More than sex: a gay sauna employee explained why he loves his job

Publication Queerty published a piece about an employee at one of America’s gay saunas, who explained why he loves his job. The story is notable not only on its own, but also for its context: it came out at a moment when the topic of gay saunas in the U.S. suddenly returned to the center of the political agenda — and at the level of legislative initiatives, no less.

What the sauna employee wrote

The story retold by Queerty began on the AskGayBros subreddit, where an anonymous employee of one sauna (without naming the venue or the city) explained what he actually loves about his job. In his words, a sauna is not just a place for sex, but also a space for relaxation and openness, where people can not only have pleasure, but also socialize, admire one another, and understand themselves. He recalled seeing couples meet in the same room, ex-partners not making scenes for each other, and older men who had only recently come out, alongside younger people going through the same process. He also noted that saunas are often judged superficially from the outside, without understanding that for many regulars it is about far more than sex.

The post was quickly picked up by several queer media outlets and aggregators and turned a personal confession into a mini-genre: “a sauna worker breaks stereotypes.” This is not the first text of its kind: in recent years, similar pieces have appeared regularly — from TikTok videos by employees complaining that the real job is mostly cleaning and front-desk work, not endless sex, to essays by former sauna workers about what the job taught them.

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Why this is more than just a nostalgic genre

The point is that saunas as an institution are not only the subject of media curiosities, but also a living part of the history of the gay community, a history that is much older and more dramatic than memes and reposts might suggest.

Gay saunas in the U.S. date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries: for example, the famous New York Everard Baths, originally a Turkish bath, had by the 1920s become a meeting place for almost exclusively queer men, despite police raids in 1919–1920. By the 1970s, saunas had become an entire industry: for example, the Club Baths chain once numbered up to 42 venues across North America — from Atlanta and Baltimore to San Francisco and Miami.

The boom came in the 1970s, a time of sexual revolution and growing visibility of the gay movement. Then came the collapse: in the mid-1980s, at the height of panic over the HIV/AIDS epidemic, authorities in several U.S. cities, including New York, urgently shut down saunas, considering them breeding grounds for infection. New York, for example, introduced the relevant health regulations in 1985 — and on that basis the city closed local gay saunas the following year, in 1986.

The problem is that the “emergency” measures of the 1980s remained in force for decades — even though medicine has changed dramatically since then.

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Saunas are coming back. Literally — thanks to lawmakers

There is now a noticeable movement in the opposite direction in the United States — and it is no longer just individual bold entrepreneurs, but official policy.

Minneapolis. At the beginning of 2026, the city repealed its own sauna ban, which had been in place for 38 years.

San Francisco. The city went in a different direction long ago: saunas were never completely banned there; instead, they operate under health oversight and regulation — essentially a legal but controlled model.

New York. The biggest development is this week. State Senator Eric Bottcher and Assembly member Tony Simone introduced a bill in the state legislature called the Public Health Modernization Act, which is intended to repeal the ban on "adult saunas" in force since 1985 and replace it with a system of licensing and regulation. According to the bill, if it is passed, the state health department will be given six months to develop specific rules for licensing and operating such establishments.

The bill's authors argue that the medical landscape around HIV has changed dramatically: pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) have appeared, along with routine testing and effective treatment — in short, the full arsenal that did not exist in 1985, when the decision to close the saunas was made amid panic and an almost complete lack of knowledge about the virus. Bottcher stated plainly that emergency epidemic-style measures should not have become permanent policy for decades.

The initiative was also supported by members of the medical community: the chief medical officer of New York's Callen-Lorde clinic said that regulated venues make it possible to build trust and provide services that genuinely improve community health outcomes — in short, legal saunas are easier to reach with educational and preventive programs than underground spots. LGBT activist veteran Allen Roskoff emphasized in his statement that New York saunas were not just a place for sex between strangers, but a symbol of the community, its culture, and its struggle for civil rights.

A similar logic underpinned the decision to legalize saunas in Minneapolis: city officials explicitly described such venues as a tool for reaching a population that otherwise remains outside the view of HIV prevention services.

What about the critics

Not everyone embraced the initiative enthusiastically. Conservative media have already criticized the New York bill, calling it an attempt to bring back “AIDS-era sex saunas” under the guise of concern for gay culture, and noting that saunas in the 1980s were associated with the rapid spread of the virus, which took more than 100,000 lives in New York alone.

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Supporters of the bill respond with the same argument used in other cities where legalization has occurred: prohibition did not stop demand, but merely pushed encounters into less safe, unregulated settings, which is precisely what undermines the public health goals the ban was originally meant to serve.

Sources and further reading:

– State Senator Erik Bottcher, Assemblymember Tony Simone — press release on the Public Health Modernization Act bill, NYSenate.gov— “New York lawmakers propose lifting 1985 ban on LGBTQ+ bathhouses”
– «New York lawmakers propose lifting 1985 ban on LGBTQ+ bathhouses» — Gothamist
– «Could bathhouses be coming to New York? A new bill says yes» — The Advocate (mentions the repeal of the ban in Minneapolis and the San Francisco model)
– «Gay lawmakers introduce bill to legalize bathhouses in New York State» — LGBTQ Nation
– «City Council approves legalizing bathhouses in move advocates say is critical to public health» — LGBTQ Nation, about the Minneapolis decision
– «‘Awful’: NY Lawmakers Push to Bring Back AIDS-Era Sex Bathhouses…» — RedState, critical viewpoint
– «The lively history of gay bathhouses, from 15th-century scandal to modern staple» — PinkNews, story of the institute
– “Is this the Wildest Queer Address in NYC?” — Queer Happened Here, story of the Club Baths network