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According to Wikipedia, "Sex on Premises Venue (SOPV) is a term used primarily in British and Australian medical literature for the various commercial venues expressly for engaging in public sex, as opposed to spaces... which may be used for sexual behaviour but are intended for general public use."

One would think these would've died out during the AIDS panic of 1982, or the COVID panic of 2020, or the monkeypox "mpox" panic of 2022, or whatever other public health scare, but apparently a few still exist in various forms pandering to various sub-minorities cherry-picked from a wider spectrum, ranging from BDSM aficionados to gay males to heterosexual wife swappers or "swingers".

Unfortunately, their proponents seem to like placing them under euphemistic categories, so that a homosexual sex-on-premises venue gets routinely labelled as a "bath house" or as a "sauna". Likewise, those swapping husbands or wives will claim to be a "couples club" or a "nightclub" or some other tag - often problematic as many legit, vanilla establishments are already grouped under that same categorisation.

I tried searching for a few known SoPV's - "Steamworks", "Spa Excess" and the like, if they're on the map at all, turn up mostly "Key:sauna" and "Tag:leisure=sauna" which isn't good if the 'sauna' tag also serves "vanilla" establishments which aren't sex-on-premises homosexual cruising grounds. Same issue with "Key:bath:type" and "Tag:amenity=public_bath" - just because an SOPV will often claim to be a "bath house" that doesn't mean every public bath in existence is a casual sex venue. I've even seen "Tag:leisure=fitness_centre" or "Tag:leisure=swimming pool" appear for known gay-male SOPV's on the open street map. Not a place to bring the wife and kids for a family swim. They wouldn't even be let through the doors.

"Tag:amenity=brothel" doesn't fit if these establishments merely turn a blind eye to clients having sex with each other (instead of with paid employees) while "Tag:amenity=swingerclub" doesn't fit as the word "swinger" has been appropriated to not cover anything other than opposite-sex couples looking to swap partners... the folks who run those odd little personal ads with "NO SINGLE MALES" and "NO BI MALES"... or the businesses marketing to that specific niche. They exist, but they're not the only SOPV's likely to qualify for a map POI on OSM. There's also "Tag:amenity=love hotel" but again, not the same concept.

I think there needs to be a tag or key for "sex club" or "sex-on-premises venue" which doesn't overlap the mainstream sauna, pool, gym, public-bath or other categories which are in widespread use by non-SoPV's. That tag, in turn, needs to be able to be narrowed by target community (and don't use "LGBTQ" if a venue doesn't admit all of those groups, but is limited to adult gay males only or something similar so then "L" doesn't apply or "T" doesn't quite fit in), Not every sex or kink fetishist is an opposite-sex couple seeking another opposite-sex couple for full swap; conversely, not all "swinger" establishments allow sexual activity on premise. (There are both "on-premise" and "off-premise" clubs, the latter are likely bars which allow clients to "pick up" partners if the actual activities occur elsewhere. The same distinction exists between "gay sauna" and "gay bar" - they're not the same animal.)

Any suggestions?

asked 25 Dec '22, 02:29

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carlb
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edited 25 Dec '22, 02:48

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question asked: 25 Dec '22, 02:29

question was seen: 1,482 times

last updated: 25 Dec '22, 02:48

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum