| The recent raid by Calgary Police Services on Goliath’s Saunatel and the Texas Lounge has sent ripples of anger and shock through Calgary’s gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered/queer community and beyond.
Speculation and opinions are running rampant, both in the queer community and mainstream press. The facts are that on the afternoon of December 12, 15 officers entered the premises of both the Texas Lounge and Goliath’s. Police say the raid was the culmination of undercover operations by the Vice Unit that began in April of this year after anonymous complaints were made about "activity" on the premises – it resulted in 13 men being charged as "found-ins" in a "common bawdy house," and two staff members, who work the front door, coffee bar and clean rooms, being charged as "keepers."
Many within the gay community perceive the incident as an attack. Adding insult to injury, community leaders have long lauded the CPS as one of the more progressive police departments in Canada – the raid has severely damaged, if not destroyed, the rapport so many people have spent years building.
Leaders in the queer community are demanding that all charges be dropped and a public apology be issued. However, Chief Jack Beaton has refused to meet with gay representatives, as has Staff Sgt. Joe Houben of the Vice Unit. Cst. Doug Jones, who is the co-chair of the Police Liaison Committee and the GLBT community liaison officer, appears to have been silenced following two media interviews.
The bawdy house laws were originally introduced to curb the proliferation of whorehouses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Once those were done away with, the section was rarely applied until the early 1980s, when the Toronto Police Department used it to raid several gay bathhouses and lay charges against the men in them. In more recent years, the section has been used to "bust" massage parlours where prostitution is occurring.
The Toronto raids created a firestorm of protest and controversy. The police were shown to have behaved abysmally – they kicked down doors, smashed mirrors and walls, and forced frightened and confused naked men into the communal showers. Names of the found-ins were published. Lives were ruined.
While there is no evidence to suggest the Calgary police acted in such a manner – in fact, one found-in reports that the police were professional, polite and took pains to reassure at least one man who was "terrified" – this in no way mitigates what happened.
A gay bathhouse is not analogous to the heterosexual massage parlour. Gay bathhouses are not "houses of prostitution." In fact, if anyone is found soliciting, they are immediately removed and barred. Drug use is also banned.
So, what is a bathhouse?
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, working class neighbourhoods had tenements with no bathing facilities and inhabitants used public baths. The Turkish Steam Bath-style was the most prevalent (hence the more common name "steam bath") and many had small, private "cooling down" rooms. Not surprisingly, homosexual men used these men-only environments to have sex.
Over the years, bathhouses became an integral part of gay culture. The "heyday" of gay bathhouses was the ’70s, when being a gay man meant being sexual with all sorts of other men. It was seen as a joyful, liberating thing to do, a way of casting off the repressions of the past and being fully gay.
Then AIDS hit, and bathhouses were being shut down all over the U.S. and Canada. As the medical establishment tried to understand the epidemiology of HIV, bathhouses were seen as integral to the spread of infection.
As a deeper understanding began to surface in the mid-’80s, bathhouses began a long-running co-operation with local AIDS service organizations. The message was not to stop gay men from having sex, but to encourage them to have safer and better-protected sex. Bathhouses played a key role in delivering that message – they became an environment where men were more likely to practice protected, rather than unprotected, sex due to peer pressure.
In Calgary, there have been gay bathhouses since at least the mid-’70s, and Goliath’s is simply the last of a half-dozen of such establishments that have existed in this city over the years (there are three in Edmonton). None have ever been raided.
The police say they responded to complaints about sex occurring in the "public areas" of the premises. This poses an interesting argument as to what constitutes "public" versus "private." In the case of Goliath’s, as with most steam baths, a patron is buzzed through a security door (at Goliath’s, it’s actually two security doors). The patron can then rent either a locker or a small room for a few hours. Gay baths are not easily accessible to the general public and there is no risk of Uncle George mistakenly stumbling into one believing it is the local gym.
There is, therefore, a reasonable expectation on the part of the patron that this is a private, gay space designed for sexual interaction between consenting adult gay/bi men. That sex occurred in what the police call "public space" – and what I would call "common space" – doesn’t surprise me. Sex is alleged to have taken place in the steam room itself, in the TV lounge where porn was being shown, and in some of the hallways.
Well, duh! It’s a gay bathhouse. Men have sex in gay bathhouses. That is the primary purpose of a gay bathhouse. As long as men are not obstructing other patrons, what is the problem? How could any man in attendance be "shocked" or "offended" by seeing other men having sex when he is there to have sex himself?
The steam bath at Goliath’s, and the common areas and rooms that surround it (this does not include the lounge, which is accessed from a separate door), are private spaces. Some steam baths (not Goliath’s) have "dark rooms" where groups of men can have sex. Others have "specialty rooms" where men interested in more "esoteric" forms of sexual expression can play. Within gay male culture, that is all fine and acceptable.
Nobody is forced to go to a steam bath – all the men are there because they want to be and consented to be.
Stephen Lock is an activist in the gay community and a representative on the police liaison committee. For a history of the American Gay Bathhouse, log on to www.gaytubs.com. |
