HIV Spreads Like Wildfires in Gay Bathhouses

By Dominick Romeo

Syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea ─ just to name a few ─ are diseases that run rampant in bathhouses. Back during the AIDS epidemic of the 80s, to get a knock at your door from the Department of Health could mean life or death. To come home from the bathhouses and find a letter from DOH taped next to the peephole ─ for all your neighbors to see ─ saying that you may have been exposed to an infection and that you need to reach out to them ASAP, was embarrassing to say the least. Even though HIV and other diseases are more manageable today, we should not allow bathhouses to exist and infect the next generation of our LGBT youth and straight communities.

Recently, Assembly Member Tony Simone (who is up for re-election in November – running against Cristina Fontanelli from Hell’s Kitchen) and Senator Erik Bottcher, introduced a bill that would legalize gay bathhouses and allow them to reopen.

This is insane!!! There is nothing good that goes on at bathhouses. To claim that we can make them safer, flies in the face of over 100,000 lives that were lost in New York City during the AIDS epidemic. These bathhouses have been connected to countless outbreaks through the years and they were the epicenter for STDs and STIs that have spread through all five boroughs.

This bill is a clear and present danger to straight and gay communities and should not be passed!

We have seen this trickery before ─ in the mid-80s ─ when our city wanted to close bathhouses down at the peak of the AIDS epidemic. That’s when the owners of these establishments were dubbed “The Merchants of Death” by gay men who demanded that these places be closed due to the harm they caused. Those Merchants of Death pleaded with city officials not to close them and ─ as a measure of persuasion ─ the owners offered to provide educational literature on safer sex, along with a single condom and some lube. Although the free lube was most certainly used, very few gay men used condoms at these bathhouses and the literature was often thrown away.

Ironically, today there are some gay men in their 50s, 60s and 70s who are in favor of this legislation. They are the same ones who survived the AIDS epidemic. They seem to have no problem trading the memories of loved ones ─ who died a horrible death from AIDS ─ for an enchanted-evening with a 20 or 30-year-old. Those young people, are unable to make rational decisions for themselves, especially if they are under the influence of meth, “special-K,” and painkillers. These are some of the narcotics sold by drug dealers who work at bathhouses today.

This is another attempt by Big Pharma (and local wealthy gay leaders who plan to invest in bathhouses) to promote PEP and PrEP to our gay youth, instead of promoting the use of condoms. Politicians and wealthy leaders in the LGBT community are once again claiming that bathhouses can be used as hubs to preach the gospel of safer sex, when we all know exactly what goes on there. Safe sex is the furthest thing on the minds of gay men who rent a room or a locker at these places.

PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is a medication made by Gilead Sciences that’s prescribed to reduce the risk of getting HIV from sex and is said to be 99% effective “when used as prescribed.” The problem with these types of daily doses and six-month injectables is that when you are young you tend not to take your meds as directed. You think you are invincible at that age.

The newer HIV medications, including PEP (postexposure prophylaxis) and PrEP, come with their fair share of side-effects ─ everything from blood clots to kidney failure to cancer. We know viruses have mutated in the past and the drugs to treat these infections and HIV have become useless. So why would we as a community advocate for the use of these medications over the use of condoms? Because Big Pharma is now in the pockets of our politicians and leaders within our gay community!

These drugs are being marketed to gay youth in their teens, 20s, and 30s, who are not even HIV positive, but who have a risk of contracting the virus that causes AIDS. Those youths would need to take these drugs for the remainder of their lives ─ or until they find a long-term relationship with someone who is also HIV negative ─ which has become increasingly difficult to find.

We should not be teaching this behavior to our youth. We should be shielding them from the horrors and the fears of our past, while sharing stories of the misery that these places once brought us. We should be sharing the memories of gay men who are no longer with us because of AIDS and other diseases that spread like wildfires throughout these bathhouses in the 70s and 80s, and even today.

Follow the money! Ask each politician and leader in our gay community supporting this bill to show us their tax returns and investment portfolios for the last 15 years!