As Gay Acceptance Rises And Hooking Up Goes Online Bathhouses Struggle To Stay In Business

[Guest]

On 8/26/2014 at 12:49 AM, seaguy said:

A Fox News Business story about bathhouses and how they are having to adapt to changing time to stay in business:

 

[think before following links] http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/08/23/as-gay-acceptance-rises-and-hooking-up-goes-online-us-bathhouses-adapt-to-stay/

 

The two in Seattle seem to be doing fine.  But I know Parliament house in Orlando is having financial issues.  I think the bathhouses will always have a customer base because some people have roommates, or just want to go somewhere where they can be themselves and have a good time without fear of getting caught like at a park or arrested like in a bookstore or porn store which in some states are always getting raided.

I'm a fan of bathhouses, will be attending soon again now the lockdowns is being softened over here.

Not only bathhouses have it hard, but I've seen the number of gay bars in my town drop from 5 to 0 in the last 15 years. :-/
Hook-up apps and sites probably have something to do with that (although as someone here mentioned more and more gays including the young are fed up with the online thing).

Besides that I think it might be that we as a subculture are not so much receiving more acceptance but are willingly assimilating.

Shame really, as gay culture was one factor that influenced in changing old-fashioned ideas about relationships in general.

[fskn]

11 hours ago, StickyWetHole said:

Gayborhoods, Gay Bars, Lesbian Bars, and Bathhouses, their ultimate demise will be more acceptance of homosexuality because of Stepford Gays, those sought after attractive TV personality Gay Males who have a “committed” relationship with two children (first one adopted, second one with someones sperm sucked from a Dixie cup by a pet syringe and then the poor souls injected into a vagina. GASP!) 🤭😮😲

The Stepford Gays will always keep their sheets clean in order to prove to others their sex is only when necessary and intimate, just like young girls and young married brides did to prove they were good girls. 🙄

...

Summary: Bath houses don’t have to die out like gayborhoods and gay bars will. The just need to be reinvented and unfortunately that’s not happening. I don’t think Stepford Gays help the situation either with their public squeaky clean , cardboard cut out, & main stream presentations.

This week on MTV CRIBS Brian & Jason Stepford…

“…and this is Brian and my walk-in-closet. We designed it ourselves with inspiration coming from watching kids in Nigeria build their entire house. Spectacular isn’t it? I didn’t catch that, what was your question? Oh no we would never have sex in here. That’s inappropriate. Right now just imagining getting one drop of lubricant in any of this closet interior makes me cringe. We have our intercourse on the bed, on clean sheets, and then we immediately remove the soiled sheets after we are through doing our business. Now have I shown you our kids refrigerator art work yet?…”

You hit the nail on the head, and you write beautifully and humorously!

The thing about gay men who try to imitate heterosexual husbands and wives from 1950s suburban America is that they end up becoming bathhouse patrons. They get tired of birthday sex on clean sheets, in the missionary position. They sneak away from the dog, the kids, the neatly-kept suburban tract home (or the trendy condo in the city) for proper, hard fucking in video arcades, backrooms, dark alleys, parks and bathhouses. These guys have so much pent-up desire and guilt that they will do almost anything once they get started. Heteronormative gay marriage is a boon to public and anonymous sex.

[BlackDude]

19 hours ago, fskn said:

Plenty of young people fuck in bathhouses. Many bathhouses offer discounts and theme nights to attract them.

It's the young crowd that's increasingly diverse. Racism, body shaming, gender bias, etc. will always be a fact of life, but for the first time, queers of all colors, sizes, and genders are visible, and the community (if you can call it a community) is secure enough from acute external threat that there is time to confront internal divisions. Divisions remain, but they are acknowledged now, and it is becoming less and less acceptable to write people off because they don't conform to an old ideal of beauty. If an institution like Steamworks Berkeley survives, it will survive on the patronage of Mr. Imperfect.

Yes, some people who grew up using gay.com or, a decade later, Grindr, have to go through a discovery process to find bathhouses. These generations are already rediscovering spontaneous public sex with strangers. Easy sex is in our blood! Given economic pressures, young people are more likely to live with roommates and less likely to be able to host privately, so it's only a matter of time before they realize that bathhouses are ideal places to play.

Same-sex marriage along monogamous, heteronormative lines is a threat, but biological reality — sexual attraction to more than one person — eventually breaks through.

As a person who attended the Berkeley  Steamworks frequently, and knows guys who did, I can tell you that’s not the case. The key word is “attended.” I can tell you I myself know five guys who stop going regularly because they get tired of the gaggles of 20 somethings wandering around giggling and pointing  like school girls not doing anything. Sure you have a few pigs, but most of these guys are holding out waiting for the perfect 10. Unfortunately many of them are looking to hook up I am grinder later, not at the bathhouse, afraid of judgment from their friends. The famous “oh, was that you!?” Message. 
 

Its those middle age 35+ guys who are regulars that are actually coming to fuck that keeps them  some business. Not the infrequent youngsters were unreliable with no disposable income.

Case in point we local spot in my town that close many years ago. He used to be in habited by a bunch a middle aged guys who would go frequently who were here to fuck. It was loads of fun. Once the younger guys found out about it, he killed the whole vibe. We had a lot of guys who were younger who want regulars that would come in with a real stuck up attitude. All the regulars who used to come and fuck frequently stop coming, and the kids who were on status fight stop coming too. Replaced eventually went out of business.
 

 

[fskn]

@BlackDude, if I understand correctly, you're saying you were no longer having as much fun as you'd hoped at venues like Steamworks, and you feel that young gay people, whom you believe expect perfection, are the problem.

I was a frequent Steamworks Berkeley patron, 2010 to 2015 or so (I would buy the old "gym pass" coupons and go two evenings a week). I continued to go occasionally until the pandemic struck. At Steamworks, on Grindr, and in real life hookups in the Bay Area, I have found younger guys (mid 20s) to be more accepting of my race (mixed black/white), body type (bear), and features (beard and long hair), and this, in spite of my age (now mid-40s).

The young crowd is the diverse one, in which people of different races, body types, and now also different gender identities, are represented. There are far fewer "perfect" people in the ranks of the young.

When I was growing up, white, athletic, hairless bodies were about the only kind featured in advertising, on TV, and in movies. Today's young queers have grown up seeing people of color, larger  people, hairy people, people with disabilities, and so on, in the media. As a group, they don't have as many hang-ups about perfection as the generations that preceded them.

Yes, it takes them time to discover and experiment with traditional gay sexual spaces like bathhouses and cruising grounds, because they had a much wider choice of social venues when they came out. But I believe they'll figure it out!

Either way, I hope you find people and experiences that please you!