Why Gay Bath Houses Closed and Are They Coming Back?
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Queerty
The gay nightlife scene in a U.S. city known for its progressive values and frigid winters may soon get a lot steamier.
For the first time in nearly 40 years, Minneapolis is considering a push to re-open the city’s bathhouses and gay sex clubs. The proposed ordinances, which include updating zoning regulations and revising health standards, would allow sex venues to operate legally.
Like many U.S. cities, Minneapolis had a thriving bathhouse scene until the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. During that time, nearly every major metro passed ordinances that banned the businesses. Minneapolis’ last legal bathhouse closed In 1988, per the Star Tribune.
Citing the public health crisis, officials across the country moved to shutter bathhouses, which was likely at the top of their wishlists anyway. Many activists and academics believe politicians used AIDS as a pretext to surveil gay people and push homosexuality back into society’s shadows.
With the advent of PrEP and retroviral drugs, the risks today are far different. Minneapolis City Council president Elliott Payne, an author of the proposed changes, told the Star Tribune that he thinks bathhouses can be a benefit for public health.
He also views them as a way to protect queer people from a hostile regime in D.C.
Across the country in San Francisco, a city supervisor has been making a similar argument for years. After passing an array of repeals of 80’s-era prohibitions, San Francisco could soon see the return of its bathhouses as well.
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The story of what happened in Minneapolis, and what’s changing, mirrors shifting societal attitudes on bathhouses and cruising in general.
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The battle over bathhouses
Believe it or not, some LGBTQ+ activists were proponents of closing sex clubs. The first out gay member of the Minneapolis City Council, Brian Coyle, helped pass the city’s ban in the ’80s.
He was diagnosed with HIV in 1986 and passed away from AIDS-related complications in 1991 at age 47. The Star Tribune says he warned that bathhouses facilitated “high-risk” encounters.
Before the city’s last adult bathhouse closed in ’88, the paper says a former patron of the club demonstrated outside the space and blamed anonymous sex as bathhouses for facilitating the spread of HIV.
Over in San Francisco, Larry Littlejohn, who founded a homophile organization (groups that pushed for gay rights by downplaying sex), first introduced a ballot initiative to close down the city’s baths. SF passed a number of onerous ordinances making it impossible for bathhouses to operate. The last one closed in 1987.
But figures like Coyle and Littlejohn were in the minority. Most advocates were proponents of bathhouses, and blamed conservatives for using concerns over AIDS to fulfill their long-standing objectives.
In addition to being safe places for gay sex, bathhouses were community hubs. They provided a way for medical professionals to reach at-risk people who were detached from care.
Bay Area LGBTQ+ activist Harry Breaux says closing the bathhouses in SF had the same impact on gay people as “shutting down the internet” would today.
The movement in Minneapolis
For nearly a decade, advocates have been pushing to bring back legal bathhouses in Minneapolis. A 2017 article from a now-defunct local newspaper reports on one of the early, under-the-radar meetings.
Even though PrEP had been around for five years, there still wasn’t a lot of political muster behind the movement. As recently as 2023, Minneapolis officials closed down an unlicensed sauna. It boasted around 900 members.
But in the second Tr*mp era, high-profile city officials say they see bathhouses as potential safe havens.
“Parties and events that operate as adult sex venues already happen in the shadows, and we are trying to ensure that they are safe for patrons, especially when LGBTQ+ individuals are under attack by the federal government,” Payne, who is straight, told the Star Tribune.
A spokesperson for Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said he’s supportive of the city looking into the proposal.
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As backlash grows over hookup apps and sex bots, bathhouses could also be vital antidotes to social isolation and alienation.
Bathhouses offering IRL experiences
A 2024 Minneapolis report found that six U.S. cities allow bathhouses to operate with special permits. None of those cities “reported issues with the businesses.”
Along with Minneapolis, San Francisco is looking to become one of them. In recent years, the city has lifted a number of restrictions. A City Supervisor named Rafael Mandalman, who’s gay, is leading the charge.
He told GayCities he doesn’t view bathhouses as sex-only venues. In Europe and Asia, they are social places to gather.
He doesn’t see why the same can’t be true here.
“If you think about the great bathhouses around the world, they’re not just sex venues,” he said. “They’re a kind of community center.”
In Mandalman’s mind, gay people connecting in a physical, sex-forward space is preferable to scrolling the grid. With Grindr subscriptions now costing hundreds of dollars annually, it’s also more inclusive and cost effective.
“I think it’s good for human beings,” he said. “People are social. I think we get a kind of stimulation from some of this online activity, including online-based sex apps, but it’s actually better to have more sustained community in person.”
Clearly, there’s an appetite for IRL cruising. In my home city of Chicago, the line for Steamworks, the bathhouse in Boystown, often stretches down the block on busy party weekends.
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