Live Shots: Folsom Street Fair 2025 was big, slutty, and beautiful

This year’s Folsom Street Fair—the 42nd installment of the world’s biggest kink and fetish celebration—expanded to include several more blocks of demos, vendors, entertainment, and exhibitionism. The result was a more relaxed vibe than the cattle-herded feeling that’s affected the fair as its become more popular. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that if it’s your thing!)

While all the naughtiness was still intact, and perhaps even ratcheted up a few notches in response to the backwards, censorious times we’re living in right now, there was also a chill vibe in the air, letting people peruse the booths more casually and dive into deep conversations or intricate “scenes.” Sometimes both! 48 Hills photographer Jon Bauer snapped the festivities and our online reporter Andrew Brobst talked to some folks and explained the fair’s anti-gentrification roots.—Marke B.