When I first visited San Francisco, I would see these men on stage with these tiny white oriental fans (called Spine Fans). They would be the epitome of masculinity: shirtless with muscles and tattoos often. These were the kinds of men you would expect to see in gay porn and yet they were on stage flipping these oriental fans around.

The image of these masculine men with their feminine fans was amazing. They were at once graceful and vulnerable. Yet they were non-apologetic in their actions. I mostly stared in awe.

When I returned to San Francisco the second time (two months later), the club scene was still just amazing, but the big butch men were somehow smaller. Several of them had died of AIDS and the remainder had become skinny and looked weak, old, sick. It broke my heart.

When I moved to Atlanta, Britton and I were at a nightclub when I say this man swirling these huge pieces of fabric around on a box. I would later come to know him as Todd Roberts–one of the best fanners on the planet.

I stared for the longest time and waited for him to take a break to tell him that it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He was polite but busy. He showed me the fans and told me they were called Rag Fans. I noticed immediately they were missing the familiar rigid elements that the fans I had seen in San Francisco had. These were just fabric and curtain weights. They were amazing and Todd was just the best.

About a year later, we are at this glamorous invite-only party that happened 5 times a year. Roddy Roy threw this amazing party called Sanctuary in his loft on the corner of Monroe and Piedmont. The entrance to the place was through a wooden fence in a strip mall parking lot. Not cool. Except that when you handed your pre-printed card (like credit card) to the officer at the door, you walked into the most amazing multi-level garden you have ever seen. It was like you stepped into another world.

The people at the party were some of the most beautiful people I have ever seen. People from all over would come to these parties. And though there were glass tables, and drugs everywhere, nobody got hurt and nothing got broken.

We had been to this party once before and this time we brought our drug dealer from San Francisco to join us. I had tried to be proactive about the situation and stached a couple of chocolates in my pockets in case anyone fell into a K hole and needed some sugar. The chocolates melted of course, so when I nervously put my hands in my pockets, I immediately realized that they were covered in chocolate and that I couldn’t take them out. If I did, it would look like I had shit on my hands. I panicked.

I was planning to leave the party immediately and never come back when this flurry of activity caught my eye. I backed up against a pillar and stared awestruck as all this spinning fabric came towards me. Pretty soon, I could hear the fabric all around me and I could see the source of all this motion was a short, male-identify bulldagger.

While spinning this fabric around me and the pillar I was pressed against, she said, “Go to the bathroom and was your hands–you are gonna fan”.

Well it was like a light went off in my head. Duh! I could go to the bathroom and wash my hands, I didn’t have to leave. Promptly I did just that.

As I walked out of the bathroom, happy to have clean hands, I get smacked up along side the head with something solid. I reach down to find a pair of spine fans sitting at my feet.

Candida tells me to come over that I am gonna learn to spin spine fans. And she gave me a couple of lessons and it was like second nature for me.

Some Back Story.

At the previous Sanctuary party, Britton had left early after dancing to my favorite song (the one I attributed to us) with this guy Andrew. Andrew worked at the gift shop that Britton worked at briefly and Britton thought Andrew was adorable and sweet and funny. I was insecure and thought maybe they were having an affair. So when I saw him dancing with Andrew at Sanctuary to our song, I snapped a picture (which I still have today). Later when I left the party and walked home alone…Britton was in bed with Andrew.

They weren’t having sex and I am supposed to believe that Andrew wasn’t feeling well so Britton brought him home and had him in our bed comforting him.

I freaked the fuck out and did as much K as I could fit in my nose hoping it would knock me out. Needless to say, we broke up soon after that.

After a couple of amazing stories, I was at the Heretic one night when I meet this guy named Rick Springer. He was cute, intelligent, social, and funny. We started kind of dating. He had a great group of close friends, one of whom was Todd Roberts. Small world.

Rick and I got along but I was still in love with Britton and so when Britton decided he wanted me back, I broke it off with Rick and hadn’t talked to him. Britton and I went to the new years Sanctuary party where I met Candida.

End Back Story.

So while I am learning to fan, in comes Ricky Springer and Todd Roberts and their entire little clan. I was so embarrassed, but Candida made me continue.

Afterwards, she came over to our house and told us about her mission. She worked for the HRC and had the responsibility of ensuring that no part of gay culture was ever eliminated by AIDS. She went to circuit parties around the country to teach people to fan and to make sure that the art never disappeared.

Later that year, Britton made some outrageous number of fans for the Red party (something like 200 pair). It was amazing. He made me several pair and I would regularly spin them at Backstreet or the Eagle.

I made sure that people understood the importance of fanning. It wasn’t until someone decided to make a commercial set of fans that I started having conflict with the community. Suddenly, people were calling it Flag Dancing and calling Rag fans “Flags”…This is not okay.

The only reason they were calling it “flag dancing” is that it sounded less nelly or gay. That’s fucked up. Flags have poles. If you are a flagging team, your flag has a pole and the majority of what you do is manipulate the pole to move the flag around.

Fans don’t have poles. Period. Rag fans are spun by hand and they don’t have poles. Any attempt to change the history of Fanning to sound less gay really pisses me off. I will not tolerate it from my friends and I try to explain the history and the importance of FANNING to every idiot who calls them flags .

Unfortunately, to this day I cannot get Candida to pick a side in the argument. Fanning has become very commercialized and in my opinion cliquey and gross. I am happy to distinguish this abomination of appropriated gay culture as flagging and hold that fanning is the term used to reference the exclusively gay un-rehearsed occurrences of spontaneous beauty as fanning.

The straight community has largely eclipsed this sacred art with what they refer to as Flow Arts. It involves sticks and poi balls and is a competitive sport with lots of YouTube coverage on what is right and wrong. Fanning is seldom covered in the flow arts.

In 2018, for the 200th anniversary of the Krew Saint Anne, my partner and I made dozens of gold and purple fans for Marci Gras. Lots of wonderful people kept the spirit of fanning alive during the celebration. It was amazing. Special thanks to everyone in St. Anne’s for having us that magical year.