If You've Never Been to the Baths

I get this question from time to time: this place, this bath house you talk about in some of the posts (or guys ask me on Grindr or Scruff) - what's it like? I've never been there, what do you do to get in, what happens once you get there? How much does it cost? I am a person who TOTALLY feels more comfortable if I can visualize a space and know what to expect. I'm so much less anxious if I've read the rule book, so I am happy to make it easier for others whenever I can. Also, I think that shame and stigma around sex and sexual things is ridiculous, and we should get rid of that asinine knee-jerk reflex, and talk about it openly. So many guys either look down on the bath house and wouldn't ever go, or go and hate themselves, or pretend they don't go and go when their husband is out of town... guys, own your sexcapades, you'll be more at peace and you'll feel more whole and sleep better. And so, here's a little primer on bath houses, and Club Dallas in particular. 

First: Here's their website: http://www.clubsaunas.com/club_dallas/

It's a chain; they have facilities in Indianapolis, Columbus, Dallas, St. Louis, Houston, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami. They're all called Club (CityName). There are lots of other bath houses, but these are all the same brand. I have been to the one in Houston. If you have a member card at the one in Dallas, it gets you in at the one in Houston; I'm guessing it ought to get you in at the other ones, but that's a guess. Keep in mind that the photos on the website are like realtor photos; they are staged, carefully lit, photographed from flattering angles. ALSO - there are rooms they are not showing you, and a lot of furniture that doesn't make it on the website. We'll get to those. 

You walk in the front door, and you're in a small security check-in anteroom with a heavy-duty transaction window where a clerk checks you in. He wants three things: a membership card, a government-issued ID like a driver's license, and payment. If you don't have a membership card, you get one; you can get a day pass for $12, or you can sign up for a six-month membership for $40 if you're going to be coming more than a few times (badum-ching). You have two main options: you can get a locker, or you can get a room. Lockers are cheaper, rooms give you more space and more privacy. It ranges from $15 for a weekday locker rental to $37 for a weekend rental on a big room. Up to you; I always get a room. At Club Dallas, they have regular and double rooms; the double rooms are twice as big, and they have a bigger bed. They're fun if you're planning more adventurous play, like you might be inviting multiple people to join you. Young guys get free day passes and free lockers on weekdays; it's like ladies' night at a bar, they do it to encourage young guys to come in and take advantage of the rates, while getting simultaneously taken advantage of in other ways. Or, if the young guys are into older guys, it's a win-win. They also have a little concession counter with things like water, poppers, cockrings, disposable enemas, and lube, in case you forgot to bring some essential supplies, or you are living in the closet at home and you never buy those things and keep them. You do definitely run into some "I'm married, and my wife doesn't know, and I hit the baths when I'm on business trips." 

Either way, once you pick your options and give the nice man your ID and payment in whatever form, and you negotiate the membership card or pass, you'll put your wallet (you have to at least leave your government issued ID) and keys and whatever you don't want to lose, into a little box which they lock up behind the desk, and then he will pass you a towel and a key on a little springy thing that fits around your wrist or upper arm, and tell you a number which is your room or locker number (and it's also on a brass disc on the key ring), and then he'll buzz the security door. Take your stuff, and walk through the door. Every building is different, but at Club Dallas, you walk left and then turn right, and the lockers will be on your left down that hallway, and then the main bathroom. If you're getting a locker, this would be where you go to the locker room and change and put your stuff in the locker, except for your keys, your towel, and anything you want to have handy, like poppers and lube. There is a shower with the locker room, separate from the main shower area. You can look through windows on the right and see into the sauna, the main showers, the spa. It's OK to check out guys here; it's easy to "window shop" through the glass, when you're not directly confronted with them in person. It also gives you a bit of an idea of how busy everything is. 

Straight ahead down that little hallway is the gym. It's small, and there is usually someone working out in it, but it's not ever busy. You have to wear clothes and shoes to work out. The hallway turns right, and then a door on the right leads to the wet area - the same as what you just saw through the windows in reverse order: the spa, the showers, the sauna. There's a steam room straight ahead that has no windows. On the left are big glass doors that lead outside. Outside is a nice pool, with lounges and some really pretty cabanas. You can fuck around outside the pool, but not IN the pool; they'll scold you over the loud speaker if you do. There's a bathroom outside with a couple of showers and a toilet; it's a little more private than the main bathroom or shower area if you want that. 

If you don't turn right and go into the wet area, you go forward into the rooms and the mazes. The rooms are a square box, the numbers run even around the outside and odd around the inside, and they don't quite match. If you got a room and not a locker, this is where you find your room number and change out of your clothes, and leave your stuff except for towel, key, and sex supplies in your room. A few guys walk around in jocks; they are almost always bottoms. A few guys walk around in shorts, or a shirt, or even fully dressed with shoes and socks and a face mask; these guys usually have some weird issue about not feeling comfortable, and I always wonder why they are here, but they're doing their own thing. If you turn left into the hallway of rooms, on your right there's a doorway that looks like all the other room doors, but it opens into a maze of twisty little passages all alike (if you didn't play an old mainframe text game called ZORK, this isn't funny; I'm old) and there are a lot of things in there. There is a row on the left of curtained cubicles, where guys suck dick or fuck. There are glory holes between many of them. Turn right from there, and you see a sling, and a cage with a bench and straps where you can display a man with his arms upraised for any kind of punishment or sodomy you like, or use the bench for blowjobs, fucking, or whatever. The bench can actually be good for double-fuck with a little work; the bars give you something to hold onto. There's a chain-link fenced box covered with camo netting with one open edge, and a fuck bench inside; this is a fun place to fuck, because guys can watch, but it's easy to control who can touch. On the other side of the cage, there's a little room with a video screen playing porn, a bench, and some more cubicles, including a space with some more complicated cubes, and there's a bench that looks through some bars back toward the sling area. 

If, instead of turning RIGHT to go into the maze, you turn LEFT, you go into the OTHER maze. This one has three main sections. On the far left, there is a bench and two slings. Up on a raised platform in the middle, there's a couple of benches, and then little cubicles on the side that look up to the raised platform. It's possible to arrange a really awkward blowjob through those bars, but it sounds better than it is. Then past a wall, there's a large padded lazy Susan, and a screen showing porn. Out through a door is the smoking patio, but it also has some good fuck furniture, including a cage bench, another plain bench, and a giant platform swing on big chains. I love being outside when the weather is nice, and my definition of nice weather is very different than what some guys think - until you've fucked in a thunderstorm under a tin roof with the wind touching you everywhere, you don't know. 

The rooms themselves are fairly small. The single rooms are something like five by seven. I can put my hands outstretched, and nearly touch the side walls. They have a bed that is basically a two or three inch thick sheet of foam the size of a single cot on a plywood box platform, and there's enough space in the room that you can lay somebody on the bed and fuck them.... but that's about it. If you've got more than about three people in one of the small rooms, it's difficult to move around each other. There's a light on a dimmer switch, and a hook for your clothes, and most of them have a little platform built into the wall for your stuff. If you get a double room (and I usually get a double room, because I like to have the space, but sometimes I don't) there's a bed twice as big, and there's more floor room too. They're maybe eight feet square or so? There are TV's in most of them, and you can play porn on it. I like to play in my room with a guy, and leave the door open; this gives the best of both worlds. I can show off to the guys who walk past or stop to gawk and jerk their dicks in the hallway, but I'm in a space that belongs to me by rights, and I get to pick who comes in. Or, I can close the door and spend time with a guy without other people intruding. In this video, you can see it go from me holding the camera, to passing it to another guy - this is one of the small rooms. The amazingly hot guy across my lap was delighted to show off during the spanking part, but wanted the doors closed when it came to breeding time. I respect wishes like this, because I'm a kind, considerate, and caring Dominant, and also, JESUS CHRIST, LOOK AT THAT ASS. 

If the handsome owner of that round muscular butt wants to fuck with the door closed, I close the door. I was just happy he let me keep the lights on, because I love looking at beautiful men when I fuck them. That's one thing I don't like as much about the baths - they do tend toward lots of darkness, and a lot of my sexual enjoyment comes in via the eyes. I will take somebody from a dark corner into a brightly lit spot to fuck if possible; partly because it's fun to put on a show, but mostly because it turns me on to see his body react, to look at his muscles move under his skin, to see his expressions as pleasure and pain and emotion move over him. And, of course, to watch my cock disappear into him again and again, to see his butthole stretch around the root of my dick, to see his face splutter and turn red as he gags. 

Some etiquette: 

Most guys walk around in their towels. If you're a big guy, they have big-guy towels; if your towel is too short, ask for a bigger one. Be careful when you leave your room or your locker, that you've got your key with you. If you lock yourself out (and I've done it more than once) you can ask at the desk and they'll let you in to get your key. I like to walk around with my towel over my shoulder; it's kind of a power move. I don't care what people think and I'm not shy; here, look at my dick. If you see a guy you like the look of, look him in the eye. Smile. Walk toward him. Nod your head upward if you want. You can reach out and touch, gently - my preferred touch is to brush the back of my fingers across his chest, like I'm gentling a scared pet animal. Most guys will respond to this overture by either leaning in, saying something, or pulling away; these are pretty obvious responses. Some guys are more difficult to figure out; some will freeze, or react like they're being tickled - you have to handle them on a case by case basis. Most guys will do something like this, negotiating physically. Some will be really direct, just grabbing for your dick, whether it's under a towel or not. Some will grab for your ass. 

Many guys, especially guys in their fifties and up or who run with the leather crowd, use the old flagging language of LEFT=TOP, RIGHT=BOTTOM... if a guy comes up and rubs my RIGHT nipple, he's telling me he wants to fuck me. If he rubs on the left one, he's submissive and wants me to take charge and fuck HIM. I have my keys and my little lube container on my LEFT arm; it signals that I'm a top. I watch for guys with their keys on the right. A lot of younger guys especially don't know this, and many guys who aren't as into gay culture have never heard of it, and it's not always reliable. There's usually a lot of facial expression involved, too - if you look someone in the eye and brush your hand across his ass and raise your eyebrows like a question, you're asking if he wants to get fucked. Or, of course, you can just open your mouth and remove any doubt: "You're hot. Can I fuck you?" is an excellent opener; clear and dominant without being mean-spirited or rapey.  You don't have to beat around the bush here. "Would you like to go back to my room?" is also good. I like to go a step further and make my plans really clear; I'll say something like "Wanna go back to my room and get fucked in the ass?" It's titillating, it clarifies the power dynamic, and also makes it clear that I'm looking for anal, just in case there was any confusion. 

Typically guys who just have lockers will conduct whatever transactions they want in the cubicles. Others who like to show off will play in the more public areas of the mazes, or outside where the lighting is good - it's all up to how you feel. I'm usually pretty direct; I will do things like put my fingers into a guy's mouth, or if he's playing with my dick in his hands, I'll  push him down by the shoulders to make it clear that I want him to suck. Some guys are really shy, others are really bold. I have fucked guys to completion with zero words being spoken until I mouthed a thank-you afterward; I often leave without knowing a name. However, I'm also very likely to talk, more so than most guys there, and I will frequently introduce myself if I like a guy's style or find him worthy of a potential repeat. I will also break the unwritten rule that guys don't talk in the sex spaces, and I'll gleefully narrate my fucking like a National Geographic nature special, explaining the anatomy of why I'm hurting the boy I'm fucking, and how good he's being for me, and how amazing that feels to my cockhead, etc. It's OK to ask if you can get someone's number, but be aware that they may not be OK with sharing it. You will see some guys in their rooms; their positions generally tell you what they're looking for. If you look in and you see his dick, he's wanting you to either suck it or sit on it; if you look in and you see his ass, he's probably looking to get fucked. Some guys will aim their asses toward the door, and guys will walk in and just stick their dicks in without even making eye contact; I almost never can do this, because I need to connect in order to feel aroused enough to fuck. Most guys at the bath house fuck bareback, although some are always safe. Some are safe some of the time. Condoms are provided in boxes on the walls and in the rooms, but most guys don't use them. Some guys do come here and do drugs, and I avoid them as much as possible. I find that guys who are tweaked out on meth especially are no fun to fuck. 

Saying NO is often done physically as well; you can go from the subtle pulling back/away, to physically brushing someone's hand off, to taking the hand in your hand like it's a naughty hamster who's gotten out of the cage again and moving it AWAY, thank you, and then dropping it like a dead rat. There have been more than a handful of handsy guys who would NOT get that amount of signal, and I have had to slap hands quite hard, and say, "I have tried to make it really clear that I don't want you touching me; get your hands off me, fucker, or I'll punch you." Guys who are ignoring signals like this are not doing it on accident, they're creeps. They have found that a lot of guys feel just enough shame about being here, that they will allow strangers to touch them without voicing their discomfort, and they get off on making others uncomfortable like that. Confronting them with direct attention makes them run like cockroaches most of the time. One guy who kept walking up behind me and LICKING ME with the most disgusting halitosis, I actually turned and gave him and everyone around us a detailed, full-voice explanation of how disgusting that behavior was, and to stop it, and to straighten up his act and brush his fucking teeth and behave like a responsible human being. A couple weeks later, he came up behind me and asked in this weird slurpy voice like he'd left some of his teeth at home (or in his locker), "What if I don't ushe my mouth?" I explained that he was not welcome to touch me or the guy I was fucking, EVER, and move away, right now please. I try to make this kind of decisions on behalf of my bottom, too. Part of it is a dominance display, making sure that everyone sees me owning him. Part of it is making sure that he feels safe and protected with me, and knows that I'm not letting random strangers touch him unless I decide they're OK. I don't want for a bottom to think that getting fucked by me comes with a side of creepy gross touch. And sometimes I let random strangers share my bottom. I've either discussed this ahead of time with the bottom, or I check in when the option presents itself. "Hey - would you like for this nice man with the big dick to take a turn fucking you?" Once recently I was fucking a hot muscle guy on the bench on the platform in the maze, and faceless arms started reaching out of the dark, barred windows of two cubicles like something from the brig of a pirate ghost movie, and fingers were gently running over both of us. It felt a little nice, actually, but then the hands got a little too handsy, and it went from the kind of looking-with-my-hands that blind people use, to feeling-up, and I had to say, "OK, gentlemen, we're going to have a little more Viewing Gallery and a little less Petting Zoo. He's mine right now; I'm fucking him; you can touch him later if he decides he wants you to." He feels dominated, I feel hot and dominant, the guys pulled their hands back and I don't give a fuck how they felt, but I know a couple of them thought it was hot because they found me and said so later. 

This is a different sex space than some with regard to STI's. You have to make choices based on that. Manage your risk. Like I said, it's almost always bareback for most guys. Some guys only suck dick. Some guys do EVERYTHING. Personally, I rarely suck dick, because I can't always be sure it's not gonna need washing first, and there's no way to have that discussion politely. I also generally don't eat ass when I'm here, for the same reason. Sometimes if I know a guy has just walked in and he's fresh and I decide he's worth the risk, I'll go downtown, but usually not. And if I know a guy has either just gotten in or has showered since he's fucked somebody, I'll suck dick. And, sometimes, I don't care. But that kind of depends, for me, and it's not often. I usually fuck guys in the throat and the ass. I *often* get shit on my dick, and not infrequently a little blood (see also: Big Dick Privilege / Big Dick Problems). I try to shower any time that I think my dick might need a wash. I don't wash my pits, because I love the way I smell there. I have had guys tell me it's hot; I have had guys tell me it's gross. There are a lot more guys who think it's hot, than think it's gross. Guys who think it's gross, can go find a different Daddy. Some nights I will go prepared to get fucked, but usually my trips there are directly after work, and there's no time to clean out for that. I would not be comfortable barebacking here without being on PrEP. I am also vaccinated against Hepatitis A and B, Monkeypox, and Meningitis/Gonorrhea. I get tested quarterly for everything they can easily test for; I have Doxycycline for PEP that I take after a trip. I think of myself as risk-aware, but not risk-averse, and I try to be responsible and grown-up about it.