To be LIVID at the National Theatre?

[helpmeunderstand04]

I was at the National Theatre festival this Saturday which was advertised as outdoor live music, dance, performance, workshops and family fun. I thought great, perfect way to spend a Saturday.

We were there from 6:30 and the drag act on stage was promoting inclusivity and had, what started as a great message. They said...

'We need to teach our children to open their hearts, teach our children to open their minds and to teach our children to open their legs'. The last line was said with the same tone as if it was a risque joke.

Both me and DP are just disgusted by what we saw. We couldn't believe it. This act had a short dress on and their bulge was showing through out. It was just plain weird. Fine in a club, not at a festival literally targeted as being good for families.

From then the evening just got weirder. There was a drag queen and a drag king contest. Great! I literally had never seen drag king acts and was really excited and thought it was great representation and diversity.

However, with every single drag king act they took their clothes off. No drag queens take their clothes off, but the drag kings did and were showing their scars from their mastectomy/gender affirming surgery. I do get the message that they are proud and don't need to hide and really I do agree with that. But it just felt weird that women who now identify as men are still having to take their clothes off, where as the drag queens didn't remove one item of clothing.

AIBU in feeling angry at the marketing team at the national theatre?

Because it's not a sure case of pedophilia

Drag queens refer to adults as their children

Children in the UK can legally have sex, as we are children until 18

It's called context, something we on Mn can't gauge, but of course many are waiting to froth at the mouth over it

Semantics.

It's just a weird thing to say, I really don't care about different words meaning different things in different subcultures.

Be that as it may, drag queens are not trans.

Or take a joke from a subculture you do not understand out of context and have a froth about it as MN is doing?
It is like that book from the 1980s many frothed over. A children's book with an illustration of two gay men in bed with a boy led to shouts of normalising paedophilia. When the book was two daddies with their son and the context of the story was normal.

Don't expect people to accept the unacceptable.

@Blackmoggy it's not semantics

Words have different meanings depending on cultural norms

For example my cousin refers to his male friends and general acquaintances as his brothers, he could be joking about his mum having sex with one of his brothers, that doesn't mean he is making an incest joke.

Context matters, which we miss when seeing a highly biased written MN post.

I was actually there and felt a disgusted as you OP! We actually just walked by the stage by chance as the stage is right on the river bank and open to everyone. No tickets or barriers, totally open to all.

It was in relation to children and not drag speak as the act on stage literally said 'we need to teach our children' and was talking about young people and school so there was no way it wasn't sexualising kids.

What that comment means is right-wingers twisting the truth and generating moral outrage around it.
The Daily Mail are veterans at it. Misleading headlines and articles that get people frothing in the comments.
MN is becoming exactly like that.

The bottom line is that it is never OK to make a sexual joke with children involved. Or even in the same sentence.

You're weird if you think otherwise.

Perverts, in plain sight.

But how do you know what the context was?

And don't you find it creepy that they refer to the audience as children and say children need to open their legs?

So warped.

So objecting to the normalisation and trivialisation of child sex abuse is a “right wing” characteristic now? Like capitalism and lower taxes?

If normalisation and trivialisation of child sex abuse is a “left wing” characteristic, I’ll vote Tory every fucking day of the week and election till I draw my dying breath.

@Blackmoggy no that's not the point you (badly) tried to make

Different words have different meanings when looking across cultural lines

This is a fact

In addition to that, even if it was referring to actual children, children in the Uk are legally able to have sex, since we are children until 18.

Unless there was a distinction made it's no more offensive than any other mildly offensive joke.

People find different things amusing, many on here have a clinical lack of humour so I am not surprised this thread has gone the way it has (lack of humour and odd hatred towards drag queens)

What that comment means is right-wingers twisting the truth and generating moral outrage around it

How is repeating a comment, as stated, “twisting the truth”?

People find different things amusing, many on here have a clinical lack of humour so I am not surprised this thread has gone the way it has (lack of humour and odd hatred towards drag queens)

Child sexual abuse?

OH HOW WE LAUGHED!!

Be that as it may, drag queens are not trans

Then how come Stonewall says they are?

You're not great at making points either....

All you seem worried about is people having "an odd hatred for drag queens" (you seem to have an odd need to defend them). People like different things, that's life.

You've gone from saying that they were referring to the audience as children to saying that if they were referring to children they would be over 18s....LOL, make your mind up.

I see we’ve reached the ‘everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler/ a racist/ a Christian right winger’ stage of the discussion.

Here’s a fact: if your belief system doesn’t allow questions and punishes those who speak out then it’s a cult. A culty, culty, cult.

@Blackmoggy nope, again, read properly and you won't look a fool

I have offered two views on this, firstly they could be referring to the audience, and even if not it's not some pedophile joke as children can have sex, legally, with adults in fact if they want.

This is mildly offensive at most, people find different things amusing, get a grip

Again, children are anyone up to age 18

Children can and do have sex legally in this country

You're being dramatic conflating this with abuse

Oh wow.

I read you wrong....So what you're actually saying is that it's fine for them to make sick jokes about kids because CHILDREN IN THE UK ARE LEGALLY ALLOWED TO HAVE SEX....!

Disturbing. You need to be on some kind of list.

No you're minimising perverted behaviour.

Which part of Pride is supposed to be about kids getting raped?

Do child abusers now come under the LGBTQ+++ banner? If so who signed off on this?

You don't believe either of the posters explaining the context to you anyway