California State Senator Scott Wiener was one of the many thousands who attended and enjoyed the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco last weekend. He defended his attendance after some people online took offense over a shirtless photo he posted.
Wiener, 52, is one of the state’s most high-profile gay lawmakers. A Democrat, he was elected to office in November 2016. His district covers the whole of San Francisco, along with Broadmoor, Colma, and Daly City.
Folsom Street Fair is famed the world over as a sex-positive, primarily queer celebration of fetish and kink. Public nudity is allowed in the area for the duration of the festival.
In Wiener’s photo, he stands shirtless alongside a group of other guys wearing leather harnesses. He captioned the image, “Happy Folsom Street Fair!”
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Happy Folsom Street Fair! pic.twitter.com/mhk7jzJDCK
— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) September 25, 2022
Related: Scott Wiener is following in Harvey Milk’s footsteps
Mixed martial artist Jake Shields was among those to criticize the senator.
“The same politician who kept your kid out of school for two years because covid is attending gay orgies during monkeypox,” Shields tweeted. “Feel free to Google Folsom street fair and see the wonderful delights he’s enjoying.”
the same politician who kept your kid out of school for two years because covid is attending gay orgies during monkeypox
Feel free to Google Folsom street fair and see the wonderful delights he’s enjoying https://t.co/T2oNuABVcV
— Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) September 26, 2022
Shields did not stop there.
Why did you close my gym down during covid but allow gay orgies during monkeypox?
— Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) September 26, 2022
Many others piled in.
Yea please try to pass more laws on how I should parent my kids. You seem pretty qualified.
— Ronald H. Mexico (we/dem/boyz) (@RonnieMexico902) September 26, 2022
Bondage outfits are NOT family friendly. Keep that shit private!
— Pamelada (@PamelaViray2) September 27, 2022
Wiener praised for Folsom photo
However, many others praised Wiener for the photo and his visible support for the festival. Others simply wanted to know why he also wasn’t wearing a harness.
Where’s your harness senator?
— burlington throat factory (@fitnessgayz) September 26, 2022
He’s avoiding the inevitable tan line.
— Kmaxtastic (@kmaxtastic) September 25, 2022
Wiener responded to some of the criticism over the photo and his attendance at the event. He says he’s got used to abuse over the years but feels some have become more emboldened in their homophobia in recent times.
“They’re attacking a gay man for being a gay man who is participating in a heavily LGBTQ+ event,” he told the Advocate.
“We’ve had a lot of progress the last few decades, but we need to be clear that there’s still a massive undercurrent of homophobia and transphobia in this country.
“They want us to disappear. They hate us. They’re trying to bring this country back to the 1950s. They’re doing it around women and abortion, around race, and for queer people.”
The criticism clearly won’t stop Wiener from attending more queer, sex-positive events in the future.
“I’m a gay man. I’m a single gay man. I enjoy life, and sexuality is part of human existence. If they have a problem, that’s their issue, not mine, and they need to get a life.”
Neoprene
Actually, there isn’t enough public sex at Folsom or Dore Alley.
NateOcean
hear, hear!
LumpyPillows
With all the stuff people post online, the only reason to hate this is because you are homophobic.
Vince
These are the same shitheads that were cheering the January 6 riots. They’ll come out for any excuse to hate.
ZzBomb
MMA fighters are some of the whiniest betches ever. “You shut my gym down over covid blah blah blah.”
Yeah idiot b/c at the time we didn’t have a vaccine for it, there’s already a vaccine for monkey pox.
Den
I think the germ theory of disease and the value of vaccination is too difficult for a huge percentage of right wingers to understand. Plus to them a serial adulterer (also accused of sexual assault on multiple women, and sexualizing his own daughter when she was barely out of puberty), is a fine man chosen by the Christian Gods to be a dictator.
These are not folks who either think much or understand much.
LumpyPillows
Yes, and monkey pox is not overloading emergency rooms with dying people.
Den
It is hilarious to me that a man who makes his money doing brain damage and bruising the internal organs of another feels he has some moral high ground from which to criticize another simply pursuing comradery and pleasure.
James
Jake Shields a used up moron who goes around punching people in the face. Yeah, he is some example of NOTHING.
Bosch
I find it very unlikely that Shields STILL hasn’t heard about these things we call vaccines.
DarkZephyr
He has, in fact under this tweet, he’s claimed that, and I quote: “The covid vaccine is zero Percent effect and Just a cash grab.”
Twitter would likely regard that as COVID-19 misinformation and his initial tweet about the Senator as targeted harassment based on sexual orientation. Tempted to report those tweets.
kevin57
Yet they c*m when they see a shirtless Putin.
bachy
I dunno, I suspect people would be complaining if Wiener were straight and posed on Instagram with a gaggle of half-clad female pole dancers and the caption, “Happy Stripper Voter Day!”
But our leaders no longer represent only “Families.” They also represent “Adult Singles.”
In 1970, 28 percent of adult Americans were single. By 2021, the percentage inched ever closer to half, at 48.2 percent. Representation now has to speak to the lifestyles of adults unencumbered by the demands of child-rearing. And voting parents may not want to be reminded of all the fun they’re missing.
DarkZephyr
Perhaps, but this article is specifically about Shields who has admitted that he’s just doing this for revenge for his gym being closed during COVID in the following subsequent tweet:
“The covid vaccine is zero Percent effect and Just a cash grab. I don’t care if he has a gay orgy but also wish he didn’t force close my gym and the rest of SF for over a yeay” -Jake Shields
@jakeshieldsajj Sep 25
The fact that he keeps saying “gay orgy” is telling. I highly doubt that anyone angry over a straight Senator hanging out with strippers would make tweets decrying “straight stripping”.
bachy
A Soccer Mom might.
Karlis
I just love how Republithugs are trying to pretend that there is even the slightest modicum of equivalency between Covid-19 and monkey pox. This just goes to show that they haven’t had an original policy idea since about 1896. All they’ve got is the Big Lie, their idiotic culture wars, and their endless, endless, endless, endless mendaciousness on Faux Noise and its wannabes. I sure cannot imagine that a plurality of Americans will be found on November 8 to give this mob a majority in either house of Congress. Blue tsunami all the way!
johncp56
Yes please, ill take him and the tall guy to his left,