San Francisco’s annual Folsom Street Fair is famous (or infamous?) among queer folks. It’s a celebration of all things kink, leather, and alternative — so naturally, the squeamish are encouraged to avert their eyes. But one first-time attendee’s take on the event caught the internet’s attention for all the wrong reasons.

The attendee in question is @dogmadeath, whose bio on X lists that it uses it/its pronouns. @dogmadeath went to the festival and wasn’t a fan — fair enough — but its reasoning wandered a touch too close to anti-gay rhetoric for comfort.

“At a BDSM street fair and I may be realizing that I find sex incredibly gross actually,” began its now viral thread on X. 

Later in its critique of the fair, @dogmadeath thought perhaps its problem was just with the type of person the fair attracted.

“Me finding gay men repulsive and not my type?? that’s my opinion??” it wrote. “They’re not really my sexuality; they weren’t really all that sexy the way they were just hanging around?? and the performances felt forced.”

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@dogmadeath’s thread quickly picked up negative attention across social media. Not being attracted to gay men is one thing. But calling them “repulsive” verges on homophobia, and the internet wasn’t having it.

Others couldn’t get over the fact that @dogmadeath apparently didn’t expect to see naked gay men at a kink pride event. The Folsom Street Fair definitely isn’t for everybody — but that doesn’t mean shouting your disgust from the rooftops is the right move either, especially when it stigmatizes an entire subset of the queer community.

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