San Francisco’s baths sex ban

Press, 24 April 1984, Page 20

San Francisco’s baths sex ban

NZPA-ReuterSan Francisco In a bid to curb the spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, San Franciso has banned sexual activity in bathhouses and sex clubs used by the city’s large homosexual community. But the City Public Health Director, Mervyn Silverman, has stopped short of closing the establishments, although many officials, including the Mayor, Dianne Feinstein, have recommended their closing on health grounds. A.I.D.S. is an incurable infection which mainly afflicts homosexuals and is believed to be transmitted through intimate sexual contact. Bathhouses and sex clubs patronised by homosexuals for sexual purposes have been cited as contributing to an alarming spread of the disease, which destroys thej ability to fight infec-;

tion. In San Francisco ar estimated 15 per cent of the population is homosexual. Mr Silverman’s ruling affects about 16 bathhouses and sex clubs. The order will be enforced by threatening to withdraw the licences of establishments where the regulation is ignored. Homosexual leaders said that an outright ban on bathhouses would infringe on human and civil rights. “The baths are part of our gay freedom, liberation, an important element of our struggle to be free,” said Rick Andrews, a doctor who works with the homosexual community. Other homosexual activists said a ban on bathhouses would simply drive people to have sex elsewhere — “out of the tubs rand into the shrubs,” as one put it.