#San Francisco gay community

[100gayicons]

In September 1975, Sara Jane Moore attempted to assasination President Gerald Ford while he made a public appearance in in San Francisco. Oliver Sipple (Bill to his friends) was a member of the crowd and he saw Moore pull out a gun. Instinctively he grabbed her arm as she pulled the trigger on her gun. The bullet hit the pavement instead of the president.

Originally from Detroit, Sipple was an ex-marine who served 2 tours in Vietnam. After he was discharged, he returned to home. Sipple was Gay and felt he needed to hid his orientation in Detroit, so he moved to New York City. There he met Harvey Milk who would later become a symbol for Gay Rights.

By 1975, Sipple had migrated to San Francisco where he became active in the Gay Community, including campaigning for Harvey Milk. Although Sipple was Out in San Francisco, back home his family did not know he was Gay.

When Harvey Milk realized Sipple had saved the President, he thought this was an opportunity to champion Gay Rights. He felt Sipple’s orientation should be publicized. According to Wikipedia, Milk wanted to portray Sipple as a "gay hero" to help "break the stereotype of homosexuals [as] timid, weak and unheroic figures.”

Without consulting Sipple, Milk leaked the information to The Chronicle, a local newspaper. Soon, a columnist outed Sipple and his connection to Milk. It became national news.

Soon Sipple was inundated by reporters wanting to interviews him. His parents in Detroit were also besieged and locals hounded and teased them about their gay son.

Oliver became convinced he was outed due to anti-gay sentiment by the newspaper. He sued for invasion of privacy. The case dragging on for 5 years. He ultimately lost but the stress of his experience resulted in him drinking more heavily. He developed mental health issues, gained weight and needed a pacemaker. Sadly, Sipple died alone in his apartment at the age of 48, fifteen years after the incident.

[oldguardleatherdog]

I would like to know more about pup history!

Well, hello, and thanks for asking! Sorry it took a while to respond.

Pup Play as we know it today got its start in 1986 at the International Mr. Leather gathering in Chicago when the partner of a leather artist at the Vendor Market, who showed up in a full-body leather pup suit and a mask crafted by a saddlemaker, started bouncing around the place barking and howling and humping the leather guys as they browsed the whips and chains on display-

-as a protest against the hardcore stoic impenetrable macho attitude that was prevalent among leathermen in those days - the standing joke was that "S&M" stood for "Stand & Model" - breaking through their poser facade, forcing them to interact and engage in a way that was just too cute and endearing to ignore or resist.

Pup Play began as an act of protest at the biggest leather gathering of the year against a cultural and institutional barrier to communication and connection. One guy - one dog - broke through that barrier, and nearly four decades later there are thousands of people around the world who pull on a pup hood and hit the ground or the mats or the dance floor barking up a storm, expressing ourselves in ways that are free and full, in a spirit of joy that at its best can transcend roleplay and allow us to experience, however briefly, "the time when the divorce between human and animal was not yet complete." (Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Princeton University Press, 1972)

That guy, "Ranger", who's a good friend and a real sweetheart, is still active in the scene here in San Francisco and is our "First Pup", the original (and best!). A year later, almost to the day, I came out as a gay man - and when I came out, I came out barking. The man who put me on all fours for the first time was the man who brought me out, my first and only Leather Daddy who set me on this wild path that became a life's work.

I'm Pup Number Two, 37 years on all fours. I taught the first Pup Play workshop on record (San Francisco, August 1997), where I presented the first Trainer/Handler curriculum to a leather audience for use and adaptation, conducted numerous clinics, demos, and performances for groups and clubs across the United States, and showed hundreds of kinksters of all ages and genders how they could find, embrace, and express their "inner canine." Over the past year, I've been giving my presentation/lecture on Pup History online and IRL for pup-and-handler groups; it's been well received and is being expanded with new research from the field for 2025.

For several years Ranger and I were the only ones doing this radical fringe weird thing that was viewed as disgusting and sick and immoral by the leather and kink community, vilified so strongly that for the first decade those of us who practiced this kink did so mostly underground, communicating through word-of-mouth and personal ads in magazines, because if it got around that we liked to bark in the sack we'd have been thrown out of the community as sickos who were barely a step above actual bestialists (a slur that has never been true of our practice or those who practice it).

In the US and Canada from 1986 to 1997, there were only about a dozen known pup players - researchers including myself are actively searching for others from that long-ago time if they even existed - and we had to fight like hell for years to be open about the kink that we loved and to be able to express ourselves openly in this way. That's surprising to many given the popularity of Pup Play today, but it took a lot of hardcore commitment in the face of opposition to get us out from the shadows and into the light of day.

I hope this is a good introduction to our history and that I've expressed it well enough to satisfy your initial curiosity! There's much more, of course, so if there are any particular areas you're curious about, let me know, awoo!

Thank you for asking. "Beast wishes" to you for a happy and humpy New Year!

Woofs + wags, Alpha Pup Bruzr

[friday411]

🎂 Happy B-Day Gavin Newsom!! 🎂

Our ally said 20 years ago "In the city of San Francisco All lovers can marry Each Queer, Gay and Fairy" 4,000+ couples then did so!

-=<+>=-

Read them all at Archive of Our Own (AO3)

Thanks for reading, reblogging & leaving some love!!

Tags also in the comments - LMK if you want on or off this list!

@stellacartography @totallysilvergirl @calaisreno @keirgreeneyes @peanitbear

[amordelaluna]

Went to SF pride '24

[victusinveritas]

Remembering Harvey Milk

Aassasinated November 27, 1978

Icon by Robert Lentz.

Just saying the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence should parade this in the most glitzy revetment ever.

[tanoraqui]

might as well fling this question to the tumblr void:

I'm trying to reach out to the general queer community of the San Francisco East Bay to invite people to sing in and/or attend concerts of an LGBTQ Pride-themed non-auditioned choir this July. Does anyone know, like, popular community centers or organizations I should connect with, publications (newsletters, magazines, etc) I should try to advertise in, etc?

(Cisheteronormative people are also, like, allowed to sing and attend, but I'm already familiar with that advertising.)

[thxnks4themrms]

did i ever tell you i was raised knowing abt gays/lesbians and it wasn't treated as such a bad thing so like. as a kid i would legitimately think two characters were canonically dating such as draculaura and clawdeen i thought of clawd as the fucking weird third wheel always bWAHAHAH

Woah I wish it was like for me growing up that seems so cool

[pia-fantastic]

Big announcement- I'm making a gay vampire Comic!

A Vampire Love Story follows the strange romance between Vilda- a vampire from Fresno, who's barely keeping her shit together- and Isabella- a troubled music school dropout from Duluth- as fate brings them together on the foggy streets of San Francisco.

What shenanigans and mysteries will they stumble into, as their love story troubles the balance of the paranormal world?

Follow here, Patreon, or A Vampire Love Story's Official twitter for updates about when and where to read the upcoming first chapter!

[theflyingfeeling]

I feel like Olli is glancing at Aleksi in every picture I’ve seen of the acoustic set 🤧

That's because he is!! 🥺 He literally can't help himself 😭

Alsooooo did you see Aleksi's story on the rooftop with Niko next to him on the couch? Can we please pretend Olli is there too, curled up on Aleksi's other side 🤧 I mean, you can't prove he isn’t!! 😌

[justdavina]

Happy Pride Month 2024.

#sanfranciscogaypride2024

[gaybaseball-fan]

“Don’t take your life cause your bicycle won’t fly. You may be going to heaven tonight”

[donotdestroy]

A History of the Castro Neighborhood in San Francisco | KQED

[dorindameddler]

128 boys is crazy. Louis was out there decimating the 1970s gay community of San Francisco.

[justdavina]

Amazing!!

[wisdomfish]

Let’s God to San Francisco

WALKING INTO SAN FRANCISCO

In 1989, I walked into the world famous Castro District of San Francisco as a disaffected young man of almost nineteen years of age. I had grown up bullied and lonely, and I was looking to finally belong. Almost since I was a child nearing adolescence, the other boys at school instinctively rejected me. While they made the decisive testosterone fueled jump to more masculine pursuits, such as aggressive schoolyard play and sports, I was timid and unsure. While their voices deepened and sounded increasingly confident, mine remained high-pitched but strangely muted. While they grew taller and filled-out, I just became thinner and ganglier.

The pre-macho boys were typically the best at playing kick-ball and inevitably turn out to be recess and PE team captains. Focusing on my embarrassing apparent lack of skill, they were always quick to ridicule and loudly point out my utter worthlessness. No one ever wanted me on their team. After even the smaller girls got picked, I was always the default last man standing.

There were a few other unathletic boys in my class, either overweight or exceedingly short, who also got similarly passed-over. But they could turn rejection into an advantage through comical self-deprecation or by poking fun at me or someone else. I couldn’t do that. I tended to take everything to heart. I froze at the merest slight. The often cruel unthinking banter of boys seemed deliberately vicious. Yet, the more they rejected and taunted me, the more I wanted to belong. My childhood fantasies began to center around a benevolent superhero who would adopt me as his sidekick. In the afternoon, I would rush home to see after-school reruns of “Batman” and imagine myself as Burt Ward. To this day, it’s highly significant that homoerotic fantasies about Batman and Robin are pervasive in gay male culture.

When I arrived in San Francisco, I was still tall, thin, and uncoordinated, but I quickly discovered that men wanted to be with me. Here, a boyish stick frame was a distinct advantage. That first night, as I crept into my first gay bar, I was the same insecure and desperately shy kid. I didn’t know what to do. My only experience with the world of male-on-male sexuality was through watching gay porn.

And, in those images, I was fascinated.

There was a fundamental order and a ritual to everything portrayed: old with young, big over small, the experienced and the naive. The mature and supremely masculine always ushered into manhood the fresh-faced and less physically impressive youthful rookies.

From porn, I sort of knew what to expect; I had seen such ominous similarly titled films like: Daddy Dearest, Hurts So Good, and Try to Take It. I imagined my transition to masculinity as an initiation rite. And at the near height of the AIDS crisis, like male youths in tribal cultures, who had to endure some sort of physical torment or trial in order to join the community of men, I was willing to suffer anything in the process; even to die.

As an inexperienced eighteen year old, I found the aspirations of gay men to be strikingly similar. For an encounter that did not at least include the possibility of anal intercourse seemed incidental and quick. Anal sex lent male homosexuality a certain amount of intimacy. The possibility of that fusion was unbelievably alluring. But I was petrified by the ever-present likelihood of AIDS, thus I refused to risk my life even though I knew I would remain incomplete until I found the courage to submit.

A frustrated boyfriend accepted a sort of second-best when I agreed to a form of frontage through which he would thrust his penis between my closed legs. It was an elaborate form of mutual masturbation.

Years later, I would tragically discover that the longed for insertive form of this action was similarly shallow.

CARRIED OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO

I had walked into San Francisco, but I had to be carried out. The man who picked me up that dark day was unlike anyone I had ever met. He took my lifeless body back home – to my parent’s house.

There, I woke up in my old bedroom, surrounded by a few incidental memories from childhood. The same bed I once delighted in my first wet dream, I now soiled with blood.

The following months were dominated by a series of appointments with various physicians, specialists, and surgeons. The embarrassment and pain that I long evaded was unavoidable. Before surgery, I was required to almost mockingly relive every cleansing routine I endlessly practiced.

During the procedure, a section of my rectum was removed due to the existence of severe internal scarring. Like an imprisoned victim of the Marques de Sade, my sphincter had been sewn shut with thick cording. The doctor and nurse gave me a long list of stool softeners and laxatives to take with copious quantities of water in order to make it possible that I could have a bowel movement through an inconceivably narrow orifice. The precautions didn’t work, and I busted the stitches.

To stop the bleeding, I stuck a hand towel down my shorts and went to the emergency room. With my back to the waiting room wall, amongst the coughing children and light-headed elderly patients, the blood began to seep through my pants.

For what seemed like hours, I laid on the hard hospital gurney. I rang for the nurse, but the place was a flurry of activity; next to me, separated by a thin privacy screen, were a pair of teenagers: one suffering from an overdose of prescription pills and the other with a severe pelvic infection due to an untreated STD. This was purgatory. I had to use the toilet, so I shuffled across the freshly waxed floors towards the restroom. On the way back to my bed, I left a trail of little red dots behind me. This wasn’t an intermediate state between heaven and earth – it was hell. I had died and been sent to suffer an eternity as a character in a perverse fairy-tale – the boy with a broken bottom. To the great consternation of the attending doctor and nurses, I checked myself out of the hospital and went home.

For the next few days, I ate nothing but a grainy powdered fiber substance mixed with water and prune juice. I stood in the shower and defecated on my feet. I couldn’t sit, nor strain. More than once, I didn’t quite make it to the bathroom from my bed.

Only a few feet from the toilet, I slipped and fell on the tile floor made slippery by the mess.

Slowly, my body healed. However, I kept soiling myself. Another surgery would follow; then another. Years later, I remain semi-incontinent.

Despite the inconvenience, occasional pain, and embarrassment, I consider myself blessed because I escaped homosexuality relatively unscathed when compared to many of my friends. Some of the scars will remain as long as I am alive, but I can live with them.

In a sense, they are a constant reminder of who I was and what God saved me from!

Others bear the marks on an indelible scale where the HIV virus hides in every part of their body. But as the years pass by, my health problems are compounded; I feel old.

The few friends that survived our previous existence are all similarly plagued. We accompany each other to doctor visits and continually send get well cards and have healing prayers said for one another. Our quest for love came to an end in unrealized dreams, damaged bodies, and the graves of the dead. In our overwhelming desire to understand the world and ourselves, we were willing to go against Nature and God Himself.

We disregarded the fundamentals of physiology and for that violation, we paid dearly on an unbelievably devastating collective and individual basis. In the process, we threw our bodies and the surrounding culture into chaos; in a feeble attempt to right ourselves, we demanded that society recognize our rebellion. But a law instituted by men hasn’t changed our physical structure.

[Sciambra, Joseph. josephsciambra.com]

[omgthatdress]

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence started when three friends banded together to dress as nuns and recite a loving and forgiving liturgy to drive homophobic evangelists off of Castro Street in San Francisco. It worked. The organization quickly expanded as an advocacy group for gay rights.

When asked why they are dressed as nuns, the answer was, "We do all that traditional nuns have done for centuries. Our look might be unique, but our ministry is common. We serve our community. We have raised lots of money for AIDS and other social causes. We visit the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and sometimes disrobe the clothed! We are 21st Century queer nuns."

The Sisters primarily made a name for themselves through their AIDS activism. In 1982, The Sisters published Play Fair! which was the first humorous and easy-to-understand sexual health and safety pamphlet specifically intended for gay men.

The Sisters also used their presence to shame homophobic public figures, performing "exorcisms" on Phyllis Schlaffey, Jerry Fallwell, and Pope John Paul II, as well as on the steps of the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 2023, The Los Angeles Dodgers caused a huge controversy by selecting the Sisters to receive a "community hero award" on their Pride Night game (again, the Sisters are a legendary charity group that has literally saved lives), but then they gave in to right-wing pressure and cancelled it. Eventually, they realized how badly they had fucked up and re-invited the Sisters to their game.

The sisters remain active today with many chapters across the U.S. and Canada. Membership is open to all genders and sexualities.