Folsom Street Fair (FSF) is an annual kink, leather subculture, and alternative sexuality street fair, held in September that concludes San Francisco's "Leather Pride Week". The Folsom Street Fair, sometimes referred to simply as "Folsom", takes place on the last Sunday in September, on Folsom Street between 8th and 13th Streets, in San Francisco's South of Market district.Bourn, Drew, "The Folsom Street Fair." San Francisco Heritage, 2025. https://www.sfheritage.org/community/the-folsom-street-fair/
The event started in 1984, and is California's third-largest single-day, outdoor spectator event and the world's largest leather event and showcase for BDSM products and culture. It has grown as a non-profit charity, and local and national non-profits benefit with all donations at the gates going to charity groups as well as numerous fundraising schemes within the festival including games, beverage booths and even spanking for donations to capitalize on the adult-themed exhibitionism.
Origin of the leather subculture
Although sadomasochism has been practiced for many centuries, the USA gay leather scene gained impetus in 1945 when thousands of gay servicemen were given blue discharges from service after World War II and came to the major port cities of the United States to live in gay ghettos. In 1953, the Marlon Brando film The Wild One appeared, and some butch gays began to imitate Brando by wearing black leather jackets, a black leather cap, black leather boots and jeans and, if they could afford it, by also riding motorcycles. In the 1950s, the magazine Bizarre familiarized people with sexual fetishism.
History of the leather community in San Francisco
The first proto-leather bar in San Francisco was the Sailor Boy Tavern, which opened in 1938 near the Embarcadero YMCA and catered to U.S. Navy Sailors looking for same-sex sexual encounters.
Folsom Street has been the center of San Francisco's men's leather community since the mid-1960s. Before centering in the South of Market neighborhood, leather friendly bars were located in the Embarcadero (Jack's On The Waterfront at 111 Embarcadero 1952–1963, On The Levee ?–1972), and the Tenderloin (The Spur Club at 126 Turk – raided and closed in 1959, The Why Not at 518 Ellis – opened and closed in 1960, The Hideaway at 438 Eddy – raided and closed in 1961). The first leather bar in SOMA was the Tool Box, a gay leather bar which opened in 1961 at 339 4th St and closed in 1971. It was made famous by the June 1964 Paul Welch Life article entitled "Homosexuality In America", the first time a national publication reported on gay issues. Lifes photographer was referred to the Tool Box by Hal Call, who had long worked to dispel the myth that all homosexual men were effeminate. The article opened with a two-page spread of the mural of life size leathermen in the bar, painted by Chuck Arnett, a patron and employee. The article described San Francisco as "The Gay Capital of America" and inspired many gay leathermen to move there.
The first leather bar on Folsom Street was Febe's, on the southwest corner of 11th and Folsom, which opened July 25, 1966. The Stud bar, which opened in 1966 at 1535 Folsom St., was a gay leather bar that was also originally a Hells Angels hangout; by 1969 it had become a dance bar for hippies on the margins of the leather scene and had a psychedelic black light mural by Chuck Arnett (in 1987, it moved to 399 9th St. at Harrison). In 1967 A Taste of Leather, one of the first in-bar leather stores, was established at Febe's by Nick O'Demus. As of late 2009, A Taste of Leather announced it would be going out of business after 43 years.
In 1971, the modern bandana code came into use among leather people. Many leather people went to the Embarcadero YMCA (at this YMCA, doing weight training while wearing nothing but gym shoes and a jockstrap as well as nude swimming were both allowed until 1975, when women could become members of the YMCA). Leather people who worked out at the Embarcadero YMCA took advantage of the opportunity to get together with sailors when they came into town and rented rooms at the adjacent Embarcadero YMCA Hotel.
By the late 1970s Folsom's Miracle Mile had featured nearly 30 different leather bars, sex clubs, and merchants, most within walking distance of each other. These establishments included, in the order they were established:
1968 – Off the Levee (by the same owner of On The Levee), The Ramrod. 1971 – The In Between (later renamed The No Name), The Bootcamp. 1972 – The Barracks at 72 Hallam St., off Folsom between 7th and 8th Streets (a gay bathhouse for people into hardcore BDSM—each room was arranged like a stage set to cater to a different fetish fantasy). 1973 – The Red Star Saloon (connected to the Barracks) (which featured new artwork by Chuck Arnett), the End Up (not a leather bar but a dance bar; however, many leather people who liked to dance went there), Folsom Prison, The Ambush, Big Town—a gay leather shopping mall on the south side of Folsom between 6th and 7th Streets. 1975 – Hombre, The Catacombs (for those into hard core fisting), The Emporium. 1976 – The Trading Post, The Slot (for those into hardcore flagellation), The hotel (later renamed The Handball Express — a place for those into hardcore fisting). 1977 – The Brig, The Balcony. 1978 – The Arena, The Roundup (later renamed The Watering Hole—a place for those into urolagnia), The Quarters, Black & Blue, Folsom Street Baths at 1015 Folsom (a BDSM gay bathhouse, later renamed The Sutro Baths in 1980—the slogan of the Sutro Baths was "A rainbow of sexual preferences", which was inscribed on a banner above the orgy room, located where the main dance floor of 1015 Folsom now is. The Sutro Baths also admitted women and trans people). 1979 - The Stables at 1123 Folsom (for those who liked to dress as cowboys), The Trench (for those into hardcore urolagnia), The Hothouse on the northwest corner of 5th and Harrison (another BDSM gay bathhouse), Tailor of San Francisco, Mister S Leath. 1980 – The Plunge — a gay BDSM bathhouse with swimming pool on the northwest corner of 11th and Folsom (in 1983 the swimming pool was covered over and became the surface of the dance floor of the popular bisexual dance club The Oasis). 1981 – The Eagle at 398 12th St., as of 2010, is San Francisco's oldest leather bar, as well as its largest with its extensive outdoor patio, and it has hosted many popular barbecues and beer busts to benefit charitable organizations.
The predecessor of the Folsom Street Fair was the CMC Carnival (California Motorcycle Club Carnival), a gay leather BDSM dance (with DJs and a rock band) and fair, with vendors and a back room for casual sex. It was held on the second Sunday of November every year from 1966 to the last one in 1986 at various indoor venues including most often at the Seafarer's International Union Hall (referred to as Seaman's Hall for short) at 350 Fremont Street in the Embarcadero area of SOMA. In the early 1970s, the CMC Carnival was attended by a few hundred people and by the time of the last large CMC Carnival in 1982 at what was then the Yellow Cab Building at Jones and Turk in the Tenderloin, it was attended by over 4,000 people.For the history of the CMC Carnival, see Mr. Marcus' leather column in the November back issues of the Bay Area Reporter, available at the San Francisco Main Library at 100 Larkin St.
The "CMC Carnival" was organized by one of the leather motorcycle clubs, the California Motorcycle Club, with the help of other gay motorcycle clubs. The members of these gay motorcycle clubs rode mostly Harley-Davidson motorcycles and on periodic weekends rode their motorcycles to outings at picnic grounds in the Sierra Nevada. The first gay motorcycle club in the United States was the Satyrs, founded in Los Angeles in 1954. The first gay motorcycle club in San Francisco was the Warlocks, which was founded in 1960, followed by the California Motorcycle Club, also founded in 1960 later in the year. By the mid-1960s, San Francisco's South of Market district had become the center of the gay motorcycle club scene and was home to motorcycle clubs such as the Barbary Coasters (founded in 1966) and the Constantines and the Cheaters (both founded in 1967). Some leather people of the 1960s and 1970s felt that one was not really a leather person but just a poseur unless one owned an actual motorcycle, preferably a Harley-Davidson.Townsend, Larry The Leatherman's Handbook Original Edition 1972—See chapter near the end about picking out your motorcycle (this chapter is not in the later editions of the book)
Gay motorcycle clubs in San Francisco also organized many benefits for charity at various leather bars. During the 1970s and early 1980s one could see many dozens of motorcycles belonging to people who were members of these clubs parked up and down the length of Folsom Street on the Miracle Mile. The membership of these motorcycle clubs was decimated by the AIDS crisis beginning in 1982.For an exhaustively detailed history of the gay motorcycle clubs, see Mr. Marcus' leather column, which ran weekly from 1971 to mid-2010, in the back issues of the Bay Area Reporter, available at the San Francisco Main Library at 100 Larkin St.
In 1979 the newly formed San Francisco lesbian motorcycle club, Dykes on Bikes, led what was then called the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade for the first time and has done so ever since (since 1994, the event has been called the San Francisco Pride Parade). By the mid-1980s, lesbian motorcycle enthusiasts in other cities began to form motorcycle clubs. In the 1980s and early 1990s, lesbian leatherwomen were often involved in helping to care for gay leathermen who had been stricken with AIDS.
In 1984 the Folsom Street Fair began in San Francisco; it is the world's largest leather event and showcase for BDSM products and culture.
In 2008 and 2012, Folsom Street Events received the Large Nonprofit Organization of the Year award as part of the Pantheon of Leather Awards, although in 2012 it tied with Cleveland Leather Annual Weekend. In 2013, the San Francisco Leathermen's Discussion Group received the Small Nonprofit Organization of the Year award as part of the Pantheon of Leather Awards. Then in 2015 Folsom Street Events received the Nonprofit Organization of the Year award as part of the Pantheon of Leather Awards.🖉
The San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley consists of four works of art along Ringold Alley honoring leather culture; it opened in 2017. The four works of art are: A black granite stone etched with a narrative by Gayle Rubin, an image of the "Leather David" statue by Mike Caffee, and a reproduction of Chuck Arnett's 1962 mural from the Tool Box, a gay leather bar, engraved standing stones that honor community leather institutions including the Folsom Street Fair, leather pride flag pavement markings through which the stones emerge, and metal bootprints along the curb which honor 28 people who were an important part of the leather communities of San Francisco.
Beginnings of the Folsom Street Fair
The community had been active in resisting the city's ambitious redevelopment program for the South of Market area throughout the 1970s. City officials had wanted to "revitalize" the historically blue-collar, warehouse, industrial district by continuing successful high-rise development already underway on Rincon Hill.
But as the AIDS epidemic unfolded in the 1980s, the community's relative autonomy from City Hall was dramatically weakened. The crisis became an opportunity for the city (in the name of public health) to close bathhouses and regulate bars, which they did beginning in 1984.Rubin, Gayle. "The Miracle Mile: South of Market and Gay Male Leather, 1962-1997" in Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture (City Light Books, 1998).