'Reclaiming raunch'? Spatializing queer identities at Toronto women's bathhouse events

In this paper we examine the tensions inherent in the queer politics of Canada's first women-only bathhouse event, the ‘Pussy Palace’. Organized by the Toronto Women's Bathhouse Committee (TWBC), this event is designed to provide women with a ‘safe’ and ‘supportive’ space in which to explore alternative gendered and sexualized identities. We draw on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with organizers, sponsors and participants of the Pussy Palace to consider how the process of ‘queering space’, which is often interpreted as libratory, can paradoxically discipline gendered and sexualized selves. We argue that queer identities and spaces can be distinct from and oppositional to gay and lesbian identities and spaces. With this argument we contribute to a substantial body of geographical literature on sexualities, and to more recent critical work on queer geographies.