In plain sight - 'Are Pride Parades Kid-Friendly? Parents Say Children Can Handle The Kink'

[EweSurname]

The post asked parade participants not to “sexualize” Pride and to leave their fetish and kink at home, for the sake of minors.

A reasonable request, one might have thought. But no.

“At some level this has always been part of a much larger debate of what Pride is,” David Rayside, a retired politics and sexual diversity professor at the University of Toronto, told HuffPost Canada. “Pride has always had a kind of outrageous edge to it. And should we alter that? It is not the Santa Claus parade, and it never was. It shouldn’t be. It can’t be.”

[...]Putting on her sex therapist hat, Ren emphasized that Pride, from kink to nakedness, is an excellent opportunity for parents to do unbiased sex education. Bergman also pointed out that many children don’t even interpret most of what they’re seeing in a Pride parade as sexual, but rather as dress-up or fun.

The whole point of kink is that it's sexual, surely? Why are children encouraged to view sexual content? Calling it "dress-up" doesn't alter what it is.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/pride-parade-kid-friendly_ca_5d013916e4b0dc17ef03287b

I regarded the tweeter's comment on people leaving their kinks and fetishes at home as less objectionable that the other statements that lesbian exclusion is ugly and transwomen of colour are leading the fight for "our" rights.
Not if you are a lesbian they aren't.
Not surprising that the men who support Pride only cared about their kinks and fetishes, although I agree that a Pride parade isn't something I'd take kids to although I've never been sure who the audience for Pride actually is now it excludes lesbians who are actually lesbian and surely the gay men and transwomen will be marching.
Agree that it would be a more representative (and diverse in the true meaning of the word) event if people worse their normal clothes and showed that loving someone of the same sex didn't make you "weird" and included women who did only love people of the same sex. (Why don't gay men get the same level of aggro? Presumable because the people they are rejecting are socialised as female)

Pride shouldn't change. It's outrageous, fun, dirty and a bit naughty.

I wouldn't consider it to be a "family day out". There are millions of family friendly events to bring children to every day (usually full of rainbows and unicorns too).

Why ask Pride to "tone it down for the children" fgs. If you don't like it, don't bring your children.

Agree that it would be a more representative... event if people wore their normal clothes and showed that loving someone of the same sex didn't make you "weird"
Wouldn't make much of a parade that, would it.

Pride is a parade. A show. For show offs. Leave them to it.

To all those complaining about the parades - why did you not raise this 10, 15, 20 years ago? Pride has always been like this. The difference is some straight people seeing it as a family day out.

Also it is not like 30 years ago. Most people know someone lesbian or gay. So what difference does showing they are normal make?
I am normally with radical feminists, but I think you have got it wrong with this one.

David Rayside, a retired politics and sexual diversity professor at the University of Toronto, told HuffPost Canada. “Pride has always had a kind of outrageous edge to it. And should we alter that? It is not the Santa Claus parade, and it never was. It shouldn’t be. It can’t be.”

I wonder how old Rayside is, because this is bs. I remember the early parades, people wore their normal work clothes and sometimes paper bags on their heads.

The whole point which was emphasised continuously was that they were regular people who wanted the chance to interact in normal ways with their partners in public life, without wearing bags. That they were not more likely to be fetishists, or into weird things, or promiscuous, than straight people. That to associate them with those ideas was homophobic.

At a Pride parade now that is exactly the conclusion you would come to. It seems like we've come full circle to me.

jennymanara I disagree, I think it's important for me to be seen as normal and not as a kink.
I like watching the gay police association marching. Because I'm a bootlicker? No, because I welcome representation, and a march of gay police officers speaks powerfully to me.
Other people want them banned from Pride and want full on Folsom Street weirdness on display. The latter group seems to include more straight people in it that my group does.
Pride shouldn't change. It's outrageous, fun, dirty and a bit naughty.
Who's it for, if it's like that? Not for me. For students? For the sexually promiscuous? For those who go out every night of the week? For those with a fetlife profile? Why them and not me, and why them and why disparage me?
I don't want my homosexuality associated with their kinks. Ta.

Goosefoot exactly

For me, it's very specifically the "children can handle the kink" that jarred.

yeah, I think anyone who takes their kids to pride is bonkers. I have the usual facebook types popping up to show how amazingly liberal and inclusive they are by taking their kids to pride, and it makes me eye roll so much that I nearly pass out.

look, I'm not gay, pride's not my thing, so my opinion ain't important here. but I think if I were gay, I wouldn't want my sexuality being intricately linked in peoples minds with every fetish under the sun. which the 'of course pride's gonna be full of topless people in leather wearing leashes, get over it' attitude does seem to be condoning

He understands it as a parade that came about due to gay/lesbian people being beaten up, put in prison and generally treated unfairly

Ha. And now Pride & Stonewall are all in favour of lesbians being beaten up, put in prison & generally treated unfairly if we stand up for our orientation. Maybe we need a new parade.

Maybe we need a new parade
We do, and we need a new alternative to Stonewall.

Some Pride's have tried to make a point of saying they are family friendly. the one here has, but it isn't.
The point I assume is that they still have a vague sense that they want homosexuality to be seen as normal, they have just totally lost the sense of what that means.
What makes me feel really odd, and old, is I remember naysayers at the time saying this is what would happen.

For me, it's very specifically the "children can handle the kink" that jarred.

It's the same as "children can handle divorce" "children can handle my boyfriend's staying over" "Children can handle hearing that girls can have a penis" "children can handle being in a club at 3am" ""children can handle learning about genocide".

goosefoot How far back are you talking about? Because I am talking about 25 years ago.

jennymanara I guess you have a different memory to the rest of us. Enjoy your kink, I don't want to see it.

I hate kink.
But gay men wearing chaps, men in leathers and chains and woman with bare or painted breasts were in London Pride parades 25 years ago. They may not have been in small local ones.
I did not know some were being advertised as family friendly though.

jennymanara
I guess you're right, but we had a leatherman (straight) in the Village People so it wasn't what I had in mind. I was thinking "dogs" on leashes etc.
There's that pic of a guy in a gimp suit covered in rubber cocks - what exactly is he celebrating? I'm happy to call that guy an arsehole because that picture launched a thousand alt-right memes. I don't want anyone thinking that because I love women and not men, that I'm somehow like an idiot who thinks a rubber suit covered in cocks is acceptable and exciting to wear in public.
Kink-shaming is my kink.

Sure some are taking it too far. But I have seen lots talking about this on face book as if it is a new thing. And they are talking about gay men in chaps exposing bare bottoms, men just wearing skimpy underwear, women with bare breasts.
There have always been those who want to be seen as normal and those who want to be overtly sexual. This tension is not a new one.

I used to go to London Pride 25-30 years ago and there were always men with their arses hanging out, maybe not so many as there are now. Maybe there weren't as many lesbians with kids in those days either though. I remember thinking that it was a day for us to celebrate with each other and I used to get pissed off at straight people coming just for the party when none of them stuck up for me at work when I was experiencing homophobic bullying. I would not go to Pride now though, my local one seemed horribly seedy last time I went.

Gosh, I put in an apostrophe to indicate a plural p there. Sorry all.

How far back are you talking about? Because I am talking about 25 years ago

The first Pride parade in my city was in 1988, so about 30 years ago. What really strikes me is that the emphasis was so different, so much on denying the connection of homosexuality to kink and promiscuity. Thinking that connection was real made you a bigot.

Though there was a march here in 78, it was sort of an ancestor of the later marches.

30 years ago is when it would have been more political and yes I can see that people would want to emphasise they are normal people. But it morphed into a party thing over not many years.
My local one was very small and only outrageousness was a few drag queens. But it is a small fairly small place, and no way 25 years ago would anyone have wanted to advertise their kink to an employer.

The first London Pride parade was in 1972, not that long after gay sex was decriminalised.

It's not just an emphasis thing though. That was the argument against the claim that decriminalisation would open the door to sexual immorality more generally, sexual exploitation, young people being brought into a kink lifestyle.

It raises the question, what does it mean if there really is a connection between those things? I don't think its odd that people might not want that to be something people ask.