Cartoon Superman never amounted to more than that for most people. But for a select group, early encounters with the Man of Steel wearing a molded bodysuit, knee boots and a shiny cape helped set the course of an erotic life. “Batman and Robin and Superman were all really exciting,” said John Weis, the chairman of the Folsom Street East street fair, an annual event that kicked off Gay Pride Week in New York in late June. “Batman was always tied up or in some peril, and I thought that was really great.”

　　Folsom Street East brought together thousands of men and women for the sort of gathering that, once upon a time, rarely took place in the full light of day.

　　There was a time when people whose erotic rituals ran to whips and chains and latex and highly complex protocols of dominance and submission were confined to the cultural shadows. But that was before Madonna turned bondage into a concert party trick, before Svedka vodka purloined imagery from “Venus in Furs” for their ad campaigns.

　　Fashion designers were the early adopters of the kinky style: talents as unalike as Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Versace have nipped into fetish closer for inspiration.

　　 “The whole leather fetish look has been around since at least the 1920’s,” said Valerie Steele, the director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “But from the moment it started to come out of the closet following the sexual and gay liberation movement, it was already influencing popular culture, with guys walking down Castro Street in leather and people wearing it in friendly little swingers clubs in suburbia.

　　Remember Condoleezza Rice in that long black coat and black high-heeled boots? Mr. Weis asked. “What is that but the secretary of state dressed like a pro dominatrix?

　　The key pieces this summer, according to Gregory Bunch, a salesman at the Noose, a fetish shop in New York, are leather shorts and a harness. Actually, those are the key pieces every year. “It’s too hot now for chaps,” said Mr. Bunch.

　　Of course you can. Or you can wear a latex singlet or abraded jeans left half-open or dog collars and leather hoods with zippered mouth and eyeholes and with little puppy ears attached.

　　 “It’s a way to express the feelings and emotions of your inner canine,” explained Steve Birko, who calls himself Puppy Diesel when dabbling in what in kink circles is called human animal training.

　　Many of those at the fair took the hot weather as an excuse to go shirtless, the better to display huge pectoral shields.

　　One could hardly keep count of the pierced nipples on display at the Folsom Street fair, often adorned with what look like door knockers, and yet worn with nothing more suggestive of a kinky lifestyle than a pair of Old Navy cargo shorts. “Just because somebody’s in cargo shorts and flip-flops doesn’t mean they don’t have a dungeon in their basement,” Mr. Weis said.