by JOHN CUSTODIO

One day in 1975, author Rita Mae Brown disguised herself as a man. In men’s clothing, sporting a fake moustache and a padded codpiece, she checked into Manhattan’s most popular gay sauna, the legendary Club Baths. The lesbian author of the wildly successful Rubyfruit Jungle was on a mission: “To learn about sexual difference.” Twenty-seven years later I find myself in Montreal’s only mixed-gender sauna, the 1082, hoping to do the same.

I’ve often wondered why the baths were only a gay thing. Historically speaking they weren’t, of course. According to philosopher-historian Michel Foucault, versions of them have been around for centuries, “cathedrals of pleasure in the heart of the city” where men and women would go for sexual encounters. Now, after a brief heyday in the ’70s, there are only a handful of mixed saunas on this continent (one in, of all places, Winnipeg!). They are more common in Europe, though.

“I wish we had something like it.” I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard people say that about the baths—straight men and women as well as lesbians. When I learned about the 1082, I called some of those people up and proposed going en gang to check it out. No one accepted my invitation. The men I asked even refused to discuss their reticence on record (did they think I was coming on to them?).

Luckily, I have someone to guide me through this experience. Meko is the 1082’s masseuse. She’s tall, leggy, stacked, triple X sexy, and she’s wearing a black bikini that displays her awesome figure to full advantage. I sit with her in the café rencontre, where there’s a bar (but no alcohol license), several tables, pinball and video games, a pool table, and a small-screen television playing soft-core porn, its volume muted to prevent it from clashing with the piped-in dance music.

Everything is on one floor, so from where I sit I can see the locker room, a small parlour area, and a whirlpool, which fits a dozen comfortably. The sauna can seat 20 and soon, if all goes well, there will be a steam bath too. There are only eight private rooms, but they’re large enough (about 8’x8’) for their purpose, as are the double and queen-size beds within.

I ask Meko to describe the 1082 for the uninitiated. “It’s a place where people can come to relax, leave their workaday worries behind them, and forget their troubles, if only for a little while,” she says. “They can sit in our whirlpool, unwind in our sauna, or play pool if they like.”

Play pool? Exsqueeze me? I know a little bit about saunas—gay ones, anyway—and though it’s true they can be quite relaxing, hot tubs are not their main attraction, so when Meko starts telling me what a great place the 1082 is to meet cool, open-minded people, I grow impatient and interrupt her.

“You’re making it sound like a spa for the tam-tam set,” I say.

Sex and respect

Thus far, the 1082 seems like a decent enough place. So why the reluctance on the part of so many otherwise open-minded and sexually liberal people to attend? Many of the women I spoke with were eager to discuss the subject.

Annalee, a graduate student in her 20s, wondered why a woman would go at all if she wasn’t getting paid for it. (It’s a common misconception, but for the record, prostitution is strictly forbidden at the 1082, as are drugs.) Jacqueline, a sex educator who considers herself “a sexually open bisexual,” said she’s just not comfortable in mixed scenes where casual sex is a possibility. “In my experience, most straight men have no clue how to be respectful in such a setting.”

Three decades ago, Rita Mae Brown touched on both of these themes in “Queen for a Day: A Stranger in Paradise,” the article she wrote about her gay bathhouse experience. Her observations still ring true. For women, Brown noted, sex is a bargaining tool, and very often the only one they have. For men, however, sex can be just about release. “Men have nothing to lose through sexual activity,” she wrote. “They’ve no need to make anyone pay,” psychologically or otherwise. And sex with strangers, she pointed out, frightens women. “Rape is often anonymous. Women can’t trust men sexually in anonymous situations the way men can trust each other.”

Anne, who says she would have accepted my invitation if she didn’t live in Vancouver, disagrees with Brown on that count. “Most rapes are perpetrated by men the victims know, and they happen most often at home,” she points out. “I don’t believe bathhouses are any more dangerous, in that regard, than bars or book clubs.”

Anne sees mixed saunas as a positive development—“an opportunity for women to focus on the pleasure side of the pleasure/danger divide for once”—and wishes women would seize more opportunities like it. “We should be indulging ourselves more. We deserve it; we’ve been afraid for far too long. Why should men, even gay men, have all the fun?”

But Brown had expressed that sentiment too, of course. “Yes,” she wrote, “I do want a Xanadu, a stately pleasure dome where I can have random sex with no emotional commitment whenever I need physical relief: erotic freedom. Women should have such choices.”

Are men ready?

Jacqueline agrees, but points out that just because women are ready for it doesn’t mean men are. “I have been harassed by men who assumed that just because I was in a space like a bathhouse, they had the right to touch me without asking, and to treat my saying no as negotiable.” She points to her experience in a women-only sauna as proof of the difference gender makes.

“There was a ‘crush board’ where you could write notes to women you fancied (everyone wore a number); it made asking, accepting, and refusing a little less stressful. Clear rules posted at the entrance emphasized being respectful of others’ wishes. There were spaces clearly designated as ‘safe’ and ‘come-on free.’ Easily identified volunteers gave you a tour of the place when you entered, and they were always around, so you knew that if things ever got out of hand, help would be nearby.”

With the exception of the ‘crush board,’ all of these measures are already in place at the 1082. Not only are the rules posted, the staff rehearses them for you when you come in—and they make it clear they’ll bounce you out on your ass if you break any. They patrol all the halls and public areas constantly, maybe even a little too vigilantly.

Take tonight, for example. It’s Tuesday, their “bi night” (I had to have some incentive, didn’t I?). There are about a dozen or so clients, only one of them a woman, and she came in with a man, spent all her time in a private room with him, and then left. I’m about to leave when two more women come in. Predictably enough, within five minutes they’re being followed around by a pack of men, from the showers to the sauna, from the sauna to the bar.

Richard, the owner, is on patrol duty and he watches the women protectively. I can see he’s getting worked up. “Why can’t those guys at least be subtle?” he asks. But the women take no notice of their admirers, so intent are they on their own conversation.

Avoiding the bone-jumpers

Ironically, the one to break in on it is the least sexually interested. Sophie and Stephanie say they’d be happy to grant me a short interview. Sophie, it turns out, is a swinger and has been here before with her husband. Since she looks about 25 or 30, I’m a bit surprised. Stephanie’s not a swinger, really, but she has been to swinger clubs before.

I ask how the 1082 compares. They agree that it’s not the same thing at all. “I like it better here,” Sophie says. “It’s more relaxed, not so hard-core. At swinger clubs I feel like everyone just wants to jump my bones.”

This is Stephanie’s first time here, but she likes it and thinks she’ll be back soon with her boyfriend. She came tonight because Sophie had said such good things about it, and because it’s free for women. I ask if they would ever come back alone. They answer unequivocally: no.

I think I know now why Meko downplayed the sexual aspect of the place: for the 1082 to succeed, it has to attract women. That means letting them in for free, but also, and more importantly, it means playing down the idea of sexual availability, which is still scary for most women.

To grasp how radically different a marketing spin that is, take a careful look at gay sauna ads. The one that reads “CUM ONE CUM ALL” is merely the most blatant spelling out of an idea they all convey.

Now compare that to the advice Meko gives to potential newcomers: “Men: don’t bother coming if you’re just expecting a quickie, or if you don’t know the meaning of respect. Women: Come with an open mind and an adventurous spirit, and bring your girlfriends for moral support—and a bathing suit if you’re shy.” :

For more information about the 1082, log on to www.le1082.com or call 272-1082