The Bay Area Reporter - Friday, May 14, 1999
Liz Highleyman

Health Watch opposes the city's current sex club regulations that ban closed private spaces and require that club staff monitor patrons' behavior. The group contends that no scientific evidence has been presented to show that privacy in sex clubs or bathhouses contributes to the transmission of HIV. San Francisco's regulations are unique in the U.S., and cities such as San Jose and Berkeley allow bathhouses with private rooms.

David Attyah of Health Watch, who previously taught health policy at Harvard University, emphasized that the group "advocates sound sexually transmitted disease [STD] prevention policy," and believes that the current sex club regulations undermine prevention. He asserted that "the consensus û proven by 15 years of effective AIDS outreach and prevention û is that empowerment models work. à Protecting privacy û not denying it û is absolutely essential to these strategies." He continued, "Closing bathhouses does not eliminate HIV transmissions. It relocates these transmissions to places where education, STD information, and condoms are not available." According to Health Watch member Steve Filandrinos, "Gay men, not government, have consistently spearheaded safer sex efforts. These efforts focus on empowering gay men to make healthy sexual choices. à Katz's position is retrograde health policy."

Health Watch wants the DPH to publish its rationale for the regulations and to back them up with scientific data. In addition, the group asked Brown to call upon the Health Commission to review the regulations, which have never been formally approved by the commission.

Time to rethink?

Bathhouse privacy advocates have made little headway in over two years of airing their grievances before Katz and Dr. Sandra Hernandez, the previous DPH director. Katz has made it clear that he believes that monitoring and the prohibition of closed spaces does discourage HIV transmission, and has indicated that he has no plans to change the city's policy.

Rather than addressing the substance of the issue, Brown emphasized that he relies upon his expert advisors û primarily Katz and the Health Commission û to recommend health policy for the city, and that he is not inclined to overrule them "in defiance of their wisdom." He said, "When I can no longer feel confident in Katz's advice, Katz will be advising someone else." Brown noted that in a democracy there are means for changing policy, including referenda, the courts, and petitioning agencies. Health Watch affirmed that bathhouse advocates are indeed pursuing several political and legal avenues.

Privacy advocates have had minimal success in convincing the Health Commission to take up the sex club regulations. Brown stated that if the commission has heard the arguments and has decided not to address the issue, he would not order them to do so. He said that if privacy advocates had been petitioning the Health Commission for two years and "not one member of the jury wishes to hear any more," perhaps the advocates "need to rethink" their position.

Following the meeting, Attyah said he was "very sad that today the mayor turned this into a discussion of the political process and clearly deflected concerns about AIDS hysteria and AIDS prevention. à He tried to take the issue off his plate."

'Reactionary prevention'

The bathhouse issue has once again come to the fore in the past few months; the regulations have not received so much attention since the six months after their formal implementation in the spring of 1997.

A coalition made up of members of Health Watch, Community United for Sexual Privacy (CUSP), Queer Nation, and ACT UP/San Francisco have been meeting since March, when Katz and Dana Van Gorder, coordinator of lesbian and gay health services for the DPH, held a public forum on the sex club regulations.

Some members of this group last Monday unveiled a ballot initiative û the Sexually Transmitted Disease Reduction Initiative û that calls for allowing private spaces in sex clubs and bathhouses. They have until July 5 to gather 10,200 valid signatures to put the measure on the November 2 ballot. Initiative proponents contend that the city's sex club regulations are applied to gay sex establishments in a discriminatory manner. According to Michael Petrelis, who filed papers for the initiative with the city's Department of Elections, "We want to increase the venues for gay men to engage in consensual safer sex, including sodomy. Opposing the bathhouse ballot initiative is tantamount to sleeping with Jesse Helms and Pete Knight, homophobic politicians all too happy with San Francisco's reactionary AIDS prevention policies."

In April, bathhouse privacy advocates brought their case before the city's HIV Prevention Planning Council (HPPC), a community-based group charged with developing prevention priorities. The HPPC will hold a meeting on June 3 to discuss the issue of sex club and bathhouse regulations. Health Commission President Lee Ann Monfredini has indicated that if the HPPC makes a favorable recommendation, the commission may hold a hearing on the issue.

The renewed attention to sex clubs and bathhouses has spurred editorials and political cartoons in the mainstream press, including an Examiner cartoon featuring a bathhouse proponent skipping through a cemetery, and an editorial in the May 6 Chronicle that called the bathhouse initiative "an absurd proposal that defies reason in a city that has witnessed the city's gay community decimated by AIDS." Health Watch asserts that such depictions "propagate the myth that gay men want to screw themselves to death," and asked Brown to "speak out publicly against this kind of AIDS hysteria, misinformation, and homophobia."

The next meeting of the sex club/bathhouse coalition will be held this Sunday, May 16, at 6 pm at Metropolitan Community Church-San Francisco, located at 150 Eureka Street. Health Watch may be contacted at HlthWSF@aol.com.

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