Consuming Sexual Liberation: Gay Business, Politics, and Toronto’s Barracks Bathhouse Raids

Abstract

On 9 December 1978, the Toronto police raided the Barracks Bathhouse. The Barracks owners and several employees were charged with allegedly keeping a common bawdy house and a number of attendees were charged with related morals offenses. This essay argues that the Barracks raid marks a significant moment in gay activism in Canada as it brought together two largely antithetical groups, gay businessmen and activists, and, in the process, reworked understandings of gay bathhouses as important community institutions in the Toronto context. Second, the Barracks events also need to be positioned within a larger set of processes ultimately resulting in a reimagining of the nature of gay “institutions” within the gay “ghetto” as a central and important location for gay and lesbian political, economic, and social life.