The Folsom Street Fair was small, sleazy, and slightly dangerous-feeling when I first attended 20 or so years ago.
Yesterday’s beautiful afternoon showcased a much different 2006 edition of the fair. There were more people like the couple on the left (the woman was holding a leather leash that went to the man’s dog collar, by the way).
It was a lot of fun, but a different type of fun. Not dangerous, but still very San Franciscan.
A few g-rated pictures of the crowd and friends from yesterday are in my Folsom Street photo set.
Hmmm, I remember seeing people with baby strollers at my first Folsom many years ago. I remember thinking how cool it was that it wasn’t an exclusionary kind of event. OK, if you went, you had to understand that there would be kinky people walking around & you couldn’t complain about that. But, it was OK for anyone to be there.
ps: the Flickr link didn’t work for me.
Call Me a Prude…
This year the entry signs at the barricades asking for your donation also said “no children” and “no pets”. I saw some biological canines on leashes, but no youngsters. That was fine with me.
There is a lot of adult visuals and street scenes in those blocks. Past years I have worried about how much explanation the children in tow were getting from their sight-seeing parents. There’s a difference in my mind between adult play and the dress up and something “natural” which children can be exposed to in unlimited amounts at any age. While parents need to help their children understand sex, I am not a fan of the total immersion technique of sex education.
Aside from the exclusion of baby strollers this year, the kept its growing diversity. Pat Robertson himself will probably appear as a float in a year or two.
Re: Call Me a Prude…
I think that no pets/no children is a good rule in general, since it is so crowded there that a pet or child is likely to get hurt in the crush because people can’t see them.
My rememberence of Folsom of many years ago was that it wasn’t as overtly sexual, but I could be mis-remembering it.
While I think that the spanking kind of thing is OK for kids to see, I don’t think that they should be seeing guys jacking off in the street. But, then, I don’t think those guys should be jacking off in the street, either.