Lube and condoms were in copious supply spread out around the space. Representatives from Whitman Walker, a D.C.-based health center specializing in LGBTQ health, were conducting optional HIV screenings. The entrance and large entertainment room has lockers, chairs and a television. With the locker rental – where I could leave my clothes after I disrobed – and a one-time membership, my total was $18 because Tuesdays are half off.Īfterwards, I was handed a towel and gained access to the first floor, which has a tanning room and gym.
On display were typical items you’d expect for sale, like the appropriately titled “ultra douche,” and poppers, a drug that can make you feel heady and relaxes your muscles during sex. There’s no more information given by the employees, but you catch on quickly.
They value anonymity here, so to pay, you go into another small room with a different employee. through the small window to prove he was at least 18 years old. Upon entering the building, there is a tiny lobby housing only a shut door, a circle porthole and one mustached man in line, who gave me a cursory look after slipping his I.D. I arrived at about 7 p.m., just as the workday was closing out and bathhouse patrons were coming in.
The frosted windows allow for discretion alongside real estate offices and cocktail bars. NW, Crew Club blends in with the commerce almost too inconspicuously for all the testosterone ready to flood out of the building. and a return to the sex-positive aspects of the gay community. To older gay residents, the bathhouse may be a reminder of the life left behind in a post-AIDS crisis D.C. Taiwan is the first place in Asia to legalise same-sex unions.Instead of scrolling through faceless photos on Grindr to find a hook-up, some gays opt for a steamy night out at D.C.’s scintillating bathhouse.Ī rite of passage for GW gays, or at the very least a seedy pipe dream circulated through the gay grapevine, Crew Club is D.C.’s only gay bathhouse and sauna. In contrast to the lashings - Taiwan legalised same-sex marriage on May 24 in a landmark court ruling. Indonesia's reputation for practicing a moderate form of Islam has been battered in the past year due to attacks on religious minorities, a surge in persecution of gays and a polarizing election campaign for governor of Jakarta that highlighted the growing strength of hard-line Islamic groups.Įarlier this month, the outgoing Jakarta governor, a minority Christian, was sentenced to two years in prison for campaign comments deemed as blaspheming the Quran. More than 300 people were caned for such offenses in 2016. It does not change the reality that flogging is a grotesque display of medieval torture," said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.Ĭaning is also a punishment in Aceh for gambling, drinking alcohol, women who wear tight clothes and men who skip Friday prayers. "The court's less-than-maximum sentence of 85 lashes is no act of compassion. The maximum possible sentence was 100 strokes of the cane and prosecutors had asked for 80. On Monday, 141 men were detained in a police raid on a gay sauna in Jakarta, the capital. Prejudice has been fanned by stridently anti-gay comments from politicians and Islamic hard-liners, and a case before the country's top court is seeking to criminalise gay sex and sex outside marriage.
With the exception of Aceh, homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, but the country's low-profile LGBT community has been under siege in the past year. The Islamic Defenders Front, a hard-line group known for acts of vigilante violence throughout Indonesia, erected a banner at the mosque that declared the group was ready to defend Shariah law whatever the cost. Four heterosexual couples also were caned on Tuesday, receiving a far lesser number of strokes for affection outside marriage.īanda Aceh resident Ibrahim Muhayat said far more people attended the publicly meted-out punishment than usual because like him, many wanted to witness Indonesia's first-ever caning of gay men. A Shariah court last week sentenced each man to 85 strokes, but they were caned 83 times after a remission for time spent in prison.