Hi kholt,
This is particularly complex problem in the black community given that the culture keeps gays in the closet but not out of the 'bathhouses.' It seems to be that that does more harm than good to black families.
I read this article in the Aug. 3, 2003 edition of the New York Times Magazine. --fl
New York Times, MAGAZINE DESK
Double Lives On The Down Low
By Benoit Denizet-Lewis
In its upper stories, the Flex bathhouse in Cleveland feels like a squash club for backslapping businessmen. There's a large gym with free weights and exercise machines on the third floor. In the common area, on the main floor, men in towels lounge on couches and watch CNN on big-screen TV's.
In the basement, the mood is different: the TV's are tuned to porn, and the dimly lighted hallways buzz with sexual energy. A naked black man reclines on a sling in a room called ''the dungeon play area.'' Along a hallway lined with lockers, black men eye each other as they walk by in towels. In small rooms nearby, some men are having sex. Others are napping.
There are two bathhouses in Cleveland. On the city's predominantly white West Side, Club Cleveland -- which opened in 1965 and recently settled into a modern 15,000-square-foot space -- attracts many white and openly gay men. Flex is on the East Side, and it serves a mostly black and Hispanic clientele, many of whom don't consider themselves gay.
[Full text at: psc.uc.edu ] |
