Ever have the urge to be beaten silly with a riding crop by a scantily dressed clown while you are strapped -- naked and blindfolded -- to a polka-dotted St. Andrew's cross in the middle of the street in broad daylight? Then the Folsom Street Fair is for you. What began nearly twenty years ago as a modest gay leather fair has evolved into one of the largest annual public gatherings in the state of California, attracting upwards of 300,000 people.
Held the last Sunday in September, the Folsom Street Fair is still at heart a gay leather fair, but it's appeal has expanded to include anyone who wants to explore (or just gawk at) the fetish lifestyle, including (but certainly not limited to) bondage, paddling, foot worship, and whipping. You'll have the chance to mingle with leather freaks, porn stars, dominatrixes and drag queens. Though gay men compose most of the crowd, you'll find plenty of lesbians, bisexuals, and straight people. In fact, I saw several yuppie couples navigating their strollers through the crowd. Still, this is not family fare, unless you like to do a lot of explaining to the kids. ("Dad, why are they spanking that man?")
The fair stretches down Folsom Street from Seventh to Twelfth Streets, spilling over onto some of the side streets. All along the way are booths for vendors of leather goods, sex toys, and porn videos, as well as for local businesses and artisans and community organizations. Demonstrations of whipping, paddling and spanking attract quite a crowd. (You'll learn the proper way to do it, if you don't already know how.) Some local restaurants set up street-front buffets; I enjoyed some terrific Indian food there. One of the side streets is set up for a dance party, and at either end of the fair there are sound stages where you can hear all types of music: rock, punk, country, show tunes, etc.
Besides oodles of leather wear, you'll also see a lot of skin at the fair -- topless women, bottomless men -- so it is not for the prudish. There are no live sex shows; well, maybe a little bit of public masturbation. But be careful: you can get a ticket for that in San Francisco. The fair costs just a few dollars to get into and runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For the money, it's some of the most fascinating people watching you’ll ever do.