glory to the glory hole

In today's episode, we go into the inglorious history of the glory hole, its queer cultural significance, and what it reveals about ourselves — changing what we mean by 'vulnerable'. 

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citation and things I read in preparation for today's episode:

 Ashford, C., & Longstaff, G. (2021). (Re) regulating gay sex in viral times: COVID-19 and the impersonal intimacy of the glory hole. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 23(11), 1559-1572.   

Cooper, D. (2007). Well, you go there to get off' Visiting feminist care ethics through a women's bathhouse. Feminist Theory, 8(3), 243-262.   

Drożyński, C. (2022). Holes in Architecture: A Queer Eye on a Design Method. Architecture and Culture, 10(2), 285-303.   

Fuckbox | Kinktionary. Fetlife. (n.d.). https://fetlife.com/kinktionary/toys-equipment/furniture/fuckbox-5jjsl  

Fruen, L. (2020, June 10). “Make it a little kinky”: nyc officials update their guide to having sex during covid-19 pandemic telling new yorkers to “wear masks, create physical barriers with walls and to take part in sexy zoom parties.” Daily Mail. Retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8407933/Make-little-kinky-New-Yorkers-told-create-physical-barriers-walls-sex.html.  

Gloryhole | Kinktionary. Fetlife. (n.d.-b). https://fetlife.com/kinktionary/sexual-activities/gloryhole-dyoer  

Hagius, H. (Ed.). (2010). Swasarnt Nerf's Gay Guides for 1949. Lulu. com.  

Holmes, D., O’Byrne, P., & Gastaldo, D. (2007). Setting the space for sex: Architecture, desire and health issues in gay bathhouses. International journal of nursing studies, 44(2), 273-284.   

Houlbrook, M. (2016). On the emptiness of the glory hole, and other non-problems. Modernism/Modernity Print Plus.  

Murphy, R. (2019, July 29). Who do we have to thank for “Glory holes”-glass blowers or gays? Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/07/glory-hole-term-origins-gay-culture-glass-blowing.html  

Prior, S. (2021). Going back to the glory hole: An (extra) ordinary story of meeting shame, doubt, and arousal in the therapy room. In The Everyday Lives of Gay Men (pp. 69-78). 

Routledge.  Rictor Norton, "A History of Gay Sex", Gay History and Literature, 24 November 2006 http://rictornorton.co.uk/gaysex.htm

Rictor Norton (Ed.), "Trials of Thomas Vaughan and Thomas Davis, 1707," Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook. 29 April 2007, updated 15 June 2008 http://www.rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1707vaug.htm   | 

Sumerau, J. E., Cragun, R. T., & Mathers, L. A. (2016). “I found god in the glory hole”: The moral career of a gay Christian. Sociological Inquiry, 86(4), 618-640.  

Team, M., By, & Team, M. (2022, June 27). What’s a glory hole? the covid-19 safe sex trend explained. maude. https://getmaude.com/blogs/themaudern/what-is-a-glory-hole?srsltid=AfmBOoopSoEk29IyP3sM5Zf93-ZgHCzEecjyGLyrpJVAJZnMiDZlGPIQ  

Wall, M. A. (2010). " Textual glory holes": genre and community in fan kink memes.

cover art: @bofenglin

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you haven't already noticed, most of my knowledge of sexuality comes from experience, not the textbooks, not my clients. It's just from me existing. I have a really good friend of mine that whenever I tell him any of my life stories or him just observing it, he will always say, It's always you. I I joke often that I had nine lives before I became a therapist. Whenever my clients are curious about my personal life, that's what I will say. I've had nine lives before I became a therapist. And um, today we'll talk about one of those lives in a bit. But it's just, it's so funny to me that I I know these things. So uh most of my life, I I will admit, most of my life I worked two jobs to support myself. And I held a lot of internships in school when I was in college. I was that kid. When you talk to them, they're like, How do you do it? And you're like, You just you just don't sleep. It's not the healthiest thing, but I will talk about a bit about my freshman year of college. Back then, I had my two jobs where I was a lifeguard during the day, school full time, and then on Fridays and Saturday evenings, I will help my friend promote for a club. I I didn't like it too much, to be honest. I'm not a big fan of working nightlife, but what I did enjoy was that on Friday evenings after we met our quota, we will go across the bridge in Miami and go to a very popular gay club every Friday. And while my friend was exploring his sexuality, I enjoyed that I got free drinks as an 18-year-old. It was great. I say I go on to say this, I give you all this context because you have to understand, I've been going to the gay club since I was 18. I've been in queer spaces before that. It's just, I've just always felt comfortable. It's always been my safe space to be in queer spaces. And I I do my ultimate best to be the best ally I can be because of how safe these spaces have made me be feel. So I assumed, you know, that little trapdoor that's in the gay club, sometimes in the bathroom, that's on the on the like the stall wall. See, I thought for the longest time that that was like the tampon shoot. You know, when you you put to dispose of the tampons, you know, I was like, oh, this is great. I that's literally what I thought. I was like, great. These bathrooms are not just gender neutral, but they're also menstrual informed. This is awesome. This should be in every bathroom. And I was wrong. I was totally wrong. That's not what it was. I found out a couple years later when I went to another gay club with a good friend of mine. See, the thing is, we I I made the mistake of having dairy before Glen Clubbing. Yeah, not the wisest decision. So who takes a shit in the gay club? Me. It was I. It's terrible because you're sweating, you're hugging your knees, and Lady Gaga's playing in the background, okay? You're all you can do under those like blue lights, because it's not even like fluorescent lights. The bathrooms are usually like dark. They're like dark blue lights. With very interesting wallpapers, and you're lucky they have toilet paper. Hugging your knees, Lady Gaga's playing, and then an app comes out through this trapdoor that I thought was a tampon door, was a half-flaccid penis. That was the day I learned what a glory hole was. It scared me. It scared me so bad. I started yelling. I started screaming. It scrumped. The guy on the other side. I guess he thought, you know, I was down to party because I was in there for a while. Poor guy. He started screaming, and there was like a good solid like minute where we were just screaming across the wall at each other. And then we ran out. Except the difference between him and I, while I sprinted to my friends, he ran out with his pants halfway to his knees. Poor guy. And so if you haven't guessed it already, hearing this funny story, today's topic will be on glory holes, where I'm gonna bring up the history of glory holes, the cultural significance of glory holes, the psychology of glory holes, and what the future of glory holes will look like in the age of surveillance. I hope you enjoy this story. I hope you laugh. I still laugh when I tell this story. Welcome to Things I'm Meant to Say Naked, a podcast about mental health, desire, intimacy, and the truth that we carry in our bodies. I'm Figgs, a certified sex therapist, a licensed mental counselor, a lover, and someone who has spent way too much time overthinking and turning that into your career. This should be education, inventory, and later to the versions of using what the hell we're doing if I want to feel really good at doing it. Some episodes will be just me offering insights, stories, and spicy tastes in the erotic. Others will feature guests, lovers, and maybe a little bit of chaos. So get comfy and let's get into the things that we were meant to say naked. Although this podcast explores themes of mental health, relationships, and sexuality, it's for educational and entertainment purposes only, and is not a substitute for professional mental health care. If you find yourself struggling, please reach out to a licensed provider in your area. Let's start by going down the oral history of glory holes. Yes. Pun intended. So the first glory hole or the term glory hole was actually used about a thousand years ago. It was referred to the small furnace, circular furnace, where all you would put all the broken pieces of glass or unused pieces of glass to then recycle them and reuse them that and to like become something new. So it was cute. So it started as a recycling hole for bits you don't want and make into bits you do want. And it wasn't until 800 years later that term glory hole changed again when Oxford Dictionary referred to glory holes as junk drawers. I just I'm starting to see that junk is a bit of a trend when it comes to glory holes. It's not very glorious, if you ask me, but Oxford Dictionary defined glory holes back in 1825 as receptacles, as a drawer room, etc., in which things are heaped together without any attempt at order or tidiness. Or you're not gonna like this one. This is actually kind of nasty. Oxford Dictionary also defined glory holes as a small room for degraded beings such as prisoners. This is probably the most inglorious slang term ever used for the history of mankind because the next time the next one also was in the 1930s. It became a slang for vaginas. I think if anyone were to refer to my vagina as a glory hole, I would have to punch them in the throat with that holding back. So let's just let's just reel it back, okay? A thousand years ago, it's stuff you blew, it's junk you blew together to make something new. 800 years later, it's where you put a bunch of your junk and people that you refer to as less than. And they had a glossary list in the back where it was the current queer terms of the time. And there they referred to glory holes as phallic-sized holes in the partition between toilet booths, sometimes also used as a mere peephole. So it wasn't until 1949 that we know it as it is today. Does that mean glory holes did not exist until the 1940s? Not at all. Oh no, this is the part that gets really, really interesting. So I brought up the oral history of glory holes, but let's actually talk about the actual history of glory holes. And the first glory hall wasn't recorded until 18th century England. And this was a time when gay sex was very harshly criminalized, and men seeking encounters often met in public bus rooms that were called bog houses. That were, you know, conveniently located near coffee houses, inns, and taverns. These spaces became covert sites of connection. In other words, we are talking Victorian era cruising. I love this. I I love learning about queer history because I think it's a story of resilience and innovation. But I digress. This is about Victorian era cruising. So the at the time, actually, the most infamous boghouse was known as the Lincoln Boghouse in London. And in 1707, there was a notorious case that was called the Trials of Thomas Vaughn and Thomas Davis. This court case just reveals just how criminalized queer desire is and how it leaves queer men vulnerable to blackmail. So Thomas Vaughn and his accomplices ran an extortion scheme targeting men in these spaces, in these bog houses. And one of their victims, his name is Mr. Gillam, he was a tallow chandler. I had to look it up. I didn't know what a tallow channel, I don't even know what both of those words are separately. Can you imagine together? Well, I looked it up for you, so you didn't have to, which is a candle and soap maker. And he was extorted 20 shillings in cash and a 20 in a note, which is equivalent between 500 to 700 US dollars today. So the way this scheme ran, the way this Vaughn guy, this nasty guy, he's you know, I I love being a nasty girl. You know, I'm I can't sing the song because I think that's considered um I can get in trouble for copyrights. But you know what song I'm talking about about being a nasty girl. I love being a nasty girl. Nasty. Um but this guy was nasty in an un very unkind way. So the scheme unfolded when Gillam, while traveling for business, sure, used the temple bog house as a restroom. And so I actually looked it up like how these bog houses were. It was usually like the first floor was like a restaurant, a bar, a tavern, and then you go through these narrow steps. This is important to know. You go up these narrow steps, and on the second floor, that's usually where the bathrooms are. The restrooms, that's what a bog house at was. So while this Mr. Gillam was using the bathroom upstairs, and oh next to him, on the adjoining stall, a young boy exposes himself through a hole, which we now know as a glory hole. Mr. Gillam panicked and he fled, much like I did in the gay club, except that um while I ran to my friends and had a good laugh, this guy ran into and was cornered by Mr. Vaughn right before he was getting down to the staircase. Because keep in mind, the staircase was narrow, there was only one escape, and that's where this guy extorted him because he was leveraging the immense stigma and ruinous consequences of being associated with queer sex at the time. Again, this guy was nasty and not in the fun way. So that was actually the first recorded instance of a glory hole, and it wasn't of one of liberation but of exploitation. It just highlighted how the mere rumor of same-sex desire could jeopardize marriages, reputations, and livelihood. And after this court case, authorities started increasingly associating glory holes with illicit activities, and they started monitoring and raiding these bog houses to criminalize men associated with same-sex encounters. That's so fucked up. So after that, in the by the mid-20th century, the persistence of glory holes was undeniable. In fact, the 1950s legislator, and this is in the US, noted that authorities will often patch up these holes in the restrooms with sheets of zinc, only to return hours later and find new holes poked right through it. Like, you know, desire found a way. So the way I make of this is that in the 18th century, I don't I think what happened was just this straight man created a glory hole to exploit already an exploited community. And then Queer Men was like, you know, this is not a bad idea. This is a great way to maintain anonymity in a place in time that you had to be anonymous. And so it just kind of kept going for 200 years where they started popping up everywhere, and the authorities like literally could not control it. And it's so interesting how this kind of progressed and you know just expanded beyond control because then it became synonymous. Glory holes became synonymous with gay bathhouses, erotic bookstores, and adult movie theaters. These spaces offered anonymity, but also risk, and particularly with the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. This is where it gets interesting. So in the US, bathhouses were shut down in the 1980s because they claimed that anonymous sex fueled the epidemic. So, in other words, authorities in the 1980s closed down gay bathhouses, which was one of the safest spaces and places for queer and gay men to meet up, because they thought that that's where the AIDS epidemic is is exploding. And that's, I think, comes from this whole stereotype that AIDS is a gay disease. And I say that that this is such a big stereotype, and this was so wrong and incorrect because countries such as England and Netherlands, where there was bathhouses and they still remained opened, the infection rates were no higher than the US. I honestly think it was just an excuse to close down queer spaces. That's what it was. And so, you know, not long after, in the early 2000s, uh bathhouses started reopening again, and glory holes regained their place. Some bathhouses even incorporated them to their architectural design, framing them not as a hidden or illicit practice, but as an intentional part of erotic cultures. Owners emphasized safety, ensuring condoms, readily available, maintaining clean and secure spaces for patrons. I thought this was really cool about architecture. So while I was reading this, you have to understand, I went through history books, actual court cases. I even found architectural journals where they asked architecture students to design new glory holes. I thought that was so cool. I actually sent that to a friend of mine because I didn't even know that that was a thing. And there was another twist to all this where it became a whole 180 to how we knew it as before, as this scary or dangerous practice, or when we associated with the AIDS epidemic, because in 2020, during COVID-19 pandemic, New York health officials issued public guidelines encouraging safer sex practices in the light of the virus. And this is an actual quote from the New York health officials. I'm gonna say it out loud. They said, make it a little kinky, be creative with sexual positions and physical barriers like walls. That allows sexual contact while preventing close face-to-face contact. In other words, New York health officials were encouraging glory holes. If only that's that's a complete 180 in the span of 40 years. If you go from the 1980s to 2020, health officials closed down bathhouses to now encouraging glory holes. Isn't that crazy? So what began in the shadows, what began as criminalization, what became what started with exploitation, transformed across centuries that both a symbol of resilience and an unlikely tool of harm reduction. So today the term glory hole has expanded well beyond its original association with bathrooms and bathhouses. It also has entered the realm of digital culture and community. So in fan fiction spaces, online fanfiction spaces, there's something called the glory hole. And this is where fans anonymously list out all their dirty fantasies, all their junk, quote unquote junk, in which they said their kinks, their tags, their characters, their fandoms that they will like a fan fiction on. And anonymous writers will respond to the fan with fan fiction and memes that correspond with the requests. So literally the glory hole became a portal, a literary portal, an exchange of vulnerability and desire mediated by words. In the physical space, glory holes has also diversified into different subtypes with sex and party culture. So one variation of the glory hole is called a reverse glory hole, sometimes called a European or Czech glory holes, in which a person's lower half is exposed through a wall and it's anonymously pleasured by others in the opposite side. And when women participate, these are often referred to as female glory holes. And so we have to say female glory holes because glory holes are still primarily associated with gay men. But we're seeing that this is also expanding to heterosexual spaces. It's not just heterosexual spaces, but actual spaces because now furniture is being designed to emulate the anonymity that glory holes offer. There's something called the fuck box. Yeah. A box or enclosure with an opening for genitals or an anus creates a similar dynamic of anonymity, accessibility, and play. So here is the theme that gets stays consistent when we talk about glory holes. It's redefining intimacy through partial exposure, its vulnerability, and its negotiated risk. So when you look at it from its verbal history to its lived practice, the glory hole has always embodied resilience. Creation and redefining the erotic. This seems this seems like so much for something so simple, but you know what? Hear me out. Okay, hear me out. That's why you're listening to me. So you're gonna have to hear me out. Glory holes began with repurposing glass. And then it became and shifted into repurposing spaces. A glory hole seems to expose one to risk, yet it reduces risk. And while the act requires vulnerability and trust, like you are, you are literally exposing yourself to another, it also for centuries been a method of protecting ourselves from exposure. Exposure from the authorities. And also think about this. A lot of the hesitation people have towards glory holes is because of its association of risk of STI transmission. We've talked about how New York health officials reacted to glory holes in the 1980s. But that hesitation carries this assumption that monogamy is free from risk. I can talk for hours how monogamy carries its own risk, how it relies on assumptions. When we move into these closed, closed spaces of monogamy or closed relationships, we even rely heavily on assumptions. And this is very similar and very different at the same time from glory holes that behind walls where communication and verbal consent may be absent, risk is still negotiated differently. Here, autonomy and self-assessment takes center stage. Qualities often sideline in traditional monogamous relationships. Glory holes also challenge another assumption that pleasure depends on being seen or being fully exposed. I I think we often think that to be vulnerable means to be fully exposed. And that expectation can weigh very heavily on a lot of people. So I want to look at it like this. Or maybe ask these questions. Or maybe let's think about it like this. What if I want an experience, a sexual experience or social experience that's free from my privileges and limitations as someone who is queer, disabled, or a person of color? What if I want intimacy without worrying about how attractive or not attractive I am? Perfectionism or reciprocity? What if I want a space where the only focus is sensation? This moment, now. The absence of seeing creates its own possibilities. It opens a space for mystery, for imagination, for fantasy that extends way beyond sensation. In this way, glory holes become not just a site of desire, but of meaning making. And I actually read a little bit of philosophy in the process and in the construction of today's episode. Yeah, so we're gonna get a little philosophical. So this is often referred to philosophically as called assemblage theory. And this is the idea that meaning shifts depending on connection. So when you think of my mouth in isolation, it means one thing. And when you look at my mouth as part of my face, it becomes another. And when you look at my mouth and its connection to my throat, its meaning shifts again. And when my mouth is doing, the meaning shifts and changes. So when my mouth is speaking, it means one thing. When it eats, it means another. When it breathes, it means another thing. And when it fucks, yes, fucks, it meanings transforms altogether. So similarly, the glory hole acts as a portal to create new meanings, one that resists normalcy and invites us to reconsider how pleasure, connection, and embodiment may take shape. So, what does this mean for the future of the glory hole? Well, we're in a world where every click leaves a permanent digital footprint, where appearances and reputation function as a kind of social currency. And maybe that may mean that we need a glory hole more than ever. As lawmakers strip away anonymity from sexual expression and tech companies find ways to profit from our most intimate data, the freedom to explore desire without surveillance becomes increasingly rare. The question becomes: do we crave the glory hole not simply as an erotic tool, but as a refuge? A place literal or metaphorical where we can fantasize, experiment, and risk vulnerability without tying those things to a person. The glory then may not belong only to the past or the present. Its future lies in the ongoing human need for spaces of play, creativity, and privacy in an era that demands visibility, documentation, and exposure. It remains a counterpoint to a culture obsessed with profiles and permanence, a reminder that desire thrives in the shadows as much as it does in the light. And so, to my listeners, after hearing me ramble for I don't know how long about Glory Holes, I challenge you to think where in your erotic life do you maybe desire a bit more privacy, a bit more mystery for you to play and explore yourself in ways that maybe or you don't want the public to know, or you don't want it to become part of your public persona? Consider that. And maybe, just maybe you'll start considering the glory hole.