What’s the deal with this story about the police shutting down a gay bathhouse as a “common bawdy house”?
I’m particularly enjoying this little comment:
Wow! All of 'em?
Anyway, so what’s the deal? Do you know of the bathhouse in question, and whether it is indeed a brothel? Does the Calgary police force have a reputation for anti-gay actions?
-Ulterior
By the way, this may definitely not be the best forum for this, but I couldn’t decide…
Humm - interesting.
While Calgary isn’t exactly the most enlightened of Canada’s cities when it comes to gay rights, we’re not exactly backwards either.
I wasn’t aware of extreme police prejudice or malace towards the gay community. I’m not gay, but I do have a number of gay friends and none of them have mentioned it.
There is a chance that the Globe and Mail is sensationalizing the story way out of proportion - they have been known to do that.
All I know is that the last line of the linked articled screamed to me “Sig line for Matt_mcl” 
Oh, and I mentioned the article to Ginger, and before I had two sentences out of my mouth, she said “Goliath’s right? On 17th?” Seems the place was well known as a place to get laid. I don’t think that’s a reason for the police to raid, however. This feels more like a story that should take place down here in the U.S.A., rather than Canada.
Stupid question-what’s a bath house, exactly? Is it like, a real bath house like in ancient Rome? Or is it just a fancy way of saying swimming pools?
Pretty much. It’s like a spa that caters to gay clientele only, with sauna and steam rooms etc. (Um… I think it’s also mostly a guy thing. I don’t know of any lesbian bath houses, but I may be naive on that issue).
If you rent the French Canadian film Le confessional (The Confessional) by Rober LePage there are some scene that take place in a bath house as a man searches for his brother who is into that scene.
Ah, okay. That makes sense.
In A Lifelong Passion, which is a collection of letters, diaries, documents, etc from the last Imperial family of Russia, one of the Grand Dukes mentions going to a gay bath house and feeling guilt over his “sin.” Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. It’s very sad, actually-he was an author, under the initials K. R. (Konstantin Romanov), and one of his sisters was the Queen of Greece.
Basically what a bath house is, is a facility with pools, saunas, showers, etc, as well as little rooms. You pay for a room or a locker, take off all your clothes, and wander around checking out the boys. When you see a guy you like, you approach him and the two of you go off to a room and screw.
Okay, so a lot of people wouldn’t look at this as the most savoury of environments for the holy act of love. But that’s not really their business. This bit about a common bawdy house (i.e. brothel), though, is ridiculous. You do not pay to have sex there. You pay for a room or a locker. Whether you have sex afterwards is your own business, and well it should be. I know guys who go to bathhouses to, well, bathe. Or as a cheap place to sleep. The bathhouse the friend of mine works for has a full-featured gym, health food bar, etc. Nice place.
Certainly prostitutes could (and probably do) ply their trade there, but if that was the criterion they’d have to shut down every sleazy motel there is, and a lot of the nice ones too. I can’t think of any reason to close this place down other than sheer hysteria and personal squickyness.
(For that matter, what’s the point of shutting down common bawdy houses in the first place?)
Actually, I was more shocked at the notion that there was a bath house in Calgary. To me they always seemed so much like a Montreal thing with pale immitations in Toronto.
I’ve heard in Montreal they are pretty much like spas with gym etc. and are quite nice and classy. Like Good Life Fitness Clubs with an elaborate social structure.
But matt, think of the CHILDREN!!! Shouldn’t they be sneaking around doing it in parked cars in the woods!!! I mean, it’s SEX!!!
To me, this suggests you really aren’t familiar with gay bath-houses in Toronto, or their long and stormy history in the “growing up” of the city.
Hey, the back seat of a car worked for me!
If you make it too easy for the kids they won’t appreciate it!
“What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly.”
Jefferson said that, I think. And that’s the best quote out of context I think I’ve ever made.
Until I moved here two years ago, I didn’t think they existed much in Toronto at all. I knew there were some but anything I ever heard about them was in a very, very vague context that seemed to put them on a par with massage parlours.
When I moved to Toronto, I was surprised to see an advertisement for one.
Growing up as a non-Torontonian, I’ve heard people only rave about the Montreal bath houses, and have seen the Montreal bath houses portrayed in different fims (mostly French Candian films) but when living outside of Toronto I never heard a single credible reference to Toronto bath houses. Any mention of Toronto bath houses was very vague in the dubious “friend of a friend of a friend went to one” kind of way. Occasionally a couple vague “police raid bawdy house” news stories but that’s it.
The Montreal bath houses on the other hand, kept cropping up in all sorts of different references. (Granted, this may be because I grew up up in a francophone community, which may explain the Montreal bias.) Although even today in Toronto, anyone I know who refers to bath houses is usually talking about Montreal.
However there is a vast history of the Toronto gay community that I’m only just getting acquainted with, so I’ll likely be filling in the blanks as I read.
I was going dancing in gay bars way back in the mid-to-late 80s. Goliaths was right near 318, which was the premiere primarily male gay bar. There were also Patsy’s (mostly lesbian), The Green Room (drag shows/lounge) and The Warehouse (a mix of gay, straight, goth, punk, etc). The Warehouse is still around in some form or another, but the others are all closed and newer places have popped up in their place. Well, no - Patsy’s and the Green Room were in the same building, which now houses the Interfaith clothing store (Think Goodwill).
Goliath’s was where the boys would go after dancing, drinking, doing poppers, and checking out other boys at 318. I lived up the road in Lower Mount Royal, so I would head home while they would take off to meet up with the hotties from the bar. I never actually set foot into the place - I suspect I would have been unwelcome, being a girl and all.
The fact that this meeting place for the homosexual men in Calgary - and the podunk outta towners who had no way to meet other gay men in their hometowns - speaks great volumes about the crime level in the city of Calgary. There is nothing else to investigate? No drugs, no murders, no prostitution? I could give the names of the owners of a few less-than-legal actual brothels in the city, and yet redneck politicians have made the decision to shut down a bath house.
Makes me proud to be a Calgarian. No, really. Hey, wanna buy a bridge?
Can I have the Centre Street bridge? Or at least the lions on it?
I just want to say that as a Calgary native who now lives in Texas and who has a puppy named Goliath, my head almost imploded when I read the second paragraph.
No, adam yax. The lions are preserved for April 1, every single year. You know what I’m talking about, I know you do.
**Goliath’s Sauna and Texas Lounge **
What I want to know is what is a Texas Lounge and, since I live in Texas, where can I find one nearby.
I’m not that surprised at the charges - the best description I ever heard of a bathhouse was that it was whorehouse staffed entirely by volunteers!
But of course, the whole point of calling it a “bawdy house” is that there’s a direct fee for service, which certainly isn’t the case at most bathhouses I know of. I suspect someone needs to read their statute books a bit more closely…