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San Francisco is a caricature to those who have never been there,

I lived there for a few months in '81. It was a sick, festering pit of evil and depravity. Difficult for me to believe it's changed that much.

What kind of people name whole sections of their town for the teenage runaway male prostitutes that roam the streets looking for someone who will give them some food in exchange for "gay" sex, as is the case with the "tenderloin district" in San Francisco?

The news reporters, the government, everyone refers to the area around Polk Street by this "cute" euphemism that seems like it would be only appropriate from those who frequent the area and participate in the fun.

Do they still have the Exotic Erotic Ball thingy? A city-funded mass orgy downtown each year?

It was a crazy place, like most large cities, only taken to a hypersexual "gay" extreme. If it doesn't bother you, it's because you're acclimated to it. Live someplace where there isn't a torture chamber in any bar or hotel for miles around, and after a while, maybe the haze will clear, and you'll begin to recognize the profundity and ubiquity of madness that saturates that place. Go someplace where transvestites at least trouble themselves to shave before applying their makeup.

What kind of people name whole sections of their town for the teenage runaway male prostitutes that roam the streets looking for someone who will give them some food in exchange for "gay" sex, as is the case with the "tenderloin district" in San Francisco?

FYI:
It's called the tenderloin because the cops on that beat got paid extra, it being such a tough beat. So they were able to eat...tenderloin. That's the story, and it's been the story for a lot longer then the hookers have been there.

What kind of people name whole sections of their town for the teenage runaway male prostitutes that roam the streets looking for someone who will give them some food in exchange for "gay" sex, as is the case with the "tenderloin district" in San Francisco?

This is how some knowledge of history can be helpful. "Tenderloin" districts (there are many in cities all over the U.S.) got their name in New York City back in the 1880s. They were Red Light districts featuring heterosexual prostitution and gambling. Cops assigned to the beat were able to supplement their pay with kickbacks for looking the other way when businesses broke the law -- just as they still do.

"Police Corruption - a Sociological Perspective," edited by Lawrence W. Sherman, says: "In the late 1800's, a police precinct in New York could be rated by the number of establishments featuring gambling and prostitution that could be systematically 'assessed' by the police. When Captain Alexander S. Williams was transferred to the Twenty Ninth Precinct, the city's most fashionable red-light district, he rubbed his hands together and spoke of moving up from 'salt chuck' to 'tenderloin.' Thus the district was christened 'the Tenderloin.'"