1, 15 – 19 However, no systematic risk behavior assessments across different types of venues have been conducted either before or since the onset of the HIV epidemic. Given earlier ethnographic research in sex venues, one might expect sexual behavior across venues to vary. Curiously, none of these studies investigated differences in levels of risk between the different types of sex venues (e.g., public cruising areas vs baths) or differences between men who visited only 1 type of venue vs those who went to several types. 13, 14 Results suggested that HIV risk behavior occurred in all types of sex venues and that men who went to these venues were more likely to report engaging in risk behavior than men who did not go to these venues. Their studies were of 2 types: men leaving a selected venue (e.g., tearooms 12) were surveyed about their recent sexual risk behaviors, or samples of gay men were asked both about their sexual risk behavior and whether they visited any sex venue.
2, 4īecause the association between HIV and baths was identified early in the epidemic, 5 – 11 investigators have given considerable attention to sex venues generally. 3 Generally speaking, gay baths provide relative physical safety for patrons (although police harassment of bathhouse and sex club patrons occurs, it has been relatively rare). These are usually called gay bathhouses (or baths), although they go by other names (e.g., sex clubs, tubs, saunas, and health clubs). Certain other commercial venues exist primarily to provide an opportunity for MSM to have sex with other MSM. Consequently, MSM who frequent these venues share them with people who are not seeking sexual encounters on the premises, and MSM take certain risks in looking for sexual encounters, including risk of discovery, physical harm, or arrest. The general purpose of all these venues is (or purports to be) something other than providing opportunities for sex.
2 Some of the venues are purely public spaces (e.g., parks, beaches, alleys, and toilets), and some are commercial environments that can also serve as sex venues (e.g., adult bookstores, pornographic movie houses, back rooms of bars, and traditional Turkish or Japanese bathhouses). The variety of settings is large, but they generally allow participants to secure a minimum of privacy, at least in terms of not being harassed or interrupted. Since Humphreys' groundbreaking study 1 of sex between men in “tearooms” (public restrooms with a reputation as a place where homosexual encounters occur), social scientists have investigated the environments outside the home where men who have sex with men (MSM) meet other MSM for casual, usually anonymous, sex.