Gay Bathhouses: The Transgression of Health in Therapeutic Places

This chapter considers how these establishments – whilst possessing a therapeutic name, long heritage and hosting many facilities within them traditionally recognized as therapeutic – for users, are attractive and welcoming also for non-traditional reasons related to their sub-culture and sexuality. Indeed, public health messages can fail to achieve their intended goals if they fail to connect with their target audience. The underlying assumption of public health initiatives is that individuals would want to abstain from sexual practices that may put them at risk of acquiring a sexually transmitted infection. Because sex between men occurs frequently in bathhouses, which as venues are not well understood, they have become a focus of research inquiries into sexual health. Mirroring therapeutic landscape research into more conventional settings, another line of inquiry focused on the role of design features in the overall place experience. The changing social composition of therapeutic places through time has been noted in previous therapeutic landscape research.