Most Of Them Are Dead Now

[TetRefine]

I was browsing YouTube the other day and came across some amazing footage of the 1982 Castro Street Fair. It's almost an hour of footage, just showing the beauty, freedom, and sex of urban gay life at the time. For some reason I was just enthralled watching this little video time capsule.

But...the year was 1982, HIV was just beginning to be identified, but people didn't really understand what it was. The highly sexual atmosphere of San Francisco at the time was the perfect breeding ground for the virus to sow death onto so many. The Castro Street Fair (now known as the Folsom Street Fair) is a very sexual event, and you'll see people having sex all over the place. I can't imagine it was anything different back then, and was probably a huge spreading event that led to countless sickness and death. I'm guessing that most of the men in this video, especially the younger ones, never made it out of the '80s. Their very liberation was their ultimate undoing and I can only imagine how that must have felt when they realized it.

I'll be making the pilgrimage to San Francisco this coming year for the event (virus permitting...how ironic). The weekend still retains its sexually liberated atmosphere (just go Google some videos), but the threat that wiped out so many in this video decades ago is now greatly diminished. Thousands of men in 2021 will do what thousands of men did in 1982 on that street, but it won't bring about the mass death it did in this bygone era. I feel like keeping the festival's original atmosphere is a way to keep alive the memories of those who didn't make it out of that awful period. But now, with all the advances, we can do it at much less of a price. That feels like progress to me.

 

 

[Bill W]

Even without the date at the beginning, it was easy to tell this was the late 70s or early 80s just from the number of men wearing short-shorts.  I was so disappointed when those went out of style.  

They were definitely years ahead of the rest of the country with being out and open as gays, and there are parts of the country when they are still years ahead of the population.  Unfortunately, when AIDS came along they paid the price before they understood the disease and how to protect themselves.  Very sad indeed.