The city had already banned bathhouses - gay sex clubs with private rooms and locked doors - eight years prior, in an effort to curb the spread of HIV. | Photo: SteamworksĮros opened for business on Market Street at the height of the AIDS epidemic, in 1992. 'We expect to roll with this pandemic as we did with HIV,' said Ken Rowe, a spokesperson for Eros. With even closer quarters and higher contact than most nightlife venues, sex clubs seem uniquely vulnerable in the face of a viral pandemic.īut the long history of harm reduction and safer-sex modifications these clubs displayed in the AIDS crisis also makes them uniquely poised to reopen safely as COVID-19 restrictions ease. That prompted concern that the remaining holdouts in the Bay Area's once-bustling gay sauna and bathhouse world - San Francisco's Eros and Berkeley's Steamworks - might dry up, too.
SoMa's Blow Buddies shuttered after 32 years in business, as did San Jose bathhouse Watergarden, which had been operating since 1977.īoth businesses cited the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason for their closure. Last month saw the permanent closure of two landmark Bay Area gay sex clubs.
