Toronto Bathhouse Counseling Program

Bathhouse Counseling. Follow up to an article on Towel Talk featured on this blog.

As this bathhouse counselling program enters year two of its existence, Positive Lite had written an article profiling Towel Talk.

As the counselor (interviewed in the piece) says,

For some men, going to a bathhouse can sometimes trigger a lot of anxiety. For example, if I’m married to a woman and I access bathhouses, I might be uncomfortable with what I’m doing there yet not have the language to talk about my feelings. So giving these men an opportunity to talk to a counsellor when they are perhaps feeling most anxious can be helpful. It provides an opportunity for these guys to talk in depth about sexual identity, about relationships, safer sex, anger management, childhood sexual abuse and other traumas, homelessness, immigration. All the social determinants of health basically that surround HIV transmission. Then maybe we can really hit back in the trenches at a decision-making moment.

But we have very clear boundaries. So, for example, we can’t go to a bathhouse as a patron 24 hours before and after a shift, to ensure that a client or potential client has left the premises.

You can read the article at TowelTalk: Inside Toronto’s Bathhouses .