SEX PANIC: The Real History of the San Francisco Bathhouse Closures - A Panel Discussion Featuring Buzz Bense and Rick Osmon

Wednesday, May 27, 2015
7:30 PM 9:30 PM 19:30 21:30

Mr. S Studio 385a 8th St San Francisco, CA, 94103 United States (map)

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In 1984 the controversy over bathhouses and the AIDS crisis, sexual freedom and public health erupted into a political battle. With a skyrocketing increase of AIDS deaths, a fight within the gay community, city hall, and the medical community erupted, fueling passions on all sides. A vibrant sex culture collapsed, and the aftermath affects us 30 years later.

Bios

Buzz Bense moved to San Francisco in 1979 and lived here through the plague years. He has been a sex educator, activist and erotic art collector. In 1986, he opened the first intentional sex club, 890 Folsom , and was founder/owner of Eros.

Rick Osmon began his work as a fundraiser for the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979, Rick has supported causes and organizations that promote freedom and civil rights. In 1984, he was office manager at the newly formed San Francisco AIDS Foundation. He worked as a freelance reporter covering the evolution of the AIDS epidemic and its tragic effect on the lives and sexual privacy of gay men. Rick chronicled the campaign undertaken by Mayor Feinstein and the Department of Public Health to shut down the city's bath houses and sex clubs. In 2007, these stories were republished in the fall issue of the Journal on Homosexuality. Rick served as treasurer and later president of the LDG from 2004 to 2008. He conducted workshops and demonstrations on water sports, impact play and flogging. In January 2009, he helped organize a forum on Hepatitis C to inform the local community and petition the city to provide testing for Hep C. Since 2009 Frameline has screened several of Rick’s short films about the leather community and surviving HIV/AIDS. Rick contemplates a documentary about the Folsom Street Fair. For his day job, Rick sells real estate.