BAR:
No Sex Please, We're Gay San Franciscans
If you're at all interested in sexual liberation, preserving public queer space South of Market and elsewhere, and not allowing our entire political agenda to be driven by the desire for sugary wedding cakes, read this leather column by Scott Brogan in the latest Bay Area Reporter on the streets now. It's also web-posted here:
The Sex Police are alive and well in San Francisco. It's an odd game the city plays with our community's sexual "freedom." ...
What gets me about this negative attitude towards sexual freedom is the issue of "public" sex. I'm not talking about the parks, but the street fairs, sex clubs, and bars. Folsom Street Fair is all about the freedom to show off and celebrate your kinky fetish side. You can flog, mummify, piss – all kinds of kinky fetish play. Yet if you do anything considered "sexual," you'll get tapped on the shoulder and told to stop.
Why? It's not the folks at Folsom Street Events' doing, but our city that stepped in because of alleged complaints.
Even the once-horny Bare Chest Calendar men can't get frisky with anyone in any way. They can't even touch themselves "inappropriately." They blame it on the sponsor, but I believe the reality is that they're paranoid that someone might be "offended." ...
This fear has crept into the sex clubs as well. It's well-known that we can't even have bathhouses in the city because of the panic 30 years ago. Instead we have sex clubs, many of which don't have proper cleaning facilities. ... The sex clubs require memberships and sometimes additional fees that allude to privacy and sexual freedom. But once you've paid and you're inside, you have to contend with the Condom Police. Oh yes, even though you plunked down money for that assumed sexual privacy and freedom, you don't get it. ...
Let's rekindle interest and activism in defending cock-driven public and private spaces and push the idea of expanding existing clubs and get-togethers. Scott Brogan is to be commended for issuing this call to stand up, or get down on one's knees, in the name of keeping sexual liberation alive and well and thriving in San Francisco.
Not all of us queers want to live our lives on the computer. Bricks and mortar queer sexual space needs defending. And without the Sex Police performing inspections.
Reports, proud muckraking, photos, videos and musings from the veteran LGBT and AIDS human rights advocate Michael Petrelis. Based in San Francisco since 1995. Contact: MPetrelis_at_AOL_dot_com. Vote Petrelis for BART Board District 9 in November!
3 comments:
I suspects "complaints" have been lodged by Peter LaBarbara -- whose exploits JoeMyGod has covered in detail.
Why the rude, looks-ist comment about people who walk down the street naked? I am so sick of this attitude in our community. If you don't look a certain way, you shouldn't be seen. Here's some news for Scott Brogan, we who walk down the street naked are not doing it to please you, we are doing it to please ourselves.
Get with the twenty-first century.
Nudewoody
hi woody,
thanks for taking scott brogan to task for this comment:
"The fact that one can legally walk down the street naked (although it's usually not anyone you want to see naked)."
i applaud all of the men who walk around the castro without their clothes, and their point never seems to be only porno models should be nude on the streets.
scott should reconsider his looks-ist comment.
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