After 20 years, Bawdy Storytelling is ending its run this Friday night, November 6th, 2026, at the Verdi Club in San Francisco. According to the series founder Dixie De La Tour, “Producing live events in the Bay Area has gotten increasingly impossible, and I fear that it’s time to just ‘call it’.”

Bawdy Storytelling is a uniquely San Francisco live event that has been happening since the mid 2000’s, and arose out of Dixie’s work as a party producer in San Francisco’s sexual underground in the early aughts. According to Dixie, people would wander into a sex party, find Dixie at her post, and regale her with their antics in the most easygoing way, because they let their guard down and recognized a kindred spirit in her.

“I didn’t think it was fair that I was the only one to get to hear these wild tales,” says Dixie, “so one night about 20 years ago, I put together a sex and storytelling potluck (with no sex - that part baffled them, but everyone ended up loving it).”

Now, after 20 years the show dubbed ‘the most San Francisco event in existence’ is coming to an end. Dixie says the reasons are the same ones you’ve heard many times before. “Getting people to return to live theater (post-pandemic) has been an uphill battle over these past few years,” she says, “and now, as folx have lost their jobs to AI and our city has gotten broker and broker, the Verdi Club (our home for most of the last 20 years) has gotten emptier and emptier.”

Dixie says the show and the talent who perform at it have come a long way over the years. The last Live Bawdy Storytelling this November 6th will feature NPR Snap Judgment Storyteller of the Year Don Reed, Filmmaker, author & performance artist Madison Young, Award-winning Cartoonist and Educator Justin Hall, Professional and Lifestyle FemDom Bufy DaDick Slayr, and probably that one puppy play dom you ran into at a sex party the other night.

Barring some kind of miracle, Bawdy Storytelling will cease its live shows this Friday forever. If you’ve ever loved this event or just never got around to going, this is literally your last chance to check it out.

Dixie De La Tour wrote to us this week about Bawdy: “The stories are so polished and relatable and full of heart, and I’m so proud of the people who have bravely taken my stage to tell their own stories of queerness and transness, of polyamory and open relationships, of hookups and kinkiness and sexual adventure, and so much more.

So you’re a Giantess who wants to be loved for who you are? Welcome. You’re a sci-fi nerd who throws epic orgies? Tell us about your favorite. You came to Bawdy and learned that there as many ways to express yourself in bed as there are digits in Pi? Doesn’t that make you feel hopeful, and send you home excited to try something new? Fuck yes it does.

I don’t do this show to be titillating or inflammatory - I do it because when you show up in real life, when you talk about the things you care about, it changes everything…you’re less lonely, and you make new friends because they’re meeting the real you. You find love or fellow adventurers, and best of all, you leave the house and talk to other humans. Adult Loneliness is off the charts, and storytelling is the best way to connect with other humans that I’ve ever seen. And when Bawdy goes away, San Francisco has lost yet another third space to gather, and meet your neighbors, and open up your world.”