On Queer Street

On Saturday I spent much of my time hanging around Castro, San Francisco's gay street. The area gets slated for being consumerist, reinforcing stereotypes and all the usual blah, blah, blah, but I love being contained in a little plastic gay world. And while there isn't strictly a need for shops like Something Rainbow with their assortment of cheap novelties and tat, I would counter that there very much IS a need for the great selection of gay bars, restaurants, sex stores and bookshops that also make up the area. Why shouldn't people have an space where they can relax, be among like-minded people and escape the blandness of the straight world for a while?



I had a pleasant lunch and a few glasses of chilled Pinot at a delightful cafe as I watched the fags coming and going, then I spent ages in A Different Light, looking at books and picking up amusing birthday cards. I bought a book called Nobody Passes, a compilation of work that challenges the rules of gender and conformity, edited by a very interesting guy called Mattilda / Matt Bernstein Sycamore, who identifies as female while making absolutely no attempt to look like a woman. Should make my train journeys to work more interesting for a while as I peruse it's pages.

Also, that afternoon, I paid a trip to Good Vibrations, an enormous sex shop on Valencia Street. After examining the wares I came away with, amongst other things, an extremely satisfying Turbo Glider vibe. I have no complaints regarding it's performance, but the question I raise is this - if they can make a mobile phone with a silent vibrate function, why do sex toys have to make more noise than a jumbo jet?! This gross oversight in production results in items that are really quite unsuitable for those who live in multiple-unit accommodation. It's most distressing.

So that's about the end of my San Franciscan diaries, the other main highlights were the aquarium, the art gallery and the zoo. I've done zoos before so I'm not going to go on about it, but here's some pics of the hippo.