I used to have a family membership to the YMCA (up until I lost my job), and we used to go there to swim, work out, walk, etc. Basically I saw swimming pools, some times hot tubs, saunas & steam rooms, exercise equipment, a walking/running track, tennis/racquetball courts, basketball courts, on site child care, free weights, locker rooms, classrooms, basically pretty much the things I have seen at other gyms I’ve been to like Bally’s, YWCA, Northwest, etc.

But I’ve always heard that if you happened to be a drug addicted young man who didn’t have a home or anything to eat, you could stay there, it would be fun to do so in fact, and while you got yourself clean, they would provide you with a good meal, and then essentially let you do whatever you feel, even if that meant having tons of man on man sex with a wide variety of costumed and uniformed macho men. But all the times I’ve been there, I’ve never seen anything that resembles a boarding room, a drug rehab facility, or a soup kitchen, and short of the steam room and locker rooms, I don’t see any place for costumed gay men to get it on.

Have I been misinformed? Do these activities only go on at certain YMCAs? Or is this a relic of a past era, something that used to be true, but no longer is?

Topics: music, sex, hunger, homelessness, drugs, homosexuality, gyms