I was wondering this, too. It’s very interesting seeing a real consequence of the extraordinary efforts that have been made to embed a form of adult entertainment in popular culture and children’s lives.
All those people saying that this was clearly not a family friendly show are obviously correct. But why were the parents so keen to go along in the first place, without even properly checking the programme? They saw drag and thought, great! Family fun! Ideal for the DC!
And there’s a reason they thought that. The reason being the way drag is being pushed and pushed at the general public, and specifically at children. These parents love Drag Race, I’m sure. OP says they think drag queen story time is great. They’ve completely forgotten (if they ever knew) that drag shows are very much adult entertainment, arising out of adult gay subculture and not remotely suitable for children at all.
Why has it been pushed like this? Why the hell do we have the phenomenon of adult entertainers with risqué names and no experience at all in children’s education, much less any awareness of safeguarding, going into schools and public libraries and reading to children? And endlessly promoted as family entertainment on TV?
It’s not that all these men present a risk to children (though a minority of them undoubtedly do, simply because that’s true of absolutely every demographic of men/male people). It’s that they seem to be being used as some kind of wedge to break down and blur boundaries, to introduce children to adult themes, sexualised content, awareness of a culture that isn’t meant for children at all.
It really does seem like there is a concerted attempt to normalise drag, to make it everyday - maybe connected to a simultaneous push to introduce fetishes into the everyday and normalise them, like the pup fetish at Pride these days, where you see police officers smiling for photo ops while holding the leash of a pup or two; or even kids interacting with and “petting” the pups. (I mean, we used to be clear that transvestism in heterosexual men was a sexual fetish, but now it’s being hailed as being under the LGBTQ+ umbrella and taught to teenagers in schools as something almost venerable.)
If you’re not worried, by this trend, it seems to me you actively don’t care about safeguarding, or you’re very naive.
I mean, WHY drag queen story time? Just why? What on earth have sexualised adult entertainers got to do with pre-school and primary school aged children? Why are they suddenly in practically every school and public library? Are we going to have stripper story time next? They sometimes have fabulous glittery outfits too, after all.
OP thinks it’s harmless. But this right here is part of the harm. Parents misguidedly taking their young children to an event that’s completely inappropriate for them, and where one of the performers actually made a joke about CSA. And people on here are defending making jokes about CSA in front of children.
Because we’re being told all the time that drag is great, and family friendly, and sooo much fun. And only bores and bigots and prudes don’t like it, don’t want it pushed on them on TV, pushed on children, constantly normalised.
Hmm.