The Fight Magazine is a glossy monthly queer magazine dedicated to The FIGHT for LGBT equality & social justice. It’s about community where real people grace our covers. But they also know how to have fun as well.
Recently they did a photo shoot at the Roman Holiday Clubs in Los Angeles. This is a sauna that has massage therapy, sauna, steam room, whirlpool spa, showers, lockers, private changing rooms, sun deck. So it was a perfect place to do a photo spread entitled “At The Baths”. Along with text on the beginnings of bathhouses worldwide. Writing
The photos, portraying a stark intimacy and detached sexuality, troubled some Vogue readers, many of whom canceled their subscription to the fashion magazine, in protest.
In the gay world—records of men meeting men in bathhouses date back to the 15th century. In the West, men have been frequenting bathhouses since at least the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the 1950s exclusively gay bathhouses began to open in the United States. Though subject to vice raids, these bathhouses were an oasis of homosexual camaraderie and were, as they remain today, places where it was safe to be gay, whether or not patrons themselves identified as homosexual.
Go to At The Baths to see this beautiful photo display shot at Roman Holiday Clubs for yourself!
Great article