Mistress Breeze, after lashing a man’s back a three-foot long whip, stopped to touch her slave with a slow graze. After a short break, her hand would rise again to begin whipping her client harder and harder.

Mistress Breeze is a full-time massage therapist and part-time dominatrix.

“I have young men who come to me who want a certain pain,” said Mistress Breeze. “I love the world of BDSM [Bondage Discipline Submission/Sadism Masochism].”

Thousands came out this weekend for the whips, paddles, chains and slaves of the Folsom Street Fair, the world’s largest leather event. The event is held every year on Folsom Street in San Francisco’s SoMa district.

Click the link on the right to launch the multimedia...

“I ask each person what their level of experience or pain threshold is because I can become quite intense,” said Mistress Breeze.

The sounds of constant spanking and swatting accompanied the various vendors and exhibits. Booths that lined the perimeters offered a plethora of fetishes, including getting your boots spit-shined by a leather daddy, blindfolded spanking, whipping, or flogging by a Fantasy Maker of your choice.

Fetishes are not always about pain. Material and costume fetishes were largely represented at the Fair.

Jess Donald, 23, came with her daddy and master. She met her daddy two years ago while playing the role of submissive at the Fair. Donald identifies as a queer, having sex with males, females and people of transgender nature.

“I’m a rubber fetishist and I love vinyl,” Donald said. “A rubber fetishist means you can get off just smelling rubber. I can orgasm from being paddled or from pain.”

Cheri Cloninger is a piercing professional. Artist and owner of Piercing Beauty, The Art of Play Piercing Adornments, Cloninger enjoys inflicting pain upon people who want it.
“I am a switch. A switch is when you like being submissive sometimes and I like being dominant sometimes,” Cloninger said. “You don’t have to necessarily be one or the other, like you don’t have to be gay or straight, you can be bi, you don’t have to be a dominant or a submissive, you can be a switch. I enjoy both aspects of it.

Couples with a casually dressed dominant, guiding or walking a gagged, leashed submissive dressed in an animal costume, is defined as animal-play, furries or pony-play.

Nicole, 35, directed and gave orders as she walked her female submissive through the fair.

“This is pony play, where she’s the pony and I’m her trainer,” Nicole said. "In terms of animal play, I am her trainer, so she depends on me to take her around. This is sort of a show day where I’m taking her around to show her off.”

According to the Web site, the Folsom Street Fair "promotes diversity within the leather/alternative lifestyle" It goes on to state organizations that supported the event: the AIDS Emergency Fund, Berkeley Free Clinic, Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS), The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus.