A BeautiFolsom Sunday Afternoon

We attended the eleventh annual Folsom Street East Fair on 28th St. in New York City yesterday afternoon. An efficient breeze mitigated what I recall most vividly from previous editions of this event: profuse sweat mixed with sunblock, jostled beer, cigar smoke, leather and metal gear and skin stretched over every imaginable human shape. Ten thousand attended. (Some of the following images will be magnified via your click)





To be sure, this is an event of high silliness focused incongruously on the celebration in full sunlight of a variety of fetishes commonly practiced in darkened rooms by the unsmiling inflictors or receptors of pain, domination or degradation. Yet, there’s much fun to be had here, especially among folks like us who are not into this vein but can appreciate a good show of kink and a chance to toss back a few with our buddies, and rub shirtless shoulders with some of New York’s hottest and friendliest regulars.

Also, I suspect that everyone in attendance, including men like us who are just “tourists” of this underworld, end the day reminded that your mailman, your minister, your plumber, grandmother, butcher or baker, and yourselves, all harbor some version of a lace-trimmed black leather jockstrap under our public personae, and that this reality ought to be classified as whimsical rather than worrisome.

Among the bloggers in attendance were Joe, Mark, Aaron, David, Tom, Glenn, Chris, bj, Vasco, Rey, Scott, Paul, Foxy and Robocub. (Sure I forgot some.)

The words most often said and most often overheard were “See that guy in the cap? I did him. Years ago.” Yes, indeed, the degrees of sexual separation in this huge crowd could easily be counted on less than the greasy fingers of one hand.

Here are Superdaddy Mark and Joe:


Here are C, Vasco and Joe:


And again:


Tommy, as always, looks top-ten hot in his leather, but “raunch” is out of his reach. No matter what he wears or in what shadowy circumstances we encounter him, he looks as if he is the committee chair for a garden party fund-raiser at the Met (C is in his favorite battered jeans and vintage Montreal T from a shop called Parachute):


Admit it. You visit his blog, and not because you like Bjork (He and the BF, who prefers to be unpixelated, were celebrating their second anniversary):


Here’s an uncomfortable looking ensemble that could cause tetanus or at least a rash:


The good ladies of the Hepatitis screening booth seemed nonplused by his “prime ass”, but you can hear the chair screaming:


Now that I know what “yellow” is code for, I did not introduce myself to these two buxom Bobsie twins:


I had thought to write something about the rampant obesity I saw, but instead, I’ll just wonder why the mothers of these ladies forgot to teach them about the perils of horizontal stripes:


If, upon waking, a man discovers the arrival of a zit on his butt, should he not choose a different outfit rather than apply a trimmed bandaid in an effort to conceal that to which the eye goes instantly?


Some butterflies need to be returned to their cocoons for reformation. I don’t care to know what a pink paisley kerchief in the right pocket signifies:


The sensible summer hair. The park-swing earrings. The sheer and retro-pale lipstick. The edgy black cocktail dress. The clever handbag. The clear lucite pumps. Here's a glamour girl who could turn the head of a soldier in full sun:


Or, enjoy the cool of a breezily bespoke chain mail shrug and miniskirt:



Finally, this astonishingly serene man: