In the beginning, God created Vegas.

And Vegas was hot and void of morals; and darkness was upon the face of the stripper.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the lights of the desert. And God said, Let there be a new sinful city: and there became the city by the bay.

And God saw the city, that it was good and cold: and God divided the Sunset from the strip.
And God called the city San Francisco.

We live in one of the great liberal meccas of America—a city where bondage whips are sold next to the fancy restaurant on the corner, where nibbling on a penis cookie is a grand tradition, and where watching homeless men throw sandwiches at tourists is the punctuation to a night on the town.

If you have a moral issue with naked breasts, blood, gay people, alternative sex, cake and fatty foods, STDs, beating people up for money, gambling, cosmetic surgery, drinking, making fun of people, or body hair, you probably shouldn’t turn the page. We hunted down stories that represent the seven deadliest sins in San Francisco, and we found them.

Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Pride, Greed, Wrath, and Envy shape the psyche of America. We are obsessed with sex but teach our children “abstinence only.” We are morbidly obese but torment ourselves by spending thousands of dollars on fad diets. We are so lazy that we order our groceries on the internet, so full of ourselves that we call putting an American flag sticker on our bumpers an act of patriotism, and so greedy that we exploit children in third-world countries by forcing them to sew our Prada clothing for three cents a day. So angry is the average American that we protest and start wars at the drop of a building, and so envious are we that we worship the shameless, anorexic mannequins in the media and berate ourselves because we can’t live solely on Iceberg lettuce and cocaine.

This issue isn’t all about the negative—we also found the counterparts to our “sinners,” the manifestations of the seven heavenly virtues. We tell their tales under the sin they defy; the story of a woman riddled with disease, working two jobs to pay for her medications, is found under Sloth. Another woman obsessed with her health tells her tale under Gluttony. Lovers that are so secure together that they can share each other with strangers show themselves in the Envy section.

We can’t tell you how to interpret these stories or how to define sin. That’s up to you. What we can give you is the history of these seven supposed evils and how they define us, how they drive our lives and actions and relationships. And for San Franciscans, where you can enjoy them. So please, take a peek into our sinfully fascinating endeavors, our virtuous chronicles, and find yourself inside.

Welcome to the new Sin City.