I've seen a lot on people in twitter discussing wether people should do "kinks"(?) in pride because they might scar the children for life and other arguments. Also calling people like the youtuber Big Joel pedos for thinking this is not a huge deal.
What happened? Maybe this is an american thing but since when have kids been brought to pride?
Echoing what I wrote on another thread about this, Pride basically is forced to contain every single aspect of the LGBTQ+ community because its the only goddamn thing the cis lets us have, which means kids and kink-oriented stuff have been forced into the same space.
This is a valid concern, what is not valid however is that the kneejerk reaction from people is to purge kink from Pride, limiting the public expression of gender and sexuality, rather than expanding outside of pride. If all of these people crying about kink at pride organized separate shit for kids like "drag queen story hour" or whatever, that would be much better than trying to appease the cis via pearl clutching.
Also on a separate note, kink belongs at pride because it makes advertisers uncomfortable, fuck sponsored pride shit, its a sign that we are being turned into a novelty rather than having forced society to accept us. There is pride parades goddamn everywhere and at every one its like half the city wears rainbows. But despite that every country in the west is waging fucking war on trans people, pride growing bigger does not mean acceptance or advocacy from the cisses, it means we're becoming a new reason for shitty cis people to party. Every goddamn yank wears green for St Patricks day that doesnt mean they are suddently interested in Irish culture or history.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that a big percentage of the people being mad about kink and kids coexisting at pride currently are just goddamn fucking cowards who wont advance the LGBTQ+ struggle cause they saw Drag Queen story hour get attacked and now everything is too scary.
99% of Twitter discourse can be safely filed under "pay no mind."
IDK how it is in other countries, but in the US, historically leather was a major part of gay culture, and I'm pretty sure some variation of this argument has been going on since Stonewall -- whether homos should Act Normal for fear of being branded degenerates by hegemonic straightness, or whether pride means pride. Nowadays most American pride parades are corporate sponsored events with nice straight liberals bringing their families to gawk at Alternative Lifestyles, plus on Twitter I'm pretty sure there's a lot of virgins who think being a weirdo in one's line of sight constitutes a violation of consent.
I'm a cis het white man, so I don't speak on this type of thing. That's just my philosophy on it. I see it as an internal debate of a marginalized community I have no innate understanding of.
Personally I find the commoditization of sexuality by corporations to be the most offensive aspect of Pride. But that's like the only opinion I even have formed on the entire event.
All I know is I worked at a hotel that was on a Pride parade route and a gay men complimented my ass, and another gay man told me I was gorgeous and it was the most validated I've ever felt in my life and I still think about it all the time.
Not gonna specify too much but I was in europe as well back then. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only kid there.
Bruh I was a kid brought to pride. There are kids at pride outside of the US. I remember asking my mom why a dude was walking like a dog and her answer being a bit odd. Certainly didn't scar me (but I hate petplay, leather and spandex shit now, for sure, not sure if that was the reason to it) but it was probably painful for my mom lol. It's not to say I didn't think it was odd. To see someone treated like an animal seemed like the opposite of the egalitarian ideals I was raised with.
I dont see how kinks need to be expressed in the same way sexuality and gender does, however. Kinks don't define us as much as gender and sexuality does, which is why it's seen as such a hedonistic thing not needed expressed. Not very familiar with the kink-discourse tho so there are probably more things to say about that.
Also sexuality isnt just purely the question about "who" you are attracted to, to frame it that way is basically to just define ourselves by the way that the cishets have oppressed us which is a big mistake.
Who I am attracted to categorically is just one part of my sexuality, kinks are other parts of my sexuality. If pride is to be a celebration of sexuality and gender it should not be celebrating watered down and essentialized versions of sexuality and gender just cause thats the way we have been categorized by the cishets for centuries, it should be a free and radical celebration of all that IMO.
My thoughts on this
- All pride events are not the same, nor do they have to be. You can have different events catering to different people with different objectives. Violently dismantling cishet patriarchy, normalising LGBT people by making them visible in public and just having a party for LGBT people are all valid objectives.
- Queer kids exist. LGBT people doesn't start out as blank slates until they reach the age of sexual maturity and suddenly someone flips the gay switch. Kids can identify as LGBT although they've not reached the age where sex and dating becomes relevant. These kids grow up feeling different and insecure. Going to pride events and seeing that you don't have to be cishet and that there is a community for people like them can be a huge experience for them.
- Queer parents exist. Obviously. They should also feel welcome at pride events.
- Family stuff is really lame. I'm a parent myself so I know. Being inclusive to families shouldn't mean that everyone else is excluded.
- Kink in public can mean a lot of things. Are we talking about wearing a collar with your normal clothes or are we talking about a gangbang in the streets?
- There is a point where expressing your sexuality in public, be it straight or gay, vanilla or kink, crosses the legitimate boundaries of other people. You shouldn't bow down to every bigot angry to see people kiss in public but at some point you are including people in your sexuality without their consent.
- Things like this is best handled in a constructive way. Organise Drag Queen Story Hour instead of demanding that the manager of LGBT gets rid of people.
- Everybody should chill. Kids are not going to be traumatized by seeing two men in leather pants kiss. And nobody's sexuality is being oppressed if they can't swing their genitals around in front of the kids.
- Practical solutions that gives space for everyone should be found. Maybe there should be different events? Maybe having an event that starts out family-friendly in the afternoon and then turns more adult-oriented in the evening?
- Rainbow capitalism is a fuck, obviously. So is cishet people going to pride events to gawk at LGBT people as if it were a zoo. This doesn't mean that families should not be welcome though.
I’ve only been to one pride but we came home with a bunch of shit like am Exxon coozy that was rainbow, and a rainbow fan that had bbva compass on it. Also there was a whole police section of the parade with the local sheriff literally standing on a police float campaigning for re-election.
I think it depends on what we mean by "kink" here too. Someone just wearing a BDSM collar out without anything else and it just looks like a fashion accessory to children is clearly on a different level than say, someone walking around near naked.
The latter is the type of thing that I believe to be wrong even if pride was entirely adults because other adults deserve to be treated respectfully and not exposed to without prior consent (and gay men/bi women are not all horny addicts who want to see every man naked), where as something like the first one isn't even pushing the line yet for me and I have no qualms.
But that's how I tend to view what should be acceptable for pride, as an issue of consent involving others around you. Involving them in sex play, exposing your nude body to them, etc are all consent breaking and therefore not really what people should be doing. Pride isn't for every single individual, but a communal event so if you aren't respectful of other queer people and their rights to consent than you can fuck off.
Or the beach for that matter. Is someone wearing a speedo in a pride parade more offensive than someone wearing a speedo on the beach?
Speedos are often seen as inappropriate too if they expose too much.
Oh god, no, not a human body. What if someone sees a genital? Considering only 100% of us have them, it could scar children to learn about the existence of something so rare!
Yeah I mean who cares about all the people who don't want me exposing my genitals in their face /s
How dare checks notes a community for vulnerable and often abused people not want me to expose myself to them without consent.
No one needs your consent to exist exactly as they are without shame. No one should have to cover up any part of their natural human body because you don't like to see it. If we operated under that logic all the time, fat people would never be allowed to leave the house no matter how covered up they are.
How about you think about it for a second and realize there's an obvious difference between someone being fat, and someone exposing themselves in public.
Would you throw out those same defenses of "natural human body" if it was some cishet dude swinging his dick around at a group of women at a pool? No, that would be sexual harassment. Some asshole chud getting angry that fat people exist is completely different than that.
What about dick pics? "oh that's no different than sending a pic of their face, it's all the human body"? No, it's sexual harassment and not appropriate unless they consent first.
And some people think bikinis are inappropriate. It's not my place to tell someone at a beach what they can or can't wear.
As long as the bikini (or speedo) properly covers things up then fuck the complainers, but if it's too small and shows things or is see through in some way tan it's not ok.
Those are pretty subjective measures though. What's "too small" to one person isn't going to be to another... like some people will think thong bottoms are way too far and some people think it's no big deal. I even think the "see through" thing is kind of a grey area. A lot of bathing suits get a little see through when they get wet. Hell, lots of people don't like wearing bras and don't feel like they need to cover themselves up if, god forbid, an outline of a nipple is visible.
Breasts and nipples are completely different than genitals, there are double standards around people with flat chests vs breasts (mostly men vs women so it's very misogynistic based) but genitals aren't acceptable for either.
But a lot of people do think overly tight speedos are too revealing. I don't mean near naked as in "wearing a bikini", I mean wearing see through/lace underwear, or things that fit too small.
I mean I agree about that, and I do think there is a lot of selective puritanism involved here (especially by Cishet society) despite the fact that they will parade around kids as sexual attractions and make statements like "Wow you're going to be so hot when you grow up" to young girls and the like, but I personally don't see that contradiction in society being a good defense of it. If anything it's the opposite and sexualizing everything is a disturbing trend in society that victimizes and harasses people who don't want it, a societal trend of Cishets that queer culture shouldn't be joining because it's filled with misogyny and pedophilia.
The latter is the type of thing that I believe to be wrong even if pride was entirely adults because other adults deserve to be treated respectfully and not exposed to without prior consent (and gay men/bi women are not all horny addicts who want to see every man naked), where as something like the first one isn’t even pushing the line yet for me and I have no qualms.
Not everyone who is "near naked" is doing it for sexual gratification or for exhibitionist purposes. I wonder if you feel this way about people who are marching for topless equality or people who are using their body to convey a political message (e.g. my body my choice).
Topless equality is a different thing than running around with bottom genitals exposed.
I remember being a kid going into Toronto in the middle of Pride. Let me tell you, I thought it was silly.
I still think it’s silly, Pride should be a riot.
There are a lot of family friendly pride events in big cities if you wanna go!
I'm not LGBT so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt but I don't see how this is different than the bog standard conservative "but think of the children" argument?
Idk I dont want to see people actively playing in dynamic or having sex but idc about other stuff. Like sure, walk around like a dog with a leash and collar on with only a bikini and nipple tassels knock yourself the fuck out.
Moral puritans who want to think of themselves as progressive people have to come up with a moral pretext for why they are offended by things they see at Pride that aren't any more sexual than something a kid might see in any other parade, so they've been weaponizing language of "consent" to imply that being made uncomfortable by sexuality is the same thing as being assaulted. Can't just end there though, than they gotta go "what about the kids" and make anyone who thinks that queer people shouldn't have to hide their existence are exposing themselves to kids. It's just blatantly old school reactionary shit, but it's still very prevalent even on the "left." Ffs, people here and in the discord still do that shitty Volcel Police meme.
Please don’t characterize asexual people as wokescolds who shatter into a million pieces at the sight of affection + want to go around making sure nobody fucks.
I’d even argue against making people keep things PG / PG-13 as Protestant payment processor moralism, and something that should be dismantled. We already live in a deeply sex-negative culture, there’s no need to assist our enemies in making it more psychotic.
My point exactly: those picrew folks are at best, misguided. To what extend they DO represent a constituency (which I have my doubts about as well), it's one that would hurt the movement if we started catering to it.
I don't think their viewpoints are worth repeating, and certainly not worth bringing up as a rationalization to police sexuality / expression at pride.
