Dozens in San Francisco’s gay community gathered for a tongue-in-cheek candlelight vigil Saturday night to honor the closing of a local gym’s communal showers.
Before they closed for construction this week to make way for individual shower stalls, the showers at Fitness SF’s Castro location were a place where gay men gathered to, well, be gay.
“It was more than a place to rinse off after a workout,” said Kevin John Scott, 41, in a speech to kick off the vigil. “It was a haven for stolen glances, knowing nods, and the unspoken bond of those who understood its significance.”
Jared Scherer, 50, was more suggestive.
“[It was] a place where a proper leg day wasn’t complete without a proper leg spread,” Scherer said during a speech. “A place where the gym’s real cardio workouts took place. …. A place where hundreds of men gave new meaning to the word, ‘shower head.’”
Another speaker was even more explicit.
“There’s something so beautiful about being able to wash your hands and see hard cocks — to be standing next to someone, and watch them slowly get erect next to you,” said Eli, a 28-year-old consultant who declined to give his last name.
While all of the tributes to the showers were humorous, there was a serious underpinning to the event. Nowadays, there are tons of bars where gay men can meet and feel comfortable, along with dating apps — but gay bathhouses, which once proliferated throughout the city before being shut down due to panic over AIDS, simply don’t exist anymore.
“This is kind of the final nail in that coffin of gay cruising in a shower or steam room,” said Marke Bieschke, a gay historian and the co-owner of The Stud, the city’s longest-operating gay bar.
The Fitness SF location was owned by Gold’s Gym until 2012, when it was sold due to protests over Gold’s anti-gay CEO. Seven years earlier, Gold’s Gym closed its sauna due to inappropriate behavior, which left only the communal shower as a place gay men could nakedly cruise in the gym.
“The communal shower was known as a gay cruising space where sex was not allowed,” Bieschke said. “But, you know, gay men find a way.”
Bieschke doesn’t believe that Fitness SF is being homophobic by shutting down the showers. After all, anyone who has been to that gym’s location knows it is dominated by gay men.
“It’s just because the showers are old and gross and they want to replace them,” he said. “But the gay community is kind of making it a sign of one less space we have.”
As for Fitness SF, the gym’s vice president, Don Dickerson, said they see the closing of the showers as business as usual — a much-needed renovation to give members “a much nicer experience.”
