As much as I would love to, I couldn't afford to leisurely fly off to Madrid for a sexy bear gathering.Ī friend “who knew a guy” got me into Magnitude, the Folsom Street Fair's official dance party, last September sparing me the $125 ticket. But I was significantly younger than they were (they were all middle-aged, more or less). We flocked to the “big three”-New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles - for fun times. We were all urban, white, and sexually adventurous. Talking to them, I noticed our similarities. I met all of them at places like this-on a sweaty dance floor during Atlanta Pride, or on one of my trips to the Folsom Street Fair.
His words stuck, and spurred me to have some frank conversations with friends who routinely travel to party weekends like Up Your Alley in San Francisco, the White Party in Miami, and so on. As a lifestyle, its costs are more than monetary. In his living room in North Hollywood, he later told me, “I don’t think you realize how expensive it they really are. But one friend read it as something darker. Till then, I can hardly afford Target.” It was intended, of course, as a cheeky complaint over how expensive gay circuit parties are. A couple weeks ago I posted a Facebook status: “One day I’ll be a good gay man and be able to afford Masterbeat, Hustlaball, Southern Decadence, The Black Party, and all the Folsom parties.
