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San francisco gay bath house

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Prior to that 1984 ordinance, enacted under Mayor Dianne Feinstein, gay bathhouses had proliferated across San Francisco, with many of them concentrated in and around SoMa.

The new ordinance finally passed in November 2024, and there's been some movement on the bathhouse front, with two nascent projects appearing to be on the hunt for space and backers, Castro Baths and New Bathhouse.

"By 2020, with treatments for HIV and PrEP and a whole lot of knowledge that it no longer made sense, and from a public health perspective, we could do better by allowing bathhouses and regulating them," Mandelman said last year.

Currently, there still are no proper queer bathhouses in SF — which are defined by rentable rooms with lockable doors, in addition to showers and spa elements — only the pseudo bathhouse/sex club Eros in the Tenderloin, and the more traditional, non-sexual bathhouse Archimedes Banya.

Well, almost.

After running a five-year gauntlet through the city’s byzantine laws governing traditional gay bathhouses, officials promoting their return repealed the last of a set of archaic regulations blocking them late last year.

Now, it’s up to prospective bathhouse owners to get them off their mood boards.

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San Francisco had been home to scores of baths catering to gay men since one of the first, Jack’s Turkish Baths, opened in the 1930s near Polk Street, once the epicenter of gay life in the city.

The baths’ heyday was in the 1970s when gay men swapped 501 Levi’s and lumberjack shirts for a short white towel hanging low on the waist.

Do enjoy special indulgences and meals! 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. We do not accept personal checks.

What kind of exercises can I expect during a workout?

Our class programming will include a strength portion in which you’ll work on something like Olympic weightlifting, deadlifting, squatting, or bodyweight strength or you may work on a skill like handstand push-ups.

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We have filtered water available to our members.

I think the better bathhouses are bathhouses where there’s a lot going on. No matter what your current fitness level is, we have the fitness program that is right for you. Other snacks and drinks are available for purchase.

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Getting fit is hard; staying fit is harder. And I hope that our muscles for that are not so atrophied that these things wouldn’t be successful if they opened.”

“I think a lot of good can come out of people getting together — not just getting off, although getting off is great — but I think community spaces are important to the community.”

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It features a range of amenities including saunas, steam rooms, a hot tub, and private rooms.

Some publicly lobbied for the baths’ return but aren’t talking after permitting roadblocks were cleared.

After agreeing to share more about their plans with GayCities, Joel Aguero, owner of the nascent Castro Baths, didn’t respond to follow-ups. The Barracks off Folsom Street laid the foundation for what’s now known as the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District.

The Barracks burned down in 1981.

“It’s a little hard, financially, to make these things work when the only way you’re able to make money is on the entry fee,” he said. Patrons cruised dimly lit labyrinths of private rooms to a thumping disco soundtrack, with stops in the steam room, jacuzzi, and sauna. “People are social. You’ll feel like you stepped into the Four Seasons Spa."

The move to open a bathhouse comes five years after openly gay supervisor Rafael Mandelman first proposed rolling back the local ordinance that, at the height of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, outlawed gay bathhouses for both political and public health reasons.

If you are a beginner, results will come fairly quickly; even in only 30 days, you may start to see a difference in your strength and overall fitness.

Do I get the chance to meet new friends?

Yes. We are here to build each other up - if you win, we all win.

How often do you recommend coming to workout classes?

If you are a beginner, we recommend starting with 2 to 4 classes a week, with the goal of working up to 5 a week after your first few months.

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san francisco gay bath house

Some have restaurants, bars, and lounges. You get hooked on feeling good, and junk food just isn’t worth it. Workouts can be anywhere between 5 to 20 minutes or more.

Do I have to stop eating my favorite foods to be healthy?

No!