A good friend of mine complained the other day that a “Leather and Chains Community Fair” had made her late to the San Francisco Opera because the police had blocked off several streets for it, thus forcing her to take a longish and unexpected detour. It wasn't that she had anything against the celebration of “leather and chains”—after all, this was San Francisco—but she thought it was not a good idea for society to make it difficult for people to attend “sublimated” pleasures like the opera in order to celebrate “unsublimated” pleasures like sadomasochistic sex.