I live relatively close to San Francisco and still buy all my stuff online, as it's difficult to find good gear at any of the retail stores. I would just check out shipping prices and decide which is cheaper: Shipping directly to Turkey or shipping to your friend and having him mail the stuff to you.
Good luck bro.
P.S. The gay story in SF really tends to get exaggerated by people outside of SF. Yes there are gay communities, but they tend to stick to themselves (they have pretty good straight/gay radars, I guess LOL). So if you ever come to SF, don't worry about getting gangraped or anything