I'm not just talking about the food, the weather, etc. I'm talking about some really strange shit. Things that people outside the city might find truly bizarre, but that we don't even question. The product is some hemp-enhanced shampoo, but the icon is unmistakeable. Marijuana smokers aren't outlaws here.
Cigarette smokers are.
San Francisco is the sort of place where someone in full drag on Market Street draws no stares and where someone walking down the street in an army uniform is assumed to be en route to a gay bar. Here, the contoversy is not over whather to HAVE a gay parade, but over how may points in the Kinsey continuum should be included in the NAME of the parade. We don't argue about whether or not sex clubs should exist, but about how closely the city should monitor them. People here discuss their sex lives with an openness which might make even New Yorkers blush. In most parts of the country, the question is skipped because the answer is just assumed.