In one of the biggest, gayest cities in the world, there’s one big, gay thing missing: big, gay bathhouses. New York City bathing establishments like the Everard (fondly nicknamed “Ever Hard”) and the New St. Marks Baths were flourishing centers of gay social life until 1985, when the city shut them down amid the AIDS crisis. Whether you believe their closure was a necessary measure to save lives or a draconian overreach, almost forty years on, bathhouses like these have yet to return—and they won’t so long as New York State Codes Rules and Regulations, Volume A Title 10 Part 24.2, which deems such facilities “a threat to the public health,” remains on the books.
Still, we work with what we have. There’s the steam room at high-end gyms like Equinox, Crunch, or TMPL, where members can release tension after a hard set of reps. Or the Korean baths in suburban New Jersey, which are rumored to be cruisey (spoiler: they are!). And what about certain hours at a not-to-be-outed bathhouse, which, according to a 1991 New York Times article, had a sign identifying it as “the straight place” to throw off public health inspectors? Fake news.
In these spaces, straight and gay men often intermingle in an unspoken dance. Within the same steamy room, two parallel realities can exist—on one end, a series of subtle codes and signals imperceptible to the uninitiated, on the other end, some dudes in board shorts talking about stock prices. A spatial condition is created by the locked gaze between two people, a minimalism of the highest order.
Opposing this minimalism is the maximalism of a new spate of self-described “wellness experiences.” Aire Ancient Baths in Tribeca. Bathhouse in Williamsburg. Spa Castle in Queens. World Spa in Midwood. These adult water parks have become destinations for bachelorette parties, birthdays, and anniversaries—that is, spaces of consumption rather than community (and by community, I mean gay guys).
But I was curious, so I booked a time slot for QC NY Spa on Governors Island, part of an international chain of luxury spas. Housed within a former military barracks a few minutes’ walk from the ferry, QC has the vibe of a boutique hotel or house museum, where a live, laugh, love blandness meets a Wes Anderson-y quirkiness—suggesting a stiff style of relaxation predicated on everyone following the rules.
At the front desk, I opt for an RFID wristband linked to my credit card to buy food and drinks, thinking I won’t want my phone with me in a steam room, but, as I later learn, most people keep their phones. At QC, wellness appears to be primarily derived from making other people jealous of your being there. A French TikTok model films himself from the heated pool. A multigenerational group of women walk from room to room along the “wellness path,” taking pictures with their branded QC “where the city goes to spa” tote bags in tow. A well-coiffed couple in coordinated Speedos pose for timed photos and adjust their bulges with the skyline of lower Manhattan as their backdrop. “This would have been an incredible place to witness 9/11,” quips one of my friends, eyeing the gayfluencers as we peck at Italian-style aperitivos in lawn chairs by the pool.
And he’s not wrong. The views are gorgeous, and the pool is iconic, and we feel like we’re on vacation somewhere in Europe, and for over $100 per person it really should be all those things. We had left our phones in our lockers, but as the sun lowered in the sky on that beautiful spring day, we kind of wished we had them.
Look, I get that coed spaces are supposed to be desexualized and safe. And I get that not having your phone can be scary. And that being naked can be scary. (Swimsuits are required at QC.) And that AIDS can be scary. And that communal bathing brings people back to the middle school locker room and all the complicated feelings of shame, lust, envy, and fear. But there’s also something exhilarating and alluring about bathing with strangers, about relinquishing control over how you are perceived, about subjecting yourself to a primal reckoning with the forces of nature—fire, water, sexuality—to reveal both your beauty and your beastliness.
In these prescriptive wellness experiences like QC, we don’t let go of ourselves, we cling tighter. We broadcast our lives to feel like we’re part of something even as we hide from our own fundamental humanness and the bodies we all share. So I say, the next time you find yourself in a steam room, leave your phone in the lockers, ditch your swimsuit, and become part of the plumbing. It’s the decent thing to do.