San Francisco is famously libertine in its attitudes toward alternative communities of all stripes, and this weekend the leather and fetish communities will be out in full force for the Up Your Alley Fair on Sunday, July 25.

Up Your Alley Fair is the younger, naughtier sister to the major Folsom Street Fair that occurs the last weekend of September, a sweaty little amuse bouche, if you will. This is not your mother’s street fair. (Actually, we don’t know your mother; we wouldn’t want to crimp her style.) Packed into roughly a one-block radius around the intersection of Folsom Street and Dore Alley will be dozens of booths from purveyors of the prurient: Leather gear, fetish toys, naughty websites, sex clubs and, um, a food court. But the booths are not the main attraction. Folks congregate to celebrate the fetish lifestyle in a safe and inclusive environment. There’ll be nudity, more than you can shake a stick at, but also plenty of leathermen, furverts and a little drag sprinkled in for color. Oh, and did we mention lewd acts? Yes, there will be lewd acts. Everywhere. Things that may shock, amuse or titillate you. In other words, don’t bring the kids.

Looking for a spot to shake your butt-naked booty? There’ll be a dance area during the fair at Folsom and Tenth Streets, and parties pepper the entire weekend. Fetish dance event Full Throttle takes over the End Up Friday night starting at 8 pm — please note, jock and fetish wear are mandatory until 2 am. Saturday night official dance event Bay of Pigs promises sexy dancers, demos and play spaces (we’re not talking about Scrabble here). And if you can still hold yourself upright, Sunday evening’s PLAY T-dance closes out the roster of events.

Of course all this unbridled debauchery manages to attract a fair number of lookie-loos, but Up Your Alley is intended to be a safe space for fetish devotees. If you’re not a participant or at least supporter of the community, perhaps you should spend your Sunday enjoying some other attractions such as cheering on runners at the San Francisco Marathon, getting your groove on at the All Shook Down Music Festival in North Beach or stuffing your pie hole at the SF Food Wars Pie or Die eatfest (if you can get someone to scalp their ticket to you).

[Photo by Mister Jackhonky]

Tags: dance, dore alley, fetish, folsom street, leather, parties, street fairs