Indeed, and I was part of an informal push, with Act Up colleagues in the early 1990s, to help keep public sex spaces like saunas and backrooms open in New York City.

Counterintuitively, we defended establishments like Hell and He's Gotta Have It in terms of promoting safer-sex and peer education. These establishments were mostly not bath houses strictly speaking, but they served the same purposes.

We argued to political leaders that closing places like that would drive sex into hidden corners where people would be much more likely to engage in practices that could endanger their health.

When I went to a sex club, I carried packets of multicolored condoms and often tossed them around. Inside each packet, we had sex+positive messages about how safer sex is hotter sex. And of course, we could lead by example. Cough. (We also did street art and dancing with the same sort of safer sex thrust, no pun intended.)

While what we argued to political leaders was undoubtedly factually based, important, and often life saving, we weren't just safer-sex educators; we were sex-positive gay men proud of our communities and not ashamed of our sexuality.

We enjoyed coming together in public spaces for intimacy and sexuality. If you ask me, we need a little less app-ing these days and a little more public gathering. But nobody asks me, because I'm old, lol.

Thanks for the cool story!

(By the way, if you're planning to write more on queer issues, I help edit a Medium publication called Prism & Pen. We would be happy to help you connect with more readers. https://medium.com/prismnpen)