"Steamed" Detroit a syphilis hotbed

The Metro Times ^ | July 18, 2003 | Nate Cavalieri

[stage left]

Body Zone, the newer and more modern of Detroit’s two gay men’s bathhouses, offers the same amenities found in most gay baths around the country — a labyrinth of hallways lined with small rooms that contain beds. The rooms are available for eight-hour rental. The place also features a steam room, an open shower room, a large hot tub and lounge areas where TVs show either sitcoms or gay pornography.

There is scant conversation. Men looking to hook up communicate almost exclusively through eye contact. I pass men of every shape, age and ethnicity, but no one talks. They sit mutely in the hot tub or the steam room or TV rooms. Some stand in doorways to their rooms, waiting for that special someone to stroll by.

From behind the doors to the private rooms come muffled sounds of sex — moaning, slapping, laughing. The doors to some occupied rooms are left open — a gesture inviting passersby to watch or join in. They allow voyeuristic glimpses of sex at every stage, men touching each other in foreplay, in the heat of oral or anal intercourse, lying together in the afterglow. Most of the men having anal sex wear condoms, but some do not. Of the numerous acts of fellatio that can be seen in the hallways, steam rooms and porn rooms, not a single man is wearing one.

This is my first visit to a bathhouse. During visits to Detroit’s two baths over the next two weeks, I never engage in any sexual activities or interact with patrons as a reporter; I just watch. I see men interact with each other in an environment that presents a head-spinning dichotomy. It’s a space where men are safe, allowed to act on every sexual impulse with no questions asked. It’s also a place where, through no-questions-asked, unprotected oral and anal sex, men might be in danger of killing themselves.

“Bathhouses, first and foremost, are a place for men to have sex,” begins the anonymously written, authoritative guide found at “The Bathhouse Diaries” (www.bathhouseblues.diary-x.com). “It is a sexual playground for men to do whatever they want. A place to get sex 24/7, like a 24-hour convenience store.”

Detroit public health officials say Body Zone, the area’s most popular sexual convenience store among younger men, gets as many as 1,000 patrons on any given weekend. They have special events to add to the numbers, themed nights and “black out” parties, where almost all of the lights are turned off to encourage more excitement and anonymity.

Detroit currently holds the dubious title of syphilis capital of America.

“There is this idea that if it weren’t for the baths and parks and places where this kind of thing is tolerated that people would do even crazier or riskier things,” says Dan Savage, editor of the Seattle Stranger alternative newsweekly and sex columnist who is widely published, including in Metro Times. Savage, who’s openly gay, has debated the topic of bathouses with liberals and conservatives alike.

“I sometimes ask myself, ‘If it were straight people carrying on like this and diseases were being passed to straight people in an environment like this — at the rate that gay people are acquiring diseases — would the places be closed down?’ And I think the answer is yes. If lots of straight girls were going to a place and having tons of anonymous sex with men who had diseases and going home with diseases, the health department would shut it down in a heartbeat.”

When you are in a bathhouse it’s not about your social status or whatever, everyone is equal and free and there is lots of sex!’ And it is almost impossible to argue with these people because they are nuts. You hear these beautiful odes to what a bathhouse means and symbolizes, and then if you actually go to one it is really sort of desperate and pathetic and depressing. It isn’t this beautiful community of like-minded men who are all equal in their towels. It’s really kind of a scummy environment full of people who are closeted and fucked up about being gay and that’s why they’re there.”

[TheSpottedOwl]

Well that gave me more info than I wanted to hear. Needless to say, I won't quote from the article :)

[scripter]

I thought about kids reading FR after posting the entire article and wish I would have removed some of the more colorful language in the original.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

This FREE Metro Detroit Weekly usually prints articles geared to a readership who are so far left they are in a new classification.

I saw it when I visited the Detroit metro area last year. I live in California. You will find these weekly tabloids all across the country. They are owned by one of two 501(c) non-profits which are really communist front groups.

There is one local to me here. Every anti-USA, pro-commie editorial slant you can imagine is embraced by these filth. Gay sex ads, all manner of tax increase advocacy, anti-capitalist drivel, info-tainment babble and perversion of anything resembling truth.

Go to their websites and follow the links to their main association(s). See the articles and garbage their sister organization print.

[drjimmy]

Not good. I will be sure to instill in my boys to marry a virgin.
And will you instill in them to be virgins themselves until they marry?

[scripter]

That goes without saying.