Is Pride exempt from public indecency rules?

[Libre2]

DD (aged 14) went into London today with a friend she is staying with. I can only assume friend’s parents didn’t realise it was pride weekend and we don’t live anywhere near London so had no idea.

Aside from the fact that it was a complete ballache getting back out because tube stations were closed, DD said she was shocked at some of the things she saw in terms of arses on display with men just wearing “thongs”.

How is it OK to have such sexualised stuff going on in view of young kids?

What’s wrong with wanting some attention? We have such a repressed attitude to things in this country where we see ‘attention seeking’ like it’s a moral failure, but it isn’t.

This is why I’d never go or understand why anyone would go unless you were in that group and wanted to be in that group of people!! Grim

i agree with you op that it’s an adult event now and doesn’t need to happen in a busy public place in the daytime; if fetish and indecency is rife.

What's an unnecessarily nasty and judgemental comment.

I work in safeguarding. Dressing as an adult baby - in a nappy and bra - in public is not ‘pride’, it is traducing people’s (including kids’) boundaries. Why are people just going about their day being exposed to - and being made part of - people’s grim fantasy world? I was just trying to get home from a gig and this guy was blocking my way on the stairs. He was both intimidating and what might be considered an extremely vulnerable person. If he’d bumped into the wrong people, his life could have been in danger.

A couple of years ago I started a thread saying that I thought all adults should have a basic level of safeguarding training. I got an absolute MN kicking - but from some of the responses on here it’s clear that people don’t understand how to protect both children and vulnerable people.

I cannot believe I am having to type this sentence, but... gay people are not rainbows.

I had to go to Lindon yesterday, with a young child. We walked though pride.
I see more exposed are cheeks and thongs on the daily school run than we saw in about 3 hours along the pride route.
When i walk my kids to school we walk past a secondary where a majority of the girls has their skirts rolled up to the degree their bumcrack and thong is on show.
So if your are upset about pride, better avoid secondary schools! Rules of public decency definitely don’t apply there…..

It’s far too much but wokeism appears to mean semi naked men can use the tube and streets with their arses out

It's not clear at all. I'm the first to call out homophobia on MN, and have reported many homophobic comments and had them removed, but I haven't seen a single comment which is disparaging towards gay people as a group. Posters are objecting to inappropriately sexual dress and behaviour in public. I'm sure you're not suggesting that is part and parcel of being gay?

100%

The stench of urine and mountains of discarded plastic waste everywhere was grim. I feel sorry for the people who have to clean up. Nothing particularly indecent where I was and people generally cheerful but extremely drunk. (Lots of men in drag looking very much the worse for wear).

Whilst I think for some the original purpose has been lost (partly because of the success in changing laws and attitudes), I don't think what has been described is illegal.

As for indecent clothing or even bad taste, you don't need to wait for a Pride march to see that. Just have temperature above 25C in the UK.

Do I care about flamboyant gay men in a thong or tight shorts? No.

Not one person on this thread has objected to anyone wearing tight shorts. At all. A thong, however, is an item of underwear (the clue is in the name) that exposes the entirety of someone's lower half except for their genitals. It's totally reasonable to object to someone wearing one as outerwear in public. More to the point, objecting to this is not homophobic for two reasons:

1. No one is saying that only gay people should be banned from wearing thongs in public. Straight people should also put their arse cheeks away in the middle of Oxford Street.

2. Homosexuality is defined as exclusive same-sex attraction. Nothing to do with thongs. So you cannot claim that people- some of whom are actual gay people- objecting to public thong-wearing is homophobic. Prudish, maybe, but homophobic, absolutely not.

@IButtleSir a thong is an item of clothing worn on full show by many young women daily (have a look around your local secondary, or on a playground- see through leggings don’t count as covering). i don’t particularly care to see arse cheeks on a daily basis, but if its ok for women, its ok for men as well. Especially as its a lot easier to avoid pride than secondary schools and mum groups….

Why do you think people on a parenting website might give a shit about a previously family friendly event for gay acceptance which has devolved into a public display of fetish and kink for bunches of straight people.

Absolutely. Some of us on this parenting forum are lesbians and gay men who once thought it would be lovely to bring our own children to Pride one day, but are now in the position of feeling we have to protect those children from seeing inappropriate adult behaviour in public.

That sounds perfect, and like something none of us would object to. But sadly, that doesn't describe every Pride. My two closest Prides are London and Brighton, and I wouldn't take my daughter (who has two mummies, and who has every right to attend Pride) to either of them because of what I've seen at previous London and Brighton Prides.

😅😅😅😅😂😆

I walked back from Chinatown through Soho last night, there was a guy giving a full on blowjob in Soho square, it was fucking rank and I don’t understand why it’s overlooked by the police in the way that it is.

He works with kids as part of his job, too, and he finds it really upsetting that people are pushing the idea that it is ok for children to be exposed to what is really adult content.

Similarly my elderly lesbian neighbours, who are country people, former teachers,

Okay, this is very outing, but my wife and I are both primary school teachers, and my wife's school has two other lesbian teachers, one of whom is married to another primary school teacher, and one of whom is married to someone who works for CAHMs. They also have a gay male colleague. (I know, this school couldn't get more gay if it tried!)

So that's seven of us who work with children, four of us who have young children ourselves, and none of us go to Pride any more.

I think those of us who work with children are a LOT more switched on to the dangers of having adults in fetish-wear and/or very little clothing around children.

I have never felt so represented by a MN comment!

Imagine being a heavily-pregnant lesbian and having to teach Year 6 about how babies are made while they all give you the side-eye and are clearly wondering if you cheated on your wife with a man... that was fun. 😂

If its ok for women, its ok for men as well.

I don't think it's okay for either sex to have a thong on full show, to be honest.

Around 10 years ago I made the mistake of booking a matinee performance of Matilda for DGD(6) on the same day as Pride in London. Bus journey was curtailed at Hyde Park Corner, so got in a black cab, but the roads were gridlocked and we got out the cab in Whitehall.

We then battled through the streets behind the crowds at the barriers - I'm all for people having fun but geez if you could have seen some of the thongs, bondage, bare cheeks, antics, and various outfits on the men as we hurried past them at close quarters!

Just crude.

I have never ever seen any woman/girl wear a thong and no other arse covering on the streets of London - whether on a night out or watching a parade.

Sadly, Pride is no longer about gay men, bisexual people or lesbians. You know, the actual people Pride was for. Pride seems now to be about kink, fetishising sex, trans identities - many who are not gay- and the other alphabet people.

😂😂