The Catacombs was a gay and lesbian S/M leather fisting club which operated from 1975 to 1981 in the Mission District/Liberty Hill Historic District and from 1982 to 1984 in the South of Market area of San Francisco. It was the most famous fisting club in the world.Gayle Rubin, "The Catacombs: A Triumph of the Butthole", in Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, Alyson Press, 1992, , pp. 119-141; reprinted in Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader, Duke University Press, 2011, , , retrieved September 30, 2014. The founder and owner was Steve McEachern. The location was semi-secret and admission was by referral only. It was originally a gay men's club, but Cynthia Slater persuaded the management to open up to lesbians.Call, Lewis. 2013. BDSM in American science fiction and fantasy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p.5 Among the patrons was Patrick Califia, known then as Pat Califia.Pat Califia (who later changed names to Patrick), "The Necessity of Excess ", POZ, October 1998, retrieved September 30, 2014. The Catacombs has been exhaustively described by sexual anthropologist Gayle Rubin,"The Catacombs: A Temple of the Butthole", in Mark Thompson, ed., Leatherfolk — Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, Boston, Alyson Publications, 1991, , pp. 119-141, reprinted in Deviations. A Gayle Rubin Reader, Duke University Press, 2011, , pp. 224-240, , retrieved September 30, 2014. who calls it "exemplary" in its attempts to deal with the AIDS crisis which would eventually lead to its closure."Elegy for the Valley of Kings: AIDS and the Leather Community in San Francisco, 1981-1996, in In Changing Times: Gay Men and Lesbians Encounter HIV/AIDS, ed. John H. Gagnon, Peter M. Nardi, and Martin P. Levine, University of Chicago Press, 1997, , p. 116. Patrick Moore devotes a chapter to it in his Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality.Beacon Press, 2004, , pp. 27-33. Sex educator Carol Queen called it "the place to be seen and to play at during the 1980s.""An Interview with Carol, Queen of Sex," Spread, vol. 1, no. 1, spring 2005, pp. 35-38, quote on p. 36.

The San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley, opened in 2017, honors leather culture and community members including McEachern.

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