Dark room (sexuality)

This article is about subsections of nightclubs. For room used for photography, 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.

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.

Dark rooms are still a feature of some gay bars and clubs throughout Europe.

Dark rooms in sex clubs and bathhouses

Dark rooms may be advertised as an amenity or attraction of sex clubs and bathhouses.

A sex club's dark room may be as simple as a small darkened area large enough for two or three people, or may 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.