A “sex complex” that houses a backroom gay club closed Friday after police in South Lansing, Mich., served the business with a cease-and-desist order for violating coronavirus restrictions.
Linda Vail, health officer for Ingham County, told the alt-weekly publication City Pulse that a retail portion of the Fantasies Unlimited complex had been open in violation of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's emergency COVID-19 order. The shop sells pornography, lube, poppers and the like.
“On top of that, there's a club in the back room which has been opening and there's a lot of close contact. No way they are 6 feet apart,” Vail said.
City Pulse reports: Vail said the Ingham County Prosecutor, Carol Siemon, had police serve a cease-and-desist letter a week ago, but the business ignored it. She said it closed after police served a second letter this afternoon. Fantasies is at 3208 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The club to which Vail referred is called Club Tabu, which caters to gay men. According to a customer, who did not want to be identified, patrons pay a fee to be buzzed into a large area with rooms for private encounters with one or more other men and monitors showing explicit sex films. One room features “glory holes,” where men could have oral sex through holes in the wall, he said, while another room has a sling.
According to its website, Club Tabu is “a large club with a maze and more that is located in the back of Fantasies Unlimited. You have to go into Fantasies Unlimited, and tell the clerk you would like to go into Club Tabu.”
“A maze is a network of paths and hedges designed as a puzzle through which one has to find a way, and in our case, it is very dark and made with walls that have a few holes in them 🙂,” the site states. “This is an alternative club, with an emphasis on gay/bi/ts/tg. No one will ever be turned away, however this is by no means a ‘swingers lounge.' Although we would love to cater to every specific need and fantasy, this club is primarily focused on ‘male/trans fantasies.' If there is a great enough need, we will designate a day for couples with bi to meet. … We plan on putting in a bathhouse eventually. As of right now, it is a maze of walls and people meeting and discovering what they have in common with each other.”
In addition to local health authorities, Club Tabu recently caught the attention of some in the right-wing media, who used the fact that the business remained open as a weapon for attacking Whitmer's order.
“There is perhaps nothing more confusing than Democrat governors' orders during the Chinese WuFlu pandemic,” Megan Fox wrote recently at PJ Media. “Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is by far the worst. That was made clear with the news that a gay swinger's club with ‘glory holes' is being allowed to operate under her nose in Lansing while she aims her business-killing death ray on 77-year-old barber Karl Manke for giving haircuts.”
