The first scene that greeted me when I entered the Folsom Street Fair at around noon on Sunday large cup of iced Starbucks in hand, appropriately was a kiddie pool. Two bears sat inside, while a passerby unzipped his fly and proceeded to urinate over the men, who slid into a state of piss bliss.It was hardly the most shocking sight I witnessed last Sunday in San Francisco at the worlds largest leather and fetish gathering. Moments later, a young woman roped to a traffic light pole performed something of a passion play, as a masked man pulled back her hair and pleasured her with a vibrator. A series of horse-and-buggies drove by with the horses replaced by reined humans in leather equine masks. Heard over a megaphone, Sister Roma a Folsom fixture who once made national headlines for challenging Facebooks real name policy on behalf of drag performers and trans folks barked commands to nude and nearly nude players in a naughty reimagining of Twister on the Steamworks Baths stage. There were leather harnesses, puppy masks, and genitalia as far as the eye could see. I spotted an acquaintance of mine being penetrated by a baseball bat. An old man with lime-dyed pubic hair posed in front of a Loads of Love mural painted on the side of the Powerhouse leather bar. Just above, a man could be seen fucking someone through a window, his partners leg dangling over the sill.I was invited to cover Folsom my first time there by Sniffies, the digital cruising platform, which also has a notable retail arm. My partner sported a reversible jersey printed with graphic bondage artwork made exclusively for the fair dont wear it to grandmas house and there was also a rainbow of Folsom-inspired bandanas referencing the hanky code, a system where queer people could decipher each others kinks and sexual desires through the color of a handkerchief. (The aforementioned bears would have gone for yellow.)The brands station bustled with festival goers, who thumbed through the jocks, socks, and tees within a recreation of a locker room that approximated a 70s gay porn set. Steam poured from a shower head in one corner. Several stalls had exaggerated glory holes, a kind of photo station where one could pose for a pic amid graffiti like feed me and cum dump. Or as several eager folks did, one could make use of the set to fuck a stranger. Just adjacent, a bartender cheerfully served drinks at the bar, a staffer conducted video interviews, and Sister Roma adjusted her makeup in a bathroom mirror wreathed with illustrations of pup play and bondage.It was all on brand for Sniffies, whose map-based website (the app was briefly in the App Store earlier this year before being yanked) highlights where horny queer people congregate and cruise in your neighborhood. In addition to debuting merch, Sniffies also launched a new feature at Folsom, Sniffies Event Campuses, described by a release as an interactive, live map layer designed to help users explore large-scale queer events in real time.Think of it as Google Maps but hornier, with every vendor, stage, and dark corner of the fair live at your fingertips, summed up Eli Martin, the CMO of Sniffies who showed me the ropes of the platform and its new feature. With a flick over a sea of dicks and asses seeking connection, I could see there was a drag show happening on the other end of the festival. While exploring this interface, a couple sent me nudes via chat with an offer to play.The features launch marked a new chapter for cruising in a long history intertwined with Folsom. The fair was founded 40 years ago by activists and community organizers seeking to raise queer visibility, funds for services, and health awareness at the onset of the AIDS crisis. At that point, Folsom Street had developed into the focal point of the citys leather scene, whose roots can be traced to discharged gay World War II soldiers seeking community in a U.S. port. The fair shed some daylight on a subculture that had largely operated in the darkness of bathhouses and leather bars until government regulation during the crisis forced many of these spaces to be limited or shuttered.Today, Folsom attracts over 250,000 visitors, ranging from the hardcore kinksters who whip, fist, and fuck in the street to straight tourists gawking at the proceedings. (Many old-timers I spoke with insisted I attend Dore Alley, a smaller-scale event that attracts a more local and devoted crowd of fetish enthusiasts.) Visibility of queer people, kink, and cruising has never been higher. And technology has made these worlds easier to access, as Sniffies (and its summer review in, of all places, The New Yorker) shows. This can be a double-edged sword, as recent reports that federal police were using the platform to locate and arrest over 200 men in a Penn Station bathroom have rattled the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. (Sniffies has yet to respond to my request for comment on this.)But for me, these reports highlight the necessity of Folsom. Before entering the fair, a queer woman asked me, Do you support sexual liberation? The answer, of course, is yes. (We got stickers declaring such after a donation to Folsom Street, which supports nonprofits that are undoubtedly reeling from federal cuts. The exchange also reminded me of the lesbian leatherwomen who cared for gay men during the AIDS crisis when no one else would.)This is not the time to slip back into the shadows, history tells us. Let us parade as who we are in all our crazy, sexy, human glory both online and off.