|
|
| Subject: Trip Report - 6 months in San Francisco Date: 30 Sep 2002 03:53:41 +0100 (BST) From: Douglas Reay <douglasr@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Organization: Linux Unlimited Newsgroups: soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm Letter from America This letter is my way of saying thank you. Most of the people I want to thank won't get to read this, but perhaps that doesn't matter. I have just spent 6 months in San Francisco. Tomorrow I fly back to rainy old England. It has been one of the happiest times of my life, and the reason is the spirit of the people I have met. I want to say thank you to the people I met at munches, the people I met at play parties like those at Castlebar** and The Scenery. The people I met at odd events like classes and Science Fiction conventions, and the people who took me into their lives and went out of their way to help me and introduce me around. Most especially I want to thank all those who risked trusting a stranger from England and played with me, making my visit such a delight. I will treasure the memories forever. So let me try thanking you all by telling you what I think I found in the Bay Area. It was all the things I had expected: relaxed and geeky and arty and tolerant and weird and diverse and large. And it was more. It goes beyond tolerance. I've been to Amsterdam, and they pride themselves on their tolerance, but they have not integrated their BDSM culture into the mainstream in the same way as San Francisco has. Early in my stay I bought a couple of canes from the shop Mr. S. They were too long to fit in my backpack, so I stood
there by the checkout and waited. The assistant looked a little puzzled then
asked did I want them wrapped? Of course I did, wasn't I about to walk out into the vanilla world? I said yes please,
and he put a small paper bag around the center of the canes and taped them
together, still leaving it utterly obvious what they were. ** Castlebar has closed. |
