- For the photography term, please see: Darkroom
A darkroom or dark room is a darkened room, sometimes located in a nightclub, gay bathhouse or sex club, where sexual activity can take place. When located in bars, dark rooms are also known as backrooms or blackrooms.
The lighting in dark rooms ranges from pitch black to dimly lit. Some dark rooms incorporate black, blue, or red lights.
Dark rooms in bars
Dark rooms were common features of North American gay bars and clubs in the 1960s and 1970s, and can still be found in some bars.
A backroom in a gay bar is typically a small, very dark or dimly lit room at the back of the club where customers can go to have sex, usually without undressing. Prior to the discovery of AIDS, backrooms were common in gay bars, and the sex that took place in them was typically unprotected, and often, though not always, anonymous. The discovery of AIDS, and increasing knowledge about the methods of transmission, resulted in the closing of many backrooms in gay bars.
Dark rooms in sex clubs and bathhouses
Dark rooms are often a feature of sex clubs and bathhouses, and they are often advertised as an amenity or attraction.
A sex club dark room may be as simple as a small darkened area large enough for two or three people, or may be comprise a large portion of the club's floor area, with mazes, glory holes, private nooks, steel bars resembling prison cells, and varying floor levels.
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