"“When I arrived in 1976, sex was as easy as eating a ham sandwich,” Hawke says. “Multiple conquests were flaunted like badges of honor. There was no shame in it - no reason for any. We were living inside the golden age of homosexuality and free love in the greatest city in all the world without knowing that's what it was. You could have sex four times before noon and still make your afternoon audition.”"
"“Having an addictive personality, I used it the way I used everything - to not feel,” he continued. “The nights I couldn't face my own apartment, I didn't have to. I liked romance, and the bathhouses initially had nada to do with that. But I got more jaded, wanted the next level, and eventually turned to them like so many others.”"
"“Each bathhouse had its own congregation, its own particular gospel.” Many baths to choose from Hawke goes on to recall several bathhouses that attracted gay and bi men at the time. He says one of his friends liked “skeevy sex. He found danger intoxicating - the trucks, the piers, bars that smelled like pee. He chose The Everard Baths, which was all of the above under one roof.'"
"“There was a tragic fire there one night that claimed the lives of nine men,” says Hawke, of an event in 1977. “Can you imagine - walking around in only a towel, and the next second caught in an ine"
Sex in New York during the late 1970s is described as easy, frequent, and openly celebrated, with little shame attached to multiple partners. Bathhouses are portrayed as places that initially supported romance and later became a way to seek escape and “the next level.” Different bathhouses are recalled as having distinct cultures and appeals, including venues associated with danger and anonymous sex. The account also includes a tragic 1977 fire at the Everard Baths that killed nine men, emphasizing the risks that existed even during a period remembered as a “golden age.”
Read at Queerty
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