At the start of the twentieth century, single-gender communal bathhouses were central to emerging gay communities all over North America and Europe.
They might be sites for socializing, religious purification, spiritual/bodily cleanliness, relaxation/pampering, public health/hygiene, homosocialiality, and, of course, sex, or some combination of those things. When and where public baths have been popular, they’ve meant different things to different cultures.
