Saunas and bathhouses aimed at gay people may return to operation in San Francisco with a vengeance in San Francisco after almost 40 years of decline.
The city, known for its historic pro-LGBT rights activism, passed a law in 1984 that prohibits establishments from having lockers and booths. In that decade when the world experienced an AIDS/HIV epidemic, there were between 20 and 30 saunas and bathhouses in the city, according to the SFist, while today there is only one.
However, a representative from San Francisco's 8th District, Supervisor Rafael Madelman, is looking to end some of these restrictions; he argues that, today, we live in different times when it comes to STIs (sexually transmitted infections).
“With the emergence of PrEP and the reduction of HIV diagnoses in the city to 200 for the first time since the 1980s, these laws have no public health logic and need to be changed,” said Madelman, referring to the ban on private rooms and monitoring sexual activities within establishments.
Madelman proposes that saunas and bathhouses provide condoms and informational materials about STIs, that monitoring of sex within homes is banned and that private spaces – which cannot be locked – are made available to clients.
Proposals will be evaluated by San Francisco supervisors.
