It’s 2 pm on a January afternoon, and I’m lying on the floor of a room being hogtied by one of my closest friends.
This is The Armory, a big brick dungeon that was once filled with sex-laden adventures, workshops, and porn films. It’s 2013, and I’m learning rope bondage with about two dozen others; most of us are strangers. While my friend tightens knots on my ankles, I watch a woman in her 50s pair off with a guy who doesn’t look a day over 19, and I kind of dig their Harold and Maude vibe. Here in the Mission, bathed in the afternoon day, surrounded by a history of tawdry hookups and fetish explorations, I submit to the moment. My sexual awakening happened in this room. Sexy Crotchless Lingerie
This moment found me much later than my peers; I grew up in a traditional Black household where sex was never really spoken about and respectability politics were the rule. I was meant to study, get good grades, and go to the best school I could without the distraction of boys. But it wasn’t only their conventional influence holding me back: I was also extremely shy and quiet. It took me until 21 to have my first kiss, an experience so mortifying that I decided I should just go all the way and have sex right then and there.
That was my first indication that I’m the kind of girl who can only operate in extremes: all out or all in. Which is exactly how I’ve found myself in The Armory, dabbling in kink on a Saturday afternoon instead of spending the afternoon drinking in the park like the rest of my friends.
I moved to San Francisco as a bright-eyed girl of 21, part of the influx of new grads coming to work at Google. I came expecting free lunches, WiFi-enabled shuttles, and an office full of games and nap pods. Instead I got a city full of people exploring their sexualities in new and exciting ways. I wanted in, but being me — still the shy goodie two-shoes who just lost her virginity — I joined a phone hotline to help inexperienced callers learn more about sex.
I thought we’d be doling out condoms and birth control, but instead I learned about fisting and safe words. I felt like this new cool girl, having casual sex and exploring kinks that none of the nice software engineers told me about. But I was barely scratching the surface.
I became a new woman in that rope-tying class, spurred by others at the hotline who were skeptical that they’d ever see me at a sex party. I craved more sexual exploration than doing reverse cowgirl with the lights on, and The Armory provided that. It’s been a staple of the local sex scene for decades, but it wasn’t always, and it isn’t anymore.
Until 1976, The Armory fulfilled its intended role as a home for weapons and munitions made and stored for the U.S. National Guard. Prizefights also happened there during the 1920s through the 40s; and it was originally built as part of Woodward’s Gardens, which operated from 1866 to 1891 as a combination amusement park, museum, art gallery, zoo, and aquarium that covered two city blocks in the Mission.
The current plans — which have not yet been formally submitted — shows a two-level jazz club. It’s a move that would truly gut me. The Armory was a springboard for my sexuality — a space where I could explore the boundaries of my own sexual expression free from judgment or shame.
I moved to New Orleans not long ago, and while many bitch about San Francisco once they go, I think of it more like the spiritual capital of my sexual identity. So much of the City’s sex culture survives, but the transformation of this landmark into something benign is hard to take in. It symbolized the characteristics I loved the most about San Francisco — this open, quirky, kinky, and utterly unique city where I learned that I could be anything I wanted to be sexually.
Well, except for a rope top; turns out I’m shit at tying knots.
Tara Vega is a writer and producer in New Orleans. Her work focuses on highlighting Black female sexuality in its many expressions.
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