There’s a sex-positive boutique and cafe in San Francisco that holds a kinky Doctor Who meetup once a month. As a kinky Whovian, I’ve been wanting to attend for a few months. I first heard about the event in January and considered going as far back as the February meetup, but thusfar the date has always conflicted with a prior obligation. Beyond that, there’s the fact that we have a young child, and little in the way of Sunday-afternoon babysitting options.

This month, though, I was planning to be bar-hopping in the City with a friend on the day of the meetup, and I figured I might try to check it out as long as I was already in the area. In other words, I probably wouldn’t have made a special trip just for this event. Jill and I don’t actually live in San Francisco; it’s a bit of a drive, and parking is usually a pain in the ass. I could take BART, but being all boring and suburban I’m not much for public transportation.

However, it was for that very reason that I found myself determined to go to this meetup. My day-to-day life involves preschool and ballet classes, as well as public parks and libraries. It involves making nutritious lunches for my daughter, reading stories, and playing board games. The most adventurous thing I do on a daily basis is work out, and obviously that’s not very adventurous at all. So I really felt like I needed to step outside of my comfort zone.

My friend and I hit a couple bars within walking distance of one another, watching a playoff basketball game between sips of local craft beer. We grabbed a quick lunch at a park where some food trucks were gathered, and drank some more while watching the end of the game on a conveniently-located television. From there, we walked to the meetup venue. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a gathering of kinky Doctor Who fans; would we all whip out our sonic screwdrivers and compare length? Would we discuss recent Doctor Who-related porn films? Doctor Who as a metaphor for polyamory? Captain Jack/Mickey Smith slash fiction?

The friend with whom I was hanging out has an inkling that Jill and I are kinky, though he himself isn’t. Or at least, I assume not. I don’t know whether he gets laid, really, and I can’t say for sure that he’s familiar with the various bells and whistles of human sexuality outside of what he sees in porn. He’s the kind of guy who enjoys going to strip clubs but hasn’t really dated much. When we talk about sex he does so with the candor of a fourteen-year-old boy who’s pretty sure of how it works, but isn’t really confident enough to discuss it.

But he’s not the sort whose inexperience equals misogyny; he’s socially liberal and has many friends who are women, though I imagine he’d bristle at the “feminist” label. He’s not squeamish around LGBT individuals and presumably has as many friends in that cohort as anyone. To my relief, while he isn’t kinky, neither is he the sort to be weirded out by BDSM gear and the like. Still, when he noticed two young guys licking ice cream out of dog bowls in the cafe, I could tell he knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore.

We got drinks. My friend paid, as I’d picked up the last couple rounds. Then we sat down and people-watched for awhile. There was erotic art on the walls, bondage gear on the shelves, and kinky people all around. I felt at home there as I sat, eagerly anticipating hanging out with sex-positive Whovians, discussing the show, ranking the various companions in order of fuckability – Ace McShane for the win! – and maybe even getting a phone number or two.

At four o’clock, the scheduled start time, my friend took a walk to a nearby brewery, and I moved into the back room where one of the baristas told me that the meetup was to be held. The back room was smaller than the main part of the establishment, with six smallish tables. Five of them were empty. There was no signage that I noticed, no welcome placards or posters of any kind. As I walked through the room I saw that one of the tables did in fact have a very small sign indicating that I was in the right place. I took a seat there and waited. And waited. And waited some more.

The only other person present was an older gentleman working on a laptop at an adjacent table. I couldn’t tell if he was there for the meetup, or if he just happened to be hanging out. I noticed no sign on his table, though there were signs on the other ones. The guy wasn’t wearing a Doctor Who T-shirt, didn’t have a “Whovians do it bigger on the inside” sticker on his laptop. I drank my beverage, considering for a few moments that this whole thing might have been some sort of prank on the newbie.

After twenty minutes or so, the older gentleman got up from his table and collected the signs with the name of the meetup from each of the tables, and put them away. So I guess he was the event organizer. It would have been nice if, when I sat down at one of the designated tables, he asked if I was there for the meetup. Acknowledged me. Told me that the small turnout was normal. Asked if I’d seen the new Avengers movie, since the event’s Facebook page mentioned it might be discussed.

I should mention that I had a sonic screwdriver keychain on my key ring. I’d put my keys on the table in a noticeable but not obnoxious fashion in the hopes that someone – a cute hipster with a bob-cut, maybe – would see it and strike up a conversation, because let’s face it, that’s why I was there. I don’t really want to know which incarnation of the Doctor the older gentleman with the laptop fancies. Nothing against him, of course. I’m sure he’s a nice guy and the fact that he threw together a Doctor Who gathering for kinksters means he’s good people. But I’m mainly interested in meeting, discussing Doctor Who with, and fucking, women.

But the sonic screwdriver was right there on the table. In other words, it’s not like the older gentleman would have looked at me and thought, “Oh, some idiot who stumbled in and decided to sit at the wrong table. Hey jackass, can’t you read the sign? That table’s for kinky Doctor Who fans only.” Granted, I’m assuming that he didn’t look over at the table where I was sitting and think, “Another meetup with no women. Just some guy. Fuck this shit. I’m out of here.” You know, kind of like I might have done. But if that’s not what he was thinking, he should have said something. Anything. Yeah, I’m basically a walking support system for a hard-on, but I’m approachable to pretty much anybody.

I waited until half past four, and then I reluctantly got out of there. On the way, I browsed the kinky bookshelves and actually noticed a couple books I wouldn’t mind getting for our own kinky bookshelves at home. Still, I can’t see myself returning for the next meetup. Perhaps for a different event, but even then, it seems unlikely. I wish there was a place like this in our quiet but bustling suburb, a place ten minutes away, max. A place where I don’t have to get on BART or spend forty minutes looking for parking just to find out that no one else showed up. We’ve got a thriving Downtown that could really stand an establishment like this one, where consenting adults can have coffee while browsing cock cages and floggers, or eat lunch in the shadow of a Saint Andrew’s Cross.

Still, I don’t see it happening. Our little city has a few adult stores, but they all fit the standard paradigm of the seedy porn-and-toy shop where one goes to rent videos or browse toys while avoiding eye contact with staff and raincoat-clad patrons and definitely not inquiring whether that one particular vibrator is phthalate-free. The kind of place where, if you happen to run into an acquaintance, you each hope the other didn’t see you, and you sure as hell don’t bring it up at the church picnic. You don’t hang out there and drink an espresso. You get in and you get the fuck out. True sex-positivity, in the suburbs? Probably not in my lifetime.

The meetup was a disappointment, but I made the most of the afternoon by catching up with my friend and a couple of his friends at the brewery. The place was far less kinky than the other venue, but at least the beer was good.