In the meantime, Eros is staying afloat with a combination of PPP and small business funds loans from the ownership team, members and managers and a Gofundme fundraiser. "Some people have pushed back at the notion of masks in a sex club," Rowe said, but Eros plans to stay flexible - even if it means "it becomes a jack off-focused club, at least for a while." Sauna access will also be off-limits for the time being. The new rules include time limits, reduced capacity and "depending on where we're at when we reopen," distancing protocols, Rowe said.
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"That's the kind of mentality, the business model we still have."Įros has already outlined a detailed draft series of modifications that'll allow it to reopen safely as soon as the city gives it the go-ahead. "We use hospital-grade cleaning already," Rowe said.
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Open-format gay sex clubs were still allowed, with the goal of monitoring attendees to ensure they practiced safe sex.īack then, Rowe said, Eros' founders "were always trying to look at what the science was, and how to expand that into a semi-public play space like this." They provided free condoms, and to ensure their safe, effective use, they installed lubricant in wall-mounted soap dispensers. The city had already banned bathhouses - gay sex clubs with private rooms and locked doors - eight years prior, in an effort to curb the spread of HIV. | Photo: SteamworksĮros opened for business on Market Street at the height of the AIDS epidemic, in 1992. "We expect to roll with this pandemic as we did with HIV," said Ken Rowe, a spokesperson for Eros.
With even closer quarters and higher contact than most nightlife venues, sex clubs seem uniquely vulnerable in the face of a viral pandemic.īut the long history of harm reduction and safer-sex modifications these clubs displayed in the AIDS crisis also makes them uniquely poised to reopen safely as COVID-19 restrictions ease.
That prompted concern that the remaining holdouts in the Bay Area's once-bustling gay sauna and bathhouse world - San Francisco's Eros and Berkeley's Steamworks - might dry up, too. SoMa's Blow Buddies shuttered after 32 years in business, as did San Jose bathhouse Watergarden, which had been operating since 1977.īoth businesses cited the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason for their closure. Last month saw the permanent closure of two landmark Bay Area gay sex clubs.