Like any venerated holiday, the Folsom Street Fair (folsomstreetfair.com), the world’s largest daytime celebration of kinkiness, happens but once a year. This weekend, it’s leather Christmas in the city – and if the weather holds up, we’ll likely see the estimated 400,000 BDSM-lovin’ attendees sweating it out in rubber and leather (or nothing at all) to get a taste of our very own internationally attended Disneyland for kinksters.
I don’t attend every year, and I’m not as kinky as you might think – like many attendees, I just like to watch. One year, a freak thunderstorm rained on the fair, sending leathermen (of all genders) running for cover, while waterproof, rubber-clad bystanders casually moved to drier confines (and in some cases, accent on the confined part). While it rained, the Gary Floyd Band (remember Floyd from that old punk band the Dicks?) played and sang until the water shorted them out, at which point the Buddhist bear frontman Floyd (a friend) finally stopped singing to thank the sky for its blessing.
Another year, I was squeezing my way through the crowd, ogling and trying not to touch anyone’s exposed bits by accident, when I ran into a pair of old friends. It was my recently married pals, Ron and Elisa (not their real names) – and I wasn’t so much surprised to see the house-in-the-suburbs (of Oakland) couple there, as I was to see Ron. He had just returned from his second tour in Iraq; I was elated and relieved to see him home safe and, well, so happy he was grinning from ear to ear. I asked the excitedly affectionate pair, “So, what are you two kids up to?” Elisa exclaimed, “We’re going to go get whipped! Ron was so excited to be home in time for Folsom.”
Like a couple at an amusement park, they were seeing the sights, and were on their way to stand in line for a light taste of the Folsom Street Fair’s fare. Ron concluded, “It’s so good to be home. See you later!” We hugged and I mused on the amazing patchwork quilt that makes up our definition of the “all-American” couple. As the afternoon passed, I caught a glimpse of them still wandering through the crowd, with matching striped backs and more big smiles. (Ron returned to Iraq for a third tour, and is now home, safe and for good.)
Folsom, for the uninitiated, is a taste of our so-called San Francisco values and much more. For locals, it’s just another weekend of impossible-to-get taxis, leather-studded bulges on parade in the Castro (even in Walgreens – is nothing sacred?), and strategizing errands around the SOMA shutdown. We might forget that going to Folsom can be the funnest, craziest, most claustrophobic, most shocking (and for some, arousing, or a sort of homecoming) experience a grown up can have in a daytime, carnivalesque atmosphere. You can buy as many overpriced beers, corsets, whips, BDSM books, DVDs, and “Got Slaves?” T-shirts as you can carry. Or have your slave carry for you, as the case may be.
Folsom is a lot of fun – and it can even be a bit trite, ridiculous, hilarious or boring, as the mystery, fright, and hype about BDSM and kink are (in some cases explicitly) exposed into the light of day for attendees to view from all angles, ask questions about, and see for what they really are about: consensual adult playfulness, in all its colors and extremes. It’s for experienced players and tourists alike, though I think the tourists are the most important part. Not just for the money they spend in our city, but for the chance they get to compare the reality of kink to the media hype – hype seen everywhere from Fox News to Hollywood (where seemingly every serial killer is dressed in a BSDM or transgender wrapper) to last week’s SF Weekly cover for its story about the death of local anti-drug activist Joe Konopka, who was found sans pulse, in BDSM gear. (…)
