Man’s Country
Man’s Country
Site #2 Description…
This prominent bathhouse invites men to “Meet the MAN in Man’s Country”
Man’s Country is one of the longest-running gay bathhouses in the US, being in continuous operation from 1973 to 2017, when it closed its doors for good with a night-long New Year’s Eve party. Man’s Country was founded by Charles “Chuck” Renslow and his then partner, Dom Orejudos, best known as homoerotic artist Etienne.
Renslow (left) passed away in 2017 in his eighties, and Orejudos (right) passed away due to AIDS-related health complications in 1991. They were partners for over four decades.
Image credit: Chicago Gay History (Renslow); AIDS Memorial via Facebook (Orejudos).
Renslow himself was a prominent, openly gay businessman who contributed majorly to (largely white) gay rights and visibility. He is best known for founding Gold Coast, the first exclusively leather gay bar in the US. The leather subculture in LGBTQ+ circles refers to the sexualized use of leather clothing and implements, often related to BDSM practices, and often with a hypermasculine aesthetic. Renslow and Orejudos also co-founded the International Mr. Leather competition, marking Chicago as a global leather subculture hub.
Man’s country was not just a bathhouse where gay men could safely meet to have sex, anonymously or otherwise. It was a sprawling and multi-floor space that featured a large stage space that regularly hosted major performers of the time.
Man's Country ads featuring performers.
Image credit: Gerber/Hart Archives (courtesy Zachary Blair).
There were steaming and bathing spaces, large locker rooms, several private rooms with video-watching facilities, and other luxuriant amenities to foster sexual activities and gay community. Man’s Country was exclusively gay, serving a largely white and increasingly older clientele. It was one of the few bathhouses that survived the peak of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s, though with great difficulty as communal sex became even more pathologized, and large numbers of its clientele fell ill or passed away.
This display in the Leather Museum features leather costumes, erotica, and implements.
Image credit: leatherarchives.org
Renslow, a “physique” photographer himself, used his and Etienne’s extensive collections to start the Chicago Leather Museum and Archives, which now hosts artifacts and archives of leather organizations across the country.
Note of thanks: Our thanks to Zachary Blair, who generously shared his research material from the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives and his extensive knowledge of gay and lesbian businesses in Chicago’s northside.
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