Talk:Gay bathhouse

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[edit] Archives

This article was once a featured article candidate. It is archived here:

[edit] Bathhouses outside of North America?

Can anyone add any more info about bathhouses outside the U.S. and Canada? It would seem to be relevant. I know they are huge in London, for instance, as well as in Turkey and certain Middle Eastern countries. I don't know enough, though, to write about it myself. 64.131.157.221 09:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Delisted Good Article

No images. And what's going on with the References section? joturner 16:35, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

What's the problem with the referneces, exactly? If you're going to add that tag, you need to be a lot more specific. Exploding Boy 17:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
It was obvious to me. What I was referring to was the ibid statements. joturner 03:31, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Nope, still not obvious. What's wrong with ibid? It's accepted in all major styles. Exploding Boy 03:33, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, ibid refers to something I've never heard of. Can you enlighten me? And if there is a better alternative to ibid, I think it should be used as I am most likely not the only user that has not heard of it. joturner 03:35, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

?? Ibid is used in all major citation styles to mean "in the same place." It is a convention that eliminates the need to rewrite a citation when it is the same as the previous citation. I was going to say it's extremely common, but that's rather missing the point: it's standard practice in academia. I think it's time to reinstate the article. Exploding Boy 03:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Anyone can reinstate an article as "good", but I won't be doing it since I gave two reasons for delisting. Go ahead and add it to the self-nominations page and maybe someone else will re-instate it. joturner 03:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

You shouldn't have removed it in the first place, and if you do remove an article you're supposed to contribute to reinstating it--it says so right in the info box. Exploding Boy 03:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't have to. And given that I don't have any pictures of gay bathhouses, I can't. joturner 03:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Well maybe next time you should try asking on the talk page before you delist an article. Exploding Boy 03:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Might try looking in a dictionary, too, if you encounter a word you don't know. And since images aren't required even for featured articles, they certainly aren't required for good articles. Getting a picture of the outside of a gay sauna shouldn't be a problem, but I think most patrons would be extremely angry to have someone taking pictures inside one that were going to be posted on the Internet. --Angr (tɔk) 06:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I have restored the listing. I'm not sure what the alternative to ibid is. "Ditto"? --TreyHarris 06:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The use of ibid is not standard across all disciplines, indeed the ACS (not relevant here!) explicitly forbids its use, as with idem. If it is necessary to cite the same article more than once, they recommend you use the same number (in this case (1)) over again. That would seem to solve the problem (real or not) in this case. As for images, my limited experience with FAs is that an FA without an image is very unlikely to pass; one I peer reviewed recently was criticised for only having 3 or 4 pictures in it! I certainly think a picture of the outside of a gay bathhouse would brighten up this article a great deal. Walkerma 08:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
"That would seem to solve the problem (real or not) in this case." Maybe we just need to change the article to use one of the standard citation templates, which would also have the effect of eliminating ibid and reusing the same citation number instead.
"I certainly think a picture of the outside of a gay bathhouse would brighten up this article a great deal." You haven't actually seen the outside of too many gay bathhouses, have you? "Bright" is not the adjective that comes immediately to mind. ;-) "Depressing windowless bunker" is more the archetype from the gay neighborhoods I'm familiar with. I hope the inside decor is usually more inviting..... --TreyHarris 16:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
From my experience with gay bathhouses (and they are somewhat distant in my past), taking photography is not really generally appreciated by the owners or the patrons. Something about privacy. ℬastique▼parℓer♥voir♑ 15:33, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we went through all this a year ago (or was it even longer than that). If the person who delisted this article had troubled to read the talk page he would have known that photos taken from the websites of bathhouses of their interiors were not considered to be fair use (why, I'm not sure), and it was generally agreed that it would be impossible to procure a photo. Emails to website owners for permission were not responded to. The best we might be able to do is to get photos of the exterior of a few places, but as has been discussed above bathhouses are often entirely nondescript, making the photos really pointless. Exploding Boy 17:06, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I bet could draw a picture based on memory...but you have to realize that those days were tinged with a crystal methamphetamine addiction, and the picture would probably be somewhat abstract and hard to look at. ℬastique▼parℓer♥voir♑ 19:21, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I suppose a drawing might do, though I'm sure there are those who would still object. Exploding Boy 21:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

There will always be those who object to the very existence of this article, with or without images. We needn't be concerned about them. --Angr 21:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
That's true, but I meant object that a drawing is not good enough. Exploding Boy 23:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: format of quotes

Quotes do not need to be--indeed, should not be--italicized. Blockquotes are formatted so that they stand out from the rest of the text anyway. Italics are used for specific purposes; this is not one of them. Exploding Boy 16:57, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gender

Are women ever allowed into gay bathhouses (when men are in there), and if not (I'm assuming not), what about transgender people? Njál 20:32, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Good questionJayKeaton 19:33, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Men and women do not "mix" in gay bathhouses. I know of no situation where a post-operative trannsexual woman would be allowed into a gay male bathhouse (or vice versa), since by definition gay bathhouses are male (or, far, far less commonly, female) only. That's why there are sex clubs, which are a different thing altogether. Exploding Boy 19:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

While it may not be what you meant, the article does reference the tradition of entertainment within certain U.S. gay bathhouses, in some cases by female performers — Bette Midler being arguably the most famous example. Lawikitejana 21:06, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger of Continental Baths article?

I am not the one who proposed the merger, but I arrived back at this Talk page because of a merger proposal at the Continental Baths article. So I thought I'd start a section for people to express their opinion on the idea, with a reminder that the usual way is to start your message with a bolded "Support" or "Oppose," then give a rationale of no more than one or two sentences so as not to bog down the page. That's not a policy, to my knowledge, but it seems to work well. Lawikitejana 21:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Oppose the merger. The Continental Baths was a big place in history and people may want to read about the famous people there, how it opened, how it closed and what is happening with it today JayKeaton 15:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. It's a big celebrity topic in its own right and a slight diversion from "Gay Bathhouse" as a topic, you'll also note that gay bathhouse is getting rather large. NB: there's a very amusing quote from Clemons in "The Gay Metropolis" on pp120-121 about seeing Barbra Streisand at the Lion. -- Ashley VH 00:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] At least 1 reference doesn't check out

On February 21, 1903, New York police conducted the first recorded raid on a gay bathhouse, the Ariston. 26 men were arrested and 12 brought to trial on sodomy charges; 7 men received sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years in prison.[6] I just read the article used as the source of this reference, and there is nothing about this incident. Could someone clarify this for me? Jeffpw 11:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

It's possible that the page has changed since it was accessed. That's the problem with internet sources, and the reason we should provide the date there were accessed for use a reference. Exploding Boy 06:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I think this is now fixed by the reference to the book "Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World" which I've included. -- Ashley VH 23:53, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

I can probably find pictures, but do they have to be non-pornographic? Zazaban 06:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

How about this sort of dull photo of the outside of a gay sauna? wallyg's flicr photo which could be used under the Creative Commons rules so long as it's attributed?
Wrote to wallyg and he said he'd rather not have it used. Other suggestions? -- Ashley VH 14:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Added scanned in (reasonably historically interesting) adverts for Incognito and Sailors, I'm hoping these will remain okay under the "promotional" copyright template as both businesses are now closed.-- Ashley VH 04:30, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] query

I am not to keen on following from the article: There is likely some truth in this claim, at least in the early days of the epidemic, as condoms were rarely used between men before the early 1980s, and bathhouses served as a primary meeting point for same-sex (male) sex partners. It just seems wrong in several ways. First it seems like conjecture/conflation. The logic of the above comment would also apply to banning the sale of beds, in that much unprotected anal sex probably happenend on a bed. In any event, the logic used in this comment is not the same logic used when closing the bathhouses: I suspect they were partly closed because people suspected that AIDS was connected to gay male sex, but initially people did not know it was primarily connected to unprotected anal sex, and all and any sex acts were feared. Overall the above line looks at a reaction that today seems like an overreaction and one that would not prevent AIDS but the editor is nevertheless trying to reqword things to make it somehow seem somewhat logical afterall. Asa01 20:26, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

In London it was certainly true that in the 1980s when the gay saunas were constantly at risk of being raided, the owners were worried about being able to deny knowledge of the activities in their saunas in order to avoid being personally prosecuted. Consequently they tended to not supply condoms. If I find a suitable Gay Times reference I'll add it in... Started re-writing the offending paragraph and adding some more detailed references. -- Ashley VH 14:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

That was a result of the lengthy and acrimonious Featured Article debate re: this article about 3 years ago. Please feel free to change it.

And also, with the recent great improvements and photos, I propose relisting this article for FA status in a few weeks. (The main agitator against FA status for this article has been now banned, by the way.) Exploding Boy 04:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Although I am wondering what happened to Bette Midler's quote re: getting her start in bathhouses. Exploding Boy 05:09, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
If you checkout Continental Baths you'll find it much improved with Midler's quotes refined.-- Ashley VH 11:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's good for that article, but I think the quote is more than appropriate for this one, so I'm resotring it. Exploding Boy 18:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure, it's a good quote. I've taken the liberty of adding it to Bette Midler as the Continental baths reference was a bit light and there was only one quote already on the bio page. -- Ashley VH 19:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh dear, the source ref seems to have got mixed up. Does anyone know if this quote was from The Houston Voice, 23 October 1998 or somewhere else? -- Ashley VH 20:00, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Further work to reduce page size

With all the recent contributions and references, the page is becoming a bit long for normal Wikipedia page length. Some suggestions for trimming work, any thoughts or advice or perhaps the page is at the right sort of length for the subject?

  1. The Etiquette section could be slimmed a little considering that external guides are available, unless a Gay bathhouse guide seems appropriate for Wikipedia?
  2. The Legal issues section is heavy on Canada, perhaps a page similar to 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids might be appropriate if there's interest?
  3. I really enjoyed writing for the Famous bathhouse regulars section, it makes an interesting read, it does seem fairly self contained but I'm uncertain about breaking it out into its own page.

-- Ashley VH 19:11, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I have trimmed down footnote text in line with the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citation templates so as not to duplicate the information in the References section.-- Ashley VH 09:16, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
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