I thought houses of prostitution and the like were illegal......but these gay pride bath houses are truly something of which Gay Pride can be proud..... Wonder if PeeWee Herman has a membership or Rosie O'Donnell......well at least to date these "sporting houses" as they used to be called when illegan (??) keep them off the streets and out of our public parks (or do they). Look to South Africa and wonder - Saba
Sex And Murder By AIDS In SF - Sex Clubs Go Unmonitored >From Dr. Cary Savitch, MD 6-6-1 [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Our job is to regulate the environments -- not behavior," says the city's health chief, Dr. Mitch Katz. No Mitch, you are a public health officer, in fact, the top dog in San Francisco, and your job is to save lives. When behavior includes spreading a deadly virus, then you have a responsibilty to intervene. -- Cary Savitch MD, President of Beyond AIDS Foundation Sex And The City The San Francisco Chronicle 6-6-1 Even amid new reports showing AIDS once again on the upswing, San Francisco has only one part-time health inspector to monitor the more than a dozen largely gay sex clubs thriving in the city. Not that it makes much difference, because the health inspector assigned to the clubs never actually goes into them when they're open. As a matter of fact, she hasn't gone into them at all lately. That's because the inspector is on maternity leave -- and the Health Department hasn't had anyone fill in for her while she's out. If you're getting the impression that keeping an eye on the new post- bathhouse sex clubs is a low priority with the city -- you're right. "Our job is to regulate the environments -- not behavior," says the city's health chief, Dr. Mitch Katz. Five years ago, San Francisco became the first city in the nation to license group sex clubs. At the time, officials said their goal wasn't to sanction sexual promiscuity -- but rather to provide a safer environment for sex. The clubs were supposed to provide condoms, lubricants, proper lighting, AIDS-prevention literature and even safe-sex monitors. The idea being that "if the clubs maintain high standards, . . . then they become useful venues for teaching safe sex," Katz told us. So is it working? Hard to say, but we can tell you that few citations have been issued for unsafe sex practices. In fact, according to Katz, the city has only issued "six to eight" citations -- and closed down just one club -- in the past five years. As for whether the city -- which is spending $60 million a year combatting AIDS -- should be doing more to regulate the clubs, Katz says he's frankly not convinced that it would make much difference. Why not? "Every study we've done -- and we've done lots -- show that 95 percent of unsafe sex happens in people's homes," Katz says. In fact, he adds, "I don't think there's anyone in the HIV field who thinks a lot of the infections are due to the sex clubs -- it's a small percentage." But Dr. Mervyn Silverman, the AIDS specialist and former San Francisco health director who led the charge to close the city's bathhouses 15 years ago after AIDS first hit, questions whether the sex clubs should remain open at all. "As I mentioned back then, there is no way to monitor it unless you're willing to invade people's privacy," Silverman says. "Because you're not going to separate people having sex to make sure they're doing it in a safe manner." Bottom line, as Silverman sees it: "If the Health Department feels comfortable that those venues are really there to do the right thing, then that's fine. But I don't see how you can license facilities that might encourage unsafe behavior while trying to do your damnedest to stop the spread of this disease."
