ROAMING THE HALLS

Todd Klinck takes a new cruise through Toronto’s bathhouse scene
photo: David Hawe

When I moved to Toronto as an 18-year-old kid, the discovery of bathhouses was lifechanging. The convenience of paying a cover charge to wander around a warm, darkened venue and cruise for sex was revolutionary. No worrying about hurt feelings, no need to know names: just some simple body language, which hopefully led to action. If it wasn’t a match, either party could break off wi th a simple, “Sorry dude, not feeling it,” and move on to find someone more compatible.

With seven bathhouses in Toronto (six of them operating 24/7), horny guys have a lot of options. When I did a tour of the city’s bathhouses five years ago for fab, there were about the same number but the scene was quite different. Spa Excess was the new kid on the block and the first in a new generation of tubs to raise the bar in terms of quality. It was modern, licensed for alcohol consumption and had porn playing in common areas and pricier rooms. The wet area was well-designed, with a focus on voyeurism thanks to the steam room’s glass wall looking into the shower room. As an added bonus, the management was obsessed with cleanliness.

The competitive response to Excess from the other baths was an increased emphasis on marketing but sadly not on change or innovation. But then three years ago, the US-owned chain Steamworks opened a much anticipated Toronto location. Spending $2 million to gut and renovate the space previously tenanted by the Spa on Maitland, Steamworks made its mark on the scene by introducing lavish design, a huge hot tub, live DJs and rooms with multiple digital porn channels.

While Spa Excess remained popular, the other baths in town would feel the burn. The Barracks, located in the Entertainment district, closed down, as did the Bijou, a porn-theatre-turnedbathhouse. St. Marc on Yonge Street bizarrely changed its name to G.I. Joe without changing much else. It just got dirtier, looked more rundown and lost its rank as one of Toronto’s most consistently busy tubs. With rumors swirling around about the imminent closing of more venues, it looked like men in Toronto were destined to have only two baths to choose from.

A bathhouse’s success is determined by two ingredients: the facility itself and the quality and quantity of its clientele. If you go to a dirty, dark, drafty club with cum splattered all over the floor but you meet the perfect guy and have a perfect encounter, then who gives a fuck about a gorgeous steam room? But if the quality and quantity of the patrons is dodgy, then cruising takes time and a nice facility is more desirable than a messy one. In revisiting the baths to do this updated review five years later, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that most of them have finally gotten their shit together.

SPA EXCESS
105 Carlton St., 416.260.2363, www.spaexcess.com. Open 24/7. Lockers are $13 except from 1am Monday to Friday at 10pm, when they’re $10 or during the lunch special from noon to 1pm when they’re $5. Rooms start at $22 weekdays, $25 weekends, with a deluxe suite going for $73 for 12 hours on the weekend.

In 2003, I voted Spa Excess my “favourite overall bathhouse.” Still the only one in town that has a liquor licence, Excess has since added a new 12-seat hot tub, hired A-list DJs like DJ:TK, renovated its locker rooms and hosted innovative events like live performances by electro-queer band Kids on TV. Since Steamworks opened, however, I have visited Excess less and less because I had better luck finding the guys I wanted at Steamworks.

When I revisited Excess a couple weeks ago on a freezing cold Friday night around 3am, I was glad to find it jammed with goodlooking guys. The owners’ persistence and patience has clearly paid off. “Good-looking guys” is a totally subjective concept so, to be clear, Steamworks and Spa Excess are the two baths in Toronto that have a higher concentration of younger guys who appear to work out and fit into the stereotypical gay body ideal.

When I was in Prague, I discovered that the prime time for bathhouse culture there was around 5pm, the end of the workday. People would stop off at the baths to get some action before heading home for dinner. They found it bizarre that we Canadians go to a club, party all night and then go to the bathhouse all tweaked out on drugs. fab photographer Tony Fong tells me that that Excess now has the best after-work crowd in Toronto, so for those of you who want to get your sex over and done with early in the evening, check out Excess around the dinner hour.


CENTRAL SPA
1610 Dundas St. W., 416.588.6191, www.centralspa.ca Open Sunday to Thursday: 11am to midnight; Friday and Saturday: 11am to 3am. Lockers are $15 and rooms range from $20 to $45. There are discounts on “Wild” Mondays and Wednesdays ($7 lockers, $12 rooms), other weekdays from 11am to 1pm ($10 lockers, $12 rooms) and Tuesdays and Thursdays after 5pm ($9 lockers, $14 rooms).

Central Spa is an anomaly in the Toronto bathhouse scene. It’s located way west in Little Portugal and it’s not open 24/7. The small facility, located above a Portuguese sports bar, has 15 rooms, two porn rooms and a recently added maze area with glory holes and curtained doors. The showers were renovated a couple years ago and they are gorgeous. The steam room is functional and so is the dry sauna. When I visited at 7pm on a Sunday there were only a handful of guys in the place: one in his late 20s, a couple in their 30s, and a few guys above 40. I found one I liked, did my thing and, as I was leaving, I bumped into an incoming cruiser. “Anything in there?” he asked. Without hesitation, I said, “Yeah, about four or five.” “Oh, so it’s not worth going in.” “Well, you never know with this place, people come and they go.” He asked, “Are they any good?” We made eye contact and laughed at the absurdity of the conversation.

Working at an event at Central Spa about a year ago, I came to adore its vibe. It’s a genuine neighborhood bathhouse that receives a fair volume of traffic over the course of an entire day, even though there may be only five to 10 people at a given time. The design of the place is very conducive to relaxing and waiting. It has a living-room-like TV lounge (which plays regular TV) and a free Internet terminal. The clientele is very diverse in age, race and body type. If you want some booze (and you’re brave enough), you can always go to the sports bar below to grab some shots while you are waiting.


THE CELLAR
78 Wellesley St. E. (the black door), 416.975.1799 Open 24/7. Lockers are $10 weekdays, $13 weekends; rooms are $18 weekdays, $22 on weekends. On Wednesdays lockers are $7, rooms $12.

I will admit I had a neurotic fear of the Cellar. Their old ads read “The Cellar—It’s Dark” and I’m not fond of having sex when I can’t see who I’m having it with. But fab columnist Paul Bellini met his first boyfriend at the Cellar so, after asking him for advice (“Wear shoes,” he warned) and moral support, I felt equipped to descend its stairs.

I went around 4pm on “Wild Wednesdays” when there are discounted rooms and lockers. All the rooms were taken—a promising sign—so I headed to the locker room. There were two older men who were getting dressed after an apparent encounter. “No, I’m 74 years old,” one said adamantly. “I don’t believe you, I was sure you were in your late 60s,” the other flirted. Adorable.

I took a shower and did my first lap around the halls. I was surprised to find that the Cellar was not dark but rather tastefully subdued with lighting reflected off red Moulin Rouge– style curtains, which are scattered throughout the maze-like layout. There was one forbidding pitch-black corridor I couldn’t get up the courage to walk through, though Bellini advised me that that’s where most of the action happens. I tried waiting for my eyes to adjust but all I could make out was that there was some sort of pileup of breathing, moving, and sucking humanity.

I’m sure some young muscle boys would be horrified that the majority of the men I saw during my visit epitomized the caricature of the “cruising zombie troll.” But to the muscle boys, I say this: if you queens who spend your weekends at the baths with your asses in the air having bareback sex don’t die from a sexually transmitted disease, or from doing too much crystal meth, one day you’ll feel lucky to be wandering around the Cellar pinching your nipples while whispering pick-up lines like “I’ll suck you” or “Great head in room 12”. Don’t be so fucking judgmental. The thing I admired about the guys at the Cellar is that they were all horny sexual guys having their fun unashamedly.


ST. MARC SPA
543 Yonge St., level four, 416.927.0210 Open 24/7. Lockers are $9 during the week, $12 on weekends with a 6am to 6pm special for $5; regular rooms are $15.50 on weekdays, $22.50 on weekend with larger rooms going for up to $36 on weekends.

Run for years by its Montreal parent, St. Marc Spa/G.I. Joe changed hands in October 2006 when it was bought by the former owners of fab. My last visit there was for my 2003 review, in which I described it as Toronto’s busiest bathhouse. In my youth, there was usually a four-hour waiting list for its 115 rooms and so fond memories of St. Marc came flooding back when I recently entered the unmarked glass door on Yonge Street and took the elevator to the 4th floor. The new St. Marc resembles the old St. Marc in some ways, but the subtle improvements show strong potential. I had a sense of discovery as I explored and it took me 10 minutes to find my room, which is actually one of the appealing features of the place. The maze-like design and illogical room numbering is obviously deliberate, forcing everyone to walk around a lot, increasing the chance of someone finding their match.

They have also added numerous public sex areas. Cartoon labels on the doors proclaim “Booth” or “Slurp.” If the place ever gets packed again, the guys who have only lockers can be sure there are still plenty of places to fuck. Even in the locker room, there is a hidden sex booth behind what appears to be normal mirrors. I have heard mixed things from people on the street about the new St. Marc and I don’t know if it has caught on yet. It has the best overall design in town but still needs more guys inside to restore it to its former glory.


CLUB TORONTO
231 Mutual St., 416.977.4629 www.clubtoronto.com Open 24/7. Lockers are always $10. Rooms are $17 on weekdays, $19 on weekends. Special rooms are more. Mon-Fri students and seniors with valid identification get 50% off.

In 2003, I said Club Toronto had the “best overall facilities” because of its great outdoor swimming pool and its big whirlpool. Located inside a 122-year-old historical building in the heart of downtown, it makes for some interesting cruising. Five years ago, when it was under different ownership (Club Toronto changed hands about two years ago) I found the place to be very clean and well-heated with no drafts. When I visited the club this time, on a Sunday around 1am, I found it chilly and drafty, reeking of cigarette and pot smoke, and populated solely by staff and two hustlers.

My guess is that the swimming pool, which everyone raves about, keeps the place rocking during the summer but Club Toronto in the winter is just not the best place to visit, unless you want a place to take your trade with minimal inconvenience. Club Toronto definitely has endurance and I’m sure it will keep its unique niche for a while until someone opens a spa with an outdoor swimming pool.

STEAMWORKS
540 Church St, level two, 416.925.1571 www.steamworksonline.com Open 24/7. The optional memberships, which bring discounts and other perks, range from $5 to $150. Lockers are $10 on weekdays, $12 on weekend. There’s a range of room sizes, with standard room going for $20 weekdays, $25 on weekends. The extra large room goes for $40 weekdays, $45 on weekend.

Since opening in 2004, Steamworks has become the big daddy of local tubs. It is consistently busy and has an excellent modern, well-equipped gym. It’s normal for there to be a waiting list for rooms and it definitely caters to the party boys.

Working in the bar business, my typical bathhouse arrival time is about 5am and thankfully at Steamworks it’s pretty much guaranteed that there will still be people there who are very much awake. When I visited around 4am on a recent Saturday, I was struck by one big difference between Steamworks and other bathhouses: Steamworks is a social place. Although there is a bathhouse etiquette which makes verbal conversation taboo, Steamworks is more conducive to groups. I found several groups of four or five guys congregated against the railing by the whirlpools, watching the boys go by. There is also a bench by the locker room that always had four guys, shoulder to shoulder, shooting the shit.

Steamworks is a quality facility with tons of people but not a lot of variety—older friends of mine have mentioned that they feel very uncomfortable at Steamworks and find that the guys there have “attitude.” But I certainly don’t have a perfect body and I still enjoy myself there.


THE OAK LEAF STEAM BATHS
216 Bathurst St., 416.603.3434 Open 24/7 except Tuesdays 8am to 4pm. Lockers are $12, rooms $18.

I visited the Oak Leaf on a Monday night at midnight and was greeted by a friendly older man. The locker room, which is right at the entrance, surrounds a mass of cots. I tiptoed to my locker, conscious of the six or seven guys who were sleeping.

I got undressed and headed to the shower area. I entered a room marked “dry sauna”; a big brightly lit room with the kind of concrete risers you would find at outdoor free concert venues. The ceiling is also concrete, with strange rusty pullies on it. I’ve never experienced a sauna like this one but it was surprisingly peaceful. It looks ancient — no frills but authentic. And the wet steam room is even more so: as recently as five years ago, the Oak Leaf sold bundles of oak leaves, which historically were used during male bonding rituals where one dude scrubbed another dude’s back.

The wet steam room resembles most modern steam rooms, except for a chain going across the top bleacher that allows the people in the room to control how much steam is released. The Oak Leaf is primarily used as a place for transient people to sleep and clean up, rather than cruising, but there is something charming about the fact that it still exists. Even on a Monday night, there was a decent looking dude who seemed to be looking for sex. The management is tolerant of the gay cruising which is very discreet. The Oak Leaf has been continuously open since 1941, which makes it the oldest bathhouse in Toronto.

Todd Klinck