There’s not much romance or small talk at bathhouses, which are almost 3-D versions of chat rooms where guys are likely to flash their manhood and ask if you wanna suck it before they say hello. My friend and I disrobed and wrapped our towels around our waists, then took a loop around the hallways of the main floor, passing other towel-clad men and glancing into a few rooms where guys were stroking invitingly or waiting with their asses in the air. My friend saved a couple of dollars by renting a locker, while I figured it was worth the extra $10 for a private room for us to be able to “host” any cute guys we came across. We went to the patriarch of Atlanta’s sex play spaces: Flex Bathhouse in Midtown near Georgia Tech. The neighborhood gathering was on the Friday night of a holiday weekend, and our dirty talk with the kinky housewife left my friend and me tingling for some towel-wearing explorations of our own. And, undeniably, they would be the envy of most heterosexual men (if they were aware of them), who can only have wet dreams about venues where a willing, already naked sex partner is around every corner. In reality, most sex clubs are sexy and shady, exhilarating and sobering, spiritual and dehumanizing, hedonistic and a huge letdown. In their best light, sex clubs and bathhouses are treated as our naughty little secret, but they are most often considered a political liability or public health risk. Gay culture has a long and touchy history with sex venues. You can skip the basics and get straight to the sex.”
My friend and I flashed each other devilish glances and I interjected, “We’re gay. “Well, everyone walks around in nothing but a towel,” she whispered as if she were exposing for me a forbidden underground world. I expressed enthusiastic fascination, mainly because I’ve always been curious about the heterosexual version of sex clubs, but also because most of the conversations that night centered on home renovation projects.
I was recently at a meet-the-neighbors cocktail party at my friend’s home in a gentrified swath of the West End when a woman started telling us about how she and her husband were headed to a swingers’ club after the gathering.