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From: brower@fortune.UUCP (Richard Brower)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Where does it stop?
Message-ID: <3094@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Apr-84 16:48:22 EST
Article-I.D.: fortune.3094
Posted: Wed Apr 18 16:48:22 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Apr-84 04:21:25 EST
References: <2023@ncrcae.UUCP>
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
Lines: 24

Actually, the proposal to stop sex in Gay Bathhouses is not law, it
is a regulation by the Public Health Department in order to slow down
the "epidemic" of AIDS.  That being beside the point when discussing,
"Where does it stop?".

I tend to agree that this sets a bad preceedent.  Part of the struggle
for gay rights that I have been involved in for about 15 years, was to
get the "straights" out of our sex lives... wherever we decide to have
them at.  (Although, on the other hand, I do not think that sex should
be practiced in public places like parks, the bathroom at Macy's, etc.)
Part of the reason for bathhouses was to remove a large quanity of public
sex to "private" places that allowed the persons involved to meet in
somewhat more dignity than the parks provide.  Also, I still remember
bathhouse raids in days of yore, when police ran hundreds of nearly
naked men out into the streets to be arrested and harassed.

I do not not wish to go back to the past.  We need to get far more
organized to prevent this kind of thing in the future.  Also, we need
to fight AIDS on the level where it will do some good, i.e. in the
medical labs, rather than having to deal with these shortsighted
and damaging "solutions".

Richard Brower		Fortune Systems
{ihnp4,ucbvax!amd70,hpda,sri-unix,harpo}!fortune!brower