As Folsom Street Fair (Sat/24) looms over us like a leather daddy with an itchy whip paw, the city readies itself for the roughest, naughiest, sweatiest weekend of the year. Yesterday, I ran all over the city checking in with the sex scene. I kept my clothes mostly on, but then it is only Thursday…
Monarchy-Andrew Wedge fitting at Mr. S Leather
“This is Spartaaa!” I’m standing outside one of SoMa’s crucial leather one-stops with an old hand local kink photographer Rich Trove (check his site after the Fair for shots of your flings in the sunshine) and a fashion journalist from the Chronicle. Guess which one is trying to explain to the other what a traditional S&M harness looks like?
Our motley crew has been assembled by Folsom Street Fair’s executive director Demetri Moshoyannis to lurk around Mr. S‘s fitting room while British synthpoppers Monarchy was being fitted for their custommade Andrew Wedge harnesses. The band will be wearing them at their FSF performance on Sunday at 5:10 p.m. on the 12th Street stage.
“We have no idea what we’re in for,” smiled a member of the band’s entourage. Of course, that wasn’t exactly true — keyboardist Andrew Armstrong attended the fair with a friend six years ago.
“It kind of freaked me out in a good way,” said Armstrong, modeling the tight neoprene half-tank that Wedge (who vends high end fur and leather designs from places like the Castro’s Sui Generis) had fit over he and his bandmate’s white dress shirts and under the sharp black blazers they were sporting.
“There’s something a bit religious about it,” he said of Wedge’s designs, which had been agreed upon after a series of emails between the two of them. “It’s futuristic, but masculine as well. Even though we’re basically wearing bra tops.”
“England is very prudish. Well, we take these things seriously, but we do it behind closed doors,” he continued. Again, I found it hard to take him at his word, seeing as the band supplied its own imposing, matching black latex masks for the occasion. They don’t go out in public without them, it turns out, a comment on the nature of celebrity.
The crew and designer lined up for one last photo opportunity in front of Mr. S’s black leather and harness covered four post king-sized bed. “Not in front of the dildos!” cautioned Moshoyannis. “We want these to be pictures they can use.” Clearly he meant in the Chronicle.
Side note: if you’re still checking for some sexy threads for this weekend, you could do worse than check out Mr. S’s new sports section. Complete with urinals on the walls and an impressive selection of wrestling singlets, I found myself especially turned on by the display of $12 Style Pig knee socks. I picked some up in red, or as the helpful sales assistant clarified, fisting.
Good Vibrations’ Indie Erotic Film Festival at the Castro Theatre
Best reason to finally buy an iPhone: the Ohmibod Freestyle G. I snagged the mp3 compatible vibrator (really, really feel the rhythmn on your favorite beats) at the IXFF’s pre-party upstairs at the Castro, where Jiz Lee, Carol Queen, Kitty Stryker, and other SF local lustfuls drank cocktails of St. George absinthe and rootbeer, slapped on costume mustaches and generally enjoyed the burlesque stylings of Twilight Vixen Revue.
When the short erotic film competition began, it got surprisingly jocky. Lucia Aniello’s Dildo Sport, Kelly Robinson and Oscar Salisbury’s Fight, Flight, Or Fuck, and Rollo Wenlock’s computer-aged 30 Love all featured tennis, so I guess the New York Times article was onto something with that balls metaphor.
“30 love” – short film. from Rollo Wenlock on Vimeo.
Not everything was heavy breathing-appropriate, either. SF’s own Levni Yilmaz entered one of his backlit Magic Marker-ed creations from his series “Tales of Mere Existence,” What Would Penis Do?, a look at his awkward childhood forays into sexual activity. There was the quirky bunnies and peanuts and women’s rooms in Always, Only, Ever — an entry from Barbara Benas of Brooklyn — not to mention an I-guess-hot tryst between a female American soldier and burkha-clad woman in a designer cave, Julien Rotterman’s Salam and Love.
But some of it was. Erika Lust — who earlier this week had an IXFF evening dedicated to her erotic, high glamour European flicks — shared Love Hotel, a threesome flick that made a trip to Barcelona seem highly advisable. Sadly, as the evening’s hosts (Peaches Christ, Hugs Bunny, Lady Bear, and Dr. Carol Queen — when Carol Queen plays the evening’s straightman you know you’re in for it) pointed out, Lust edited out all signs of genitals. Sigh.
The evening’s winner, as determined by an overwhelming audience response at the end of the night, was La Putiza. Created by Mexican director Gerardo Delgado, the short flick combined erotic comic art, overblown superhero crusading, and joyful, copious amounts of gay sex. Sure, the aesthetic was refined and the lead actor was fuckable, but one suspects that the secret to Delgado’s success, entering into this most phallic of all SF weekends, went back to Peaches Christ’s gleeful promise at the start of the night’s program: 30-foot penises. For Good Vibes’ interview with the filmmaker, voyage here.
Thanks Castro Theatre, hope we didn’t make too much of a mess.