HIV SPREADS LIKE WILDFIRES IN GAY BATHHOUSES

 By Dominick Romeo
 

So does syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea too; just to name a few common diseases that run rampant at gay bathhouses.  To get a knock at your door from the Health Department in the 80’s and 90’s was a matter of life or death.  Or, 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 A-S-A-P, was embarrassing to say the least.  Even though HIV and other diseases are more manageable today, we should not allow these places to exist and infect the next generation of our LGBT youth and straight communities.
 

It’s only a matter of time for the next immunosuppressive disease to spread throughout our community and go without notice for ten years, as was the case with AIDS.  By the time AIDS was detected in the mid-80’s it was too late.  The virus had already destroyed gay men’s immune systems to the point that even the smallest scratch from their pet cat would kill them within a few days.
 

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

This is unconscionable!!!  There is nothing good that goes on at bathhouses.  To claim that we can somehow make bathhouses safer, flies in the face of over 100,000 lives lost in New York City during the AIDS epidemic.  These bathhouses have been connected to countless outbreaks through the years and have been the epicenter for STD’s and STI’s that have spread throughout all five boroughs.

THIS BILL IS A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER 

TO THE LGBT COMMUNITY

AND SHOULD NOT BE PASSED!
 

We have seen this trickery before - in the mid 80's, when our city wanted to close these bathhouses down at the peak of the AIDS epidemic, when the owners of these establishments were dubbed "The Merchants of Death" by gay men who demanded that these places close 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 of those bathhouses 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 use condoms at these bathhouses, and this literature gets thrown away.   

Ironically, there are some gay men in their 50's, 60's and 70's who are in favor of this legislation. They are the same ones who survived the AIDS epidemic of the 80's and 90's.  They seem to have no problem trading the memories of loved ones (those who died a horrible death from AIDS) for an enchanted-evening with a 20 or 30-year-old, who's unable to make rational decisions for themselves, being under the influence of meth (methamphetamines) "special-K" and painkillers – which are some of the narcotics sold by drug dealers who work at these bathhouses today. 

This is yet another attempt by big pharma (as well as several wealthy gay leaders in our community, who are planning to invest and reopen dozens of these bathhouses throughout NYC) 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 claiming that these bathhouses can be used as hubs to preach the gospel of safer sex, when we all know exactly what goes on there.  That 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 key phrase here is – 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 because you think that you are invincible.
 

These pharmaceutical companies always seem to leave out the human element over profiting when conducting studies on our LGBT youth.  That, plus, when you are an addict (as I once was, when I frequented these bathhouses regularly), addicts tend not to take their medications for weeks and months at a time.  They tend not to have a care in the world about themselves, let alone the countless others they are about to infect.  This is called taking a “holiday” from your meds and this is a known practice that most addicts surrender to in between highs.  
 

This is also why we are failing miserably with the homeless issue in New York City.  They are leaving out the human element in each policy they write.  Politicians today only pass laws that either sound good, make them look good, or look good on paper, but not legislation that's connected to real life and real situations.  

We need to focus on the addiction element prior to getting anyone housed.  Otherwise, an addict is destined to fail.  They will most likely become a nuisance to their neighbors, and in time, they will be evicted for their addiction.  They will eventually have no other option left but to live on the streets again, and this will be our politician’s fault, not theirs.
 

Making bathhouses legal again falls into this same category of not being connected to reality.  While failing to address the human element in their policies, these politicians have chosen to ignore the consequences of bad behavior and continue to put all of our lives at risk.    
 

These bathhouses are filled with addicts who have mental health issues brought on by their addictions.  They served no real good to our community then and will serve even less good to us today if we allow them to reopen.  They exist to profit off the backs of vulnerable gay men, and they could care less about the number of STIs and STDs that spread throughout our community because of them.   

Pharmaceutical companies were once the enemy of us gay people and for good reason.  The original drugs to treat AIDS, drugs like AZT, caused more harm than good, but they were the only medication that the FDA approved at the time.
 

ACTUP, The Aids Coalition to Unleash Power, was created in 1987 to fight these pharmaceutical companies as well as government officials who refused to listen to the gay community, as thousands of our friends and family members died, due to a mysterious virus, known then as gay cancer, because of lesions that covered the bodies of those who had caught this disease.  They considered this to be a gay issue and not their problem, until AIDS started to affect the straight community as well.
 

The newer HIV medications, including Pep and PrEP, come with their fair share of side-effects – everything from blood clots to kidney failure to cancers.  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?  Why??  Because Big Pharma is now in the pockets of our politicians, our doctors, and leaders within our gay community – that’s why!
 

These drugs are being marketed to gay youth in their teens, their 20’s, and their 30’s, who are not even HIV positive, but who pose 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 that gay man or woman, bisexual, and transgender persons, finds a long-term relationship with someone who is also HIV negative, which has become increasingly difficult to find. 

  The myth that some drag queen who had taken a couple of courses on safer sex practices; these supposedly trained “sex counsellors" who will now be promoting Gilead’s Pep and PrEP in future bathhouses, will not make a difference when it comes to preventing young gay men from having unsafe sex in such environments while spreading diseases.  Nor will they be able to convince anyone to take their meds regularly.   
 

We’ve all seen these “healthcare specialists” at bathhouses before, and we’ve all walked by them while they were in their rooms; except for the handful of gay men who forgot to pick up a bottle of lube on the way over to the bathhouse, which are given out in small packages, alongside literature about safer sex and information about organizations for mental health, that hardly anyone there will read.
 

HOW GAY BATHHOUSES AFFECT EVERY COMMUNITY ESPECIALLY THE STRAIGHT ONES

 

Joe has unsafe sex in Bob's room, room 52, on the lower level at The Westside Club.  Yes, you heard me right → I said the lower level.  These bathhouses are huge and can easily serve hundreds of gay men per night.  Most have rooms on two or three different floors.  They are making money hand over fist and could care less about our health and public safety.
 

These rooms tend to be all around the same size, roughly five feet by seven feet in space.  There is always a laptop playing gay porn where the men in each video are having unprotected sex to inspire more unsafe practices.  They normally all have a spa, a sauna, and a weight-machine within them, which according to local law keeps them in good legal standing.  All of them have open showers stalls, with no partitioning between them, purposely designed for large groups of men to have orgies in.
 

Bob, who is already HIV positive, and doesn't take his medications regularly, thinks he may have come down with chlamydia when he was at the spa last week.  He hasn't had time to get tested for this yet, and doesn’t mention this to others out of fear that they might not want to have unprotected sex with him.  He spots a young man while walking aimlessly on the first floor, who is in room 12, and who has had his door open all night long.
 

This young man’s name is Kevin.  He’s a black male in his early 20’s, who has not come out to his parents yet, nor has he told his girlfriend Luisa, who lives in Spanish Harlem.  Kevin has snuck away for the night to explore the gay lifestyle and found himself in a gay bathhouse.  Now Bob walks into Kevin’s room and they have unprotected sex for a few hours at a time, after Bob introduces Kevin to the wonderful world of Meth-Sex.  Now, Kevin is infected with both HIV and chlamydia, and has become addicted to meth, but he’s not aware of any of this yet, and then brings this home to his girlfriend Luisa, who is unaware that he is bisexual because he hasn’t gathered the courage to tell her.
 

And this happens hundreds of times each month, especially on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, which eventually spreads throughout all communities, including the straight ones.
 

Gay men are not using this environment to meet other gay men to have healthy and lasting relationships.  The overwhelming majority of gay men who frequent these establishments do not want to know the names of the persons they are having sex with. That would defeat the purpose entirely.  It’s all about anonymous sex when you get there, where the sole purpose is to count the number of times you get off each night.  

I personally lost a cousin from AIDS in the 80’s because of this behavior.  My cousin Donna’s husband didn't tell her that he was bisexual and would frequent these bathhouses at night.  First her newborn son died from AIDS, then she passed away from AIDS a few years later, followed by her husband Bobby.  Their only surviving son, my cousin XXXXXX, lost both of his parents at the age of twelve, and has been in and out of the prison system ever since.
 

Then there are men who have sex while using a condom at bathhouses, but then take their condoms off without telling their partners what they did.  But his partners were too high to even notice that this was done to them.  Now, they not only have gonorrhea, they will soon find out that they are HIV positive, just like him.

We have dating apps now.   We don’t need places like this anymore.  We can swipe someone’s profile to the left if we’re not interested, or swipe to the right and DM them later when we are.  Then we get to decide which apartment or house to meet up in later.  
 

These apps have dramatically slowed down the spread of STDs and STIs to a more manageable number that when and if the next outbreak comes (and there will be other viral outbreaks in our lifetime) the Health Department can trace these outbreaks much quicker and lower the risk of infections and death.
 

These apps also come equipped with safer sex ads as well, and there is often someone on these apps who you can talk to about addiction and harm reduction.  We don’t need to go to a three-story sex factory, that’s filled with hundreds of gay men per night, who have no interest in the welfare of others while renting a room or a locker there.  
 

We have more gay clubs, more gay restaurants, and more gay bars than ever before!  There is no real reason, other than financial, to revive these archaic places that will put the next generation of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders at risk.
 

Bathhouses were indeed part of gay history.  But these unsafe, unhealthy, unnecessary practices need to stay exactly where they belong – in the past – within the dusty pages of some history book that you can borrow from a library – or you can look-up this subject online in the comfort and safety of your home.

We do not need these bathhouses anymore.    

 

Third generation Hell’s Kitchenite now living in Chelsea New York, and a lifelong Democrat.  A Building Superintendent that has always fought for his neighborhood. 

At a very early age he submerged himself to better improve his neighborhood and community, joining the block association at 12 and more recently has been involved in a fight with City Hall’s trash take-out time, which sends building superintendents back to work past 8 PM, forcing them to miss quality time with family and friends.  He also ran for City Council in 2025 to challenge the establishment as well as to oppose bad policies that later became counterintuitive to most New Yorkers.     

Dubbed the “Activist Superintendent” by the New York Post for creating a group of Bulding Superintendent's and porters called NYCBuildingSupers.com.  Collectively pushing back city regulations that have disrupted many of their lives. “Whoever said you can’t fight City Hall was dead wrong,” Dom says. 

In addition to his current activist work fighting City Council, Dom’s activism spans decades.  “There is something about fighting for what is right that energizes me. I would not be able to get up early each morning if there wasn’t something to fight for or against.”

Member of ACT UP, the coalition that fights Aids, HIV, and the stigmas that surrounds it, formed in the 1980’s.  Dominick has worked side-by-side with other social justice organizations such as GMHC, Housing Works, VocalNY, and Black Lives Matter. “If you’re not losing your voice in a protest you’re doing something wrong.,” he says. 

Dom’s fight with City Council is still very much active.   Although his group of supers and porters have made some strides, he recently realized that the only way to protect supers, porters and the working class from our city is to earn a seat in City Council. Because, as he puts it; “If you can’t beat them, join them - then beat them later.”