# Whatever happened to the closed bath houses in San Franciso?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-the-closed-bath-houses-in-san-franciso/256132>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 21, 2004, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-the-closed-bath-houses-in-san-franciso/256132 "2004-07-21T03:51:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-the-closed-bath-houses-in-san-franciso/256132/1 "2004-07-21T03:51:02Z")

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I was looking into State of Washington health dept regs for another question someone posted, and in googling [ran across this note](http://www.kirkread.com/media/articles/history.html) on how the gay bath houses in SF were closed some years ago. Were these ever re-opened? Did they help (measurably) to stop the spread of AIDS in SF?

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-the-closed-bath-houses-in-san-franciso/256132/2 "2004-07-21T03:53:11Z")

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PIMF Francis **c** o

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**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-the-closed-bath-houses-in-san-franciso/256132/3 "2004-07-21T11:56:02Z")

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I think they are still closed but in about 2000 there was a strong gay lobby to get them reopened [http://www.journalism.sfsu.edu/flux/bayCurrents/bathhouse.html](http://www.journalism.sfsu.edu/flux/bayCurrents/bathhouse.html)

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**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-the-closed-bath-houses-in-san-franciso/256132/4 "2004-07-21T17:53:40Z")

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Why should you have to be hetero to take a bath? What? You mean…? Oh, dear. Oh, my. Um, never mind. :smack: