Save the kinky community epicenter of San Francisco!

algophilatreia:

For once, I’m using this platform for something other than fantasies and personal concerns. The historical kink cafe, Wicked Grounds, is currently facing closure – unless we can get them $15k per month on Patreon.

What does Wicked Grounds do? Aside from serving fantastic coffee and food, Wicked Grounds offers a home to dozens of gatherings, classes, and munches in the Bay Area. Newcomers can come get a taste of the kink community in a calm, quiet environment without the daunting aspect of dungeon parties. 18-20 year old kinksters can participate in kinky social gatherings outside the bar scene. Wicked Grounds actively hires queer and trans workers, which can’t be said for a number of service industry businesses. They offer a wide selection of books. They support nearby toymakers and artists by selling locally made wares. (It’s one of my personal goals to have my photography on their walls before I die. Can’t happen if they close.) They feed and stock nationally-famous events like the Folsom Street Fair. They produce online educational materials about BDSM, such as podcasts and a written series. They are bigger than their little location in San Francisco – these materials are accessible to anyone in the world, but Wicked Grounds can’t keep being a movement without our help.

This is not just about a kink cafe. San Francisco as a city is shifting, and not necessarily for the better. Sure, startups are amazing, tech offers all kinds of people life-changing opportunities, and we’re in a hub of constant progress. But with Silicon Valley comes rapid gentrification, and displacement of many communities that are integral to San Francisco’s personality. I grew up just across the Golden Gate Bridge. I remember a city full of weirdos in ground-sweeping coats, artistic collectives, queer activists, writers, and off-beat thinkers; not a city full of more homelessness than ever and an increasing battle for non-techies to survive.

Wicked Grounds symbolizes the struggle and possible decline of spaces built for queer people, people with non-normative relationship structures, creative people outside tech, people without traditional education, and anyone who needs an emotional home for the ways in which they feel different. These communities are beneficial to our culture, but they’re largely built on love, and love can’t stretch on for long without money.

See Wicked Grounds’ official statement on the matter.

Please, help the San Francisco kink community. Pledge to Wicked Grounds here, and keep our community haven alive. We have one week.