attached to it! :scared1:
So what have I learned from all of this? I know myself better now than I did then (naturally), and though I love getting my freak-on as much as anyone else, I'm just not into the sex-club or bath-house scene, and there's no reason I need to be. I'm not into the open sex party scene anymore either, and I may be a little reserved in my behaviour, but hey...if this is what others enjoy, go for it. At least I know I'm not repressed. :biggrin1:
Cheers!
B
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Rikter8
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thank you!
But...imagine that... No listings for MI.
Most of them would probably be filled with Cops, as that seems to be the hot topic of their busy schedules.
I would like to try going to a bath but I get the impression that you have to be a GQ pretty boy to get anything going. There's one in Troy, NY that I will be going by in a few days as I've taken a spontaneous vacation to Vermont to see my younger sister.
I'm not GQ hottie by any means but a little action might just help. I worry I'll be seen as a troll and ignored or worse and that would be difficult to handle just now. Are baths OK for the bears and bearish?
One other question. Where do you carry condoms when all you're wearing is a towel or nothing else? I read both the bath house etiquette articles and neither of them mention what the deal is with them or lubricants.
I'm not GQ hottie by any means but a little action might just help. I worry I'll be seen as a troll and ignored or worse and that would be difficult to handle just now. Are baths OK for the bears and bearish?
One other question. Where do you carry condoms when all you're wearing is a towel or nothing else? I read both the bath house etiquette articles and neither of them mention what the deal is with them or lubricants.
I think baths are great for bears and bearish guys. I seem to recall that there are lots of different types of guys at bathhouses but they tend to be older. 40-60-ish but it probably depends where and when you go. Weekends and nights are probably more busy.
A condom and lube I imagine can be tucked into the roll of your towel at the waist or you can just carry it around in hand.
A condom and lube I imagine can be tucked into the roll of your towel at the waist or you can just carry it around in hand.
Since it is my first post, I figured I would post on something I am knowledgable about. This is quite a site by the way.
I have probably been to the baths several hundred times in the last 25 years. Why do gay (or any) men go?
1. I like sex
2. I like sharing a sexual experience with another man
3. I have been single most (but not all) of my adult life, and sex is a basic human need, and fulfilling it is part of taking care of myself
4. I am fairly social, and I seem to usually meet interesting people there, even if I do not have sex with them
Some posters mentioned they were curious, but had not been, so I would encourage you:
1. Give it a try
2. Go with a positive attitude, but no expectations
3. Be friendly and observant - a lot of bath culture is non verbal communications
4. Don't take any rejection personally - it is just sex
5. Don't form your response based on one visit
I have probably had sex with a couple thousand men at the baths - there have been nights where it literally felt like everyone wanted me (I'm tall, thin, reasonably good looking, and have a cock that most men really seem to like) and others when no one would even look at me. Point is, don't take it too seriously, and you'll probably have a nice time. And at least you'll come out clean. Ha.
I have probably been to the baths several hundred times in the last 25 years. Why do gay (or any) men go?
1. I like sex
2. I like sharing a sexual experience with another man
3. I have been single most (but not all) of my adult life, and sex is a basic human need, and fulfilling it is part of taking care of myself
4. I am fairly social, and I seem to usually meet interesting people there, even if I do not have sex with them
Some posters mentioned they were curious, but had not been, so I would encourage you:
1. Give it a try
2. Go with a positive attitude, but no expectations
3. Be friendly and observant - a lot of bath culture is non verbal communications
4. Don't take any rejection personally - it is just sex
5. Don't form your response based on one visit
I have probably had sex with a couple thousand men at the baths - there have been nights where it literally felt like everyone wanted me (I'm tall, thin, reasonably good looking, and have a cock that most men really seem to like) and others when no one would even look at me. Point is, don't take it too seriously, and you'll probably have a nice time. And at least you'll come out clean. Ha.
frizzle
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B_Italian1
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Which causes self loathing and the spread of STD's. They were shut down in the 80's and should have stayed that way.
If they didn't exist I'm sure you could find other ways. You have a lot going for you.
Isn't that the truth.
Right. That's why it's best to become friends first, and actually get to know and love the person before having sex with him.
They were closed down due to obvious health reason, but gay political pressure opened them up again. They should be closed permanently.
And just have sex with whomever, whenever. Doesn't sound too healthy.
I wouldn't brag about something like that. You should be ashamed. All you're doing is promoting gays as promiscuous. It wasn't right 30 years ago and it's not right today. They deserve better than that.
SpeedoGuy
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Yes, I got your message in all the threads you have posted to. Thank you. We get it.
You can beat your one note only so many times before it gets a bit tedious. :smile:
B_Italian1
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Haven't you read the posts, boy? They're to meet guys for sex. They are free brothels. Maybe you have to pay some kind of entrance fee or membership. You see, when a straight guy wants sex with a woman he can't go to a co-ed bathhouse, since they don't really exist. He'd have to find a swingers party, private sex club or something like that. There used to be sex clubs in major cities. One was Plato's retreat which was for men and women, but it closed in the mid 80's because of AIDS.
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