^ Joe Mayo, interviewed 3/28/97, in Rofes, p.: CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link), p. ^ Bob Thomas, interviewed 3/12/77, in Eric Rofes, A Walking Tour of South of Market in the 1970s, n.p., 2005, "Archived copy" (PDF).^ Mick Sinclair, San Francisco: A Cultural and Literary History, Interlink, 2003, ISBN 1566564891, p.^ Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, New York, Viking Press, 1987, ISBN 0312009941, pp.San Francisco Bizarro: A Guide to Notorious Sites, Lusty Pursuits, and Downright Freakiness in the City by the Bay'. Political Responses to the AIDS Crisis, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2009, ISBN 0807833142, p. ^ Jennifer Brier, Infectious Ideas: U.S.Rubin, "Elegy for the Valley of the Kings: AIDS and the Leather Community in San Francisco, 1981-1996", in In Changing Times: Gay Men and Lesbians Encounter HIV/AIDS, University of Chicago Press, 1997, ISBN 0226278573, pp. The San Francisco Jacks, a masturbation club, met at the Caldron. Slate and Gilman were members of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, which after Monday chorus rehearsals sometimes repaired to the Caldron for a private party. The name Caldron, according to owner Gilman, was the I Ching's commentary on itself. A poster announcing its First Anniversary Orgy has been preserved. The Caldron featured thematic nights: Tuesdays were for water sports, Thursday for fisting it also set aside nights for masturbation. There were tables and benches for having sex on, and slings. The club had two bathtubs for those who wanted to be urinated on. The owners were Hal Slate and Stephen Gilman. It was described as "exemplary" as one of the first venues to promote safe sex as the AIDS crisis hit.
Like other similar venues, it had no alcohol license patrons brought their own alcohol, usually beer, and this was stored in a cooler and patrons given chits that they could turn in for a can of the brand of beer they had brought. Patrons were required to be naked except for footwear a clothes check was provided. Located in a converted warehouse, the site was unabashedly a place where men went to have sex. It was called "the epitome of the uninhibited, abandoned, 'sleazy' sex club." Description area, was a gay sex club which opened in 1980 and closed in 1984. The Caldron (often misspelled Cauldron), at 853 Natoma Street in San Francisco, in the South of Market St.