Weil, Marcel. Find Love in a Gay Bathhouse: An Eight-Step Guide to Finding Mr Right in a Gay Bathhouse & Then Making the Relationship Work. London: Homohappy Books, 2011. Paperback. $14.99. Kindle Edition, lending enabled. $2.99. E-book available from $0.99. ISBN: 978-1-907867-01-9.

Well, sex, sure. But love in a gay bathhouse? That’s really not what most people are after there…

But Marcel Weil did find his Mr. Right in a place more known for Mr. Right Now. And when he mentioned this to a friend, and the friend discovered Weil had “sort of” used a strategy, he encouraged him to put it out there for “every gay man who goes to bathhouses and wants a boyfriend.” Thus, Weil produced a practical and sex-positive book, which is explicit but not pornographic.

Weil takes the reader through the steps: finding the busy places and frequenting them; building up your self-confidence; making sexual encounters happen; dealing with sexually transmitted infections; differences between having sex and making love; getting to a second date; helping love grow; and keeping the magic alive.

Sometimes the advice is basic – don’t go in to the bathhouse right before closing; be approachable; always play safe; make sure you get his phone number – but there is a wealth of information here and I’d venture that even the most experienced cruiser could learn something new. (I never realized why my eyes got so dry, for example.)

Besides being comprehensive, the advice in Find Love is compassionate – Weil knows some people are not as comfortable with their bodies or sexuality as they’d like, and he suggests ways to get beyond these hurdles.

Of particular value are the thought exercises that Weil includes in each chapter, that will help readers apply the lessons to their own personal situations and attitudes. The reader has to think through the differences between sex and love, what he wants in a relationship and what he doesn’t, how his lifestyle could help or hinder a budding romance.

The audience for this book is limited – it is not just gay men, but gay men who are open to finding true love in a bathhouse. Still, I recommend this book to public and academic libraries in metropolitan areas with gay bathhouses – and there are more of those than you might think!

Reviewed by, John Bradford
Head, Automation & Technical Services
Villa Park Public Library