As even the most saccharine queer representation comes under attack, and porn bans proliferate across the U.S., some queer people have rightfully sanitized their presence online and IRL; but others—sex party promoters, kink community leaders and educators alike—have refused to shy away from the more explicit aspects of the queer experience.

Despite what pearl-clutching critics of play parties, bathhouses and other sex-inclusive spaces would have you believe, the bacchanalian festivities actually serve important cultural and historical purposes for queer people, dating back more than a century. More complex than simply a space for people to have sex, bathhouses, play parties and sex clubs are places where queer culture is born, connections are made and community is found.

And though the advent of hookup apps have made these physical spaces less necessary, per se, spaces where people can meet in public for sex, or meet to suss out a potential hookup, still serve a necessary purpose.

  • scintilla@crust.piefed.social
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    22 days ago

    The title uses the word public in a way that nearly everyone would read as referring to doing something like having sex in a public park. Not in the way that it is meant which could much more accurately be described as cummunal without the implication being that it will be visible to all.