Dan Ireland-Reeves had never been to a gay sauna before he started working at one. He applied for a job with the idea that it would be a good life experience—and maybe would make for a good play later. The writer-actor from Southampton, U.K., has performed his own plays all over the world and he’s not shy about showcasing sexy, salacious and sometimes shocking material. His 2017 play, Bleach, was about a sex worker.
“I use very, very colourful language on stage that lots of people find extremely offensive,” he says.
And Ireland-Reeves did, indeed, turn his time working at Southampton’s Pink Broadway sauna, which sadly closed in 2023, into a piece of theatre. Sauna Boy, a one-man show drawing on his experiences there, has been doing the fringe festival circuit in the U.K. and Australia over the last couple of years and will be at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from August 1 to 16, 2025.
Ireland-Reeves has also turned his expertise in gay sauna culture into something of a gig on TikTok, fielding questions from curious gay and bi men about what they should expect once they’re buzzed into the premises. “I’m here to tell you that going to a gay sauna at the busiest time is not necessarily the best time,” he says in one of his TikTok videos. “When people come to a gay sauna on a busy day, there are so many people there, coming and going, that people are there just hanging out, waiting for something better to come along. I call it the Swipe Left complex.”
Wander+Lust loves a sexy expert, so we tracked down Ireland-Reeves to ask him all about gay saunas—and what it’s like to tour a one-man show.
When you started working at the gay sauna, were you shocked or did you think it was a sexual paradise?
I knew what it was enough to know what to expect. In the beginning, everything’s noteworthy—you see some sexual things going on. After a month or so, you become quite desensitized to it. Some days can be very exciting if exciting people come in. But on the whole it’s a lot of cleaning, a lot of customer service. But it was definitely my favourite job. I loved how social it was, and that it was a sex-positive environment.
You probably learned a million little lessons about people, sex and gay sex while you were working there. What was your biggest takeaway?
I’d always thought there was a type of person who went to a gay sauna, a sort of hyper-promiscuous gay stereotype. Someone who sleeps with everyone and has no life outside of the gay sauna. It’s just not true. You meet people from all walks of life with varied interests and hobbies and careers, and some of them have lots of sex and some of them have less sex and some of them don’t have any sex at all. I got to know people as people, not just faceless sex objects in this world, which can be quite anonymous.
You field a lot of questions about saunas from people who have never been inside one. What’s the main thing that guys are wrong or confused about?
People fear the unknown. They think it’s an environment where you step inside and suddenly there’s immense pressure to hook up with everyone—that people are going to be grabbing you, forcing you into rooms, making you do all sorts of things. They don’t realize that, for the most part, it’s a very relaxed environment with very low pressure, very low stakes. There’s also a stereotype that it’s all older guys there, that no younger guys go to saunas, which is just not true. And I don’t like that question anyway, because the older gay community has as much right to be in that space as anyone else.
There are far fewer gay saunas in the world than there used to be. I guess younger gay guys know much less about bathhouse culture.
With apps and things like that, they aren’t something that’s necessarily on the younger generation’s radar, at least in the U.K. It’s different in Australia, where young people seem to know about them.
What’s the funniest thing you’ve experienced working in a sauna?
It’s so hard to pick something out because you get desensitized to it. I don’t know what is strange anymore. You walk past a door and you see someone being fisted, lying in a sling, legs in the air, and you don’t think anything about it. You’re just doing your rounds and you’re like, “All right, Mike, do you want me to fill up those lubes for you?”
What’s the best sauna you’ve ever been to?
Definitely Boiler (Mehringdamm 34, Berlin). It ticks all the boxes. It’s huge. It’s very clean. It’s very busy. I haven’t been to all the gay saunas out there, but I’d guess they have the best steam room in the world. It has that very Berlin, very German sex-positive culture.
What’s the most unique sauna you’ve visited?
Perth Steam Works (369 William St., Perth Australia) has a club-slash-laser tag setup. There’re barrels and maze-y bits that you can go around. It has more of a club atmosphere with a dancefloor and a DJ booth. They can adapt the venue in such a way that it can be a sauna one second and a cruising club the next, which is very cool.
The other one that springs to mind is OTOT² (2, 7A, Jalan Ipoh Kecil, Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), because their sauna setup is very different. Obviously it’s illegal to be gay in Malaysia, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but everyone I spoke to there said it’s very safe. Because homosexuality is illegal, they have to set up in a way that doesn’t have private rooms or anything like that, just some rooms and spa facilities that lend themselves to cruising. It’s also half outside, so when it rains, which it did, torrentially, when I was there, it’s raining everywhere in the sauna.
What’s the most important measure of judging whether a sauna is good?
Two really basic things: If it’s not clean and it’s not friendly, it’s not a good sauna. You can be a tiny venue with not a lot of facilities to offer, but it’s got to be clean and friendly. Everyone makes their own fun past that point, it’s what you have control over. The rest, Jacuzzis and steam rooms, are lovely if you can get them.
What made you decide to write a play set in a sauna?
My work has always been very gay and very sex oriented, so it seemed like a natural fit for what I do as a writer and a performer. The show I ended up with is not quite what I thought it might be going in. I thought it’d be a show with some funny anecdotes about working in a gay sauna. And some of the play is that, but it does have some more heartfelt, deeper bits, some parts that are very specific to my experience working at this specific gay sauna and the people I encountered there. So it changed from what I expect it to be, but it has always felt like a natural fit.
How is travelling when you’re touring a play different from travelling purely for pleasure?
I love travelling for work because I get to stay somewhere long enough to have some feeling about what it might be like to live there, which is totally different from being a tourist. When I go places as a tourist, I need to tick off all the sites and then do everything else I want to do in a week, maybe two weeks. Whereas when I’m on tour, sometimes I can have a month or more in one place, enough time to sit and do nothing. And also to create networks. I’ve made amazing friends all across the world from touring. People who put me up in their homes or invite me out to drinks. I get a taste of what it might be like to live somewhere new.
The saunas are always a good starting point because they’re a point of interest, and also a good place for community. I can make friends with staff and feel like I have some kind of network while I’m there. I will always try and do some gay clubbing, hit up the gay bars. But on the whole, I’m pretty mellow. I walk around. I food shop. I chill. I work.
What’s been your favourite city that you’ve performed in?
Wilton Manors, Florida. It’s the only place I think I’ve ever been to that feels fully gay. The bars are gay, the clubs are gay, the shops are gay. You can go a whole week there without seeing a straight person. I didn’t realize how out of place I felt in the real world until I went somewhere like that. You feel how straight people must feel every day, that you are just the norm.
When I’m there I like to go to the Eagle Wilton Manors (2209 Wilton Dr., Wilton Manors, Florida). I always thought of the Eagle as being a leather bar, so I was nervous. But they have great music and the dark room is cool. It’s very chill and friendly and central. I like a good night out at Johnsons Fort Lauderdale (2340 Wilton Dr., Wilton Manors, Florida). I can take me a stripper once in a while. You get yourself 20 dollars in ones and have a good time with very gorgeous men and good drinks. DrYnk Bar & Lounge (2255 Wilton Dr., Wilton Manors, Florida) is a beautiful little cocktail bar. It’s decorated a bit like a hunting lodge or a ski lodge. They do amazing cocktails with fire and flare, and the staff are lovely.
You’ve been touring Sauna Boy for a couple of years now. Can you give a hint of what you’re up to next?
I have some ideas for another show. My plan is to hopefully get that written and back out on the circuit early next year, so I can head back to Australia in January. No pen has hit paper yet, so there’s still a long way to go. I’m aiming for gay cowboys is all I’ll say.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
