“If you create a secluded space full of naked men, steam, ceramic tile and little else … things are bound to happen,” quipped a suburban Bally’s Total Fitness Center member on recent public indecency arrests at one gym location. “The Schaumburg Bally’s steamroom is notoriously cruisy, as is the North Shore locale. More often than not, these spaces attract closet cases who are very much on the edge, very nervous and sometimes a little risk-taking.”
Schaumburg police Lt. Dennis Carroll confirmed that several arrests have been made recently at the East Schaumburg Bally’s location, just across the road from Woodfield Mall.
The location has become increasingly popular with gay patrons, a second Bally’s patron said, also asking not to be identified. As a longtime member, he said he has been aware for years of the sexual activity that periodically takes place in the men’s steamroom.
Recently, another patron told him of the arrests and said that police had set up a sting operation to catch perpetrators red-handed.
While Carroll could not verify the use of a sting, he did say police worked in cooperation with Bally’s management after receiving several complaints from Bally’s customers and employees.
“We had some complaints at the Bally’s of some conduct that was not prudent to be going on there,” Carroll told Windy City Times. “It’s one thing when you’ve got two consenting adults in their own private residence,” but another when a public place is being used to solicit sexual activity from uninterested business patrons.
The suburban Bally’s member resented the police presence and said Bally’s management is venturing into dangerous territory.
“If they truly are having a sting, they better be prepared for the results,” he said. “There are going to be men married with children, experimenting twentysomething-year-olds not yet out of the closet and 20-year Bally’s veterans entrapped in the name of a homophobic witchhunt. Let’s not pretend like straight men are being sexually harassed by big scary gay men. Nobody is getting any action without throwing their hat into the ring, or in this case, their towel.”
“If someone spends more than 25 minutes in the 125-degree heat of a steamroom, they are looking to open more than their pores,” he added.
The second Bally’s patron, however, said the arrests should serve as a warning to people engaged in illicit activity in the steamroom.
“You never know when you’re taking a chance,” he said.
When contacted several times over the past few days, management from Ballys in Schaumburg would not comment on the arrests to Windy City Times.