Obscene costumed volunteers handing out summer reading at Redbridge library

[WombOfOnesOwn]

A library had a man in a rainbow monkey costume, with a dildo penis and a fake exposed butt, handing out summer reading books.

Look at this obscene sex clown mocking and terrorising local Muslim women:

twitter.com/HasAhmed_/status/1413931013340807172/photo/2

The library is, of course, apologizing about it now:

twitter.com/RedbridgeLibs/status/1413975910433366020

But during the event, they thought it was pretty funny:

twitter.com/turtillachip/status/1414255270038016009

What is happening? Why should parents going to the library's summer reading program worry that THIS is what they'll see? The website for this troupe of "performers" clearly shows this monkey performer with his fake penises inch from children's faces. There has been no vetting. No safeguarding.

And there'll just be an apology, another "isolated incident." Of course, the local Muslim women and girls know exactly what this library thinks of them now, and what may happen to them if they choose to even walk nearby. Do we think they're going to want to go in?

I was interested to see what the summer reading challenge theme was this year. summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/
Nothing about grooming children, funny that.

As others have said above and on many previous threads, it took decades of patient work for gay rights activists to break down the unthinking prejudice many people had that gay men had predatory intentions towards little boys and young teenagers (and some had similar fears about lesbians and girls).

I worry about a backlash to the LGB community too and thats on top of presenting entirely inappropriate material to children in a library - used to be such a good space to take your kids, enjoy storytime and special events. Now seems contaminated by these people.

I've been worried for some time, as I'm sure many others have, of the damage that kinksters and queer theorists will do to LGBT people. This is like a nightmare coming true

Yep, normalising kink at pride has been hugely damaging to the LGB, as has expanding this acronym to include many and various groups of people unrelated to sexual orientation.

Gay men have spent decades trying to undo unfounded links between gay men and this kind of behaviour only for the very organisations who should be supporting the LGB firmly planting the idea back in the public mind.

It's interesting to look at an instance of what happened when a library did choose to cancel an event due to concerns about appropriateness.

In 2019 a drag group called 'Glitter Hole' were booked to perform at Deansgrange Library in Dublin. People complained, pointing to sexually explicit material on their social media:
twitter.com/EmmaMurphy12150/status/1116726896916664321

The library cancelled the event. They first said this was due to concerns as to whether it was age appropriate. But then when they were criticised, they said it was due to homophobic vitriol received from people online, and that they had cancelled it due to safety concerns and that the event itself was age-appropriate. So the problem wasn't the material on Glitter Hole's social media, the problem was the people who had complained.
www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30917953.html

That didn't save them, the library were still criticised as homophobic.
twitter.com/GlitterHoleDub/status/1117702595240501248

There's a difference in that the problem was the group's social media rather than its performance at the library, but I think if we want to keep robust safeguarding, the group should have had a separate name and social media for its child-friendly performances, and given that it hadn't, it should have been accepted as reasonable that people had objections.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties, which campaigned to introduce hate speech laws and has said that it will not defend freedom of speech for gender critical women, called the council's decision 'censorship'.
twitter.com/ICCLtweet/status/1118850758164848640

Yep, accusations of homophobia were flying around when people were raising concerns about NSPCC Rubber Toilet Wank Man - including from Owen Jones and the NSPCC twitter account.

Gotta prioritise men's fetishes, Mermoose

I have spent years telling my DC the rule about "what's in your pants is private"

This display RUINS that message, utterly ruins it.

Not only are the private parts not private - they are there to display and make "art" of. Ugh.

This is such an important point from Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g :

This will have done absolutely nothing to convince many socially conservative, deeply religious people that they and their children have nothing to fear from living in a secular, tolerant society with equal rights for LGB people. As others have said above and on many previous threads, it took decades of patient work for gay rights activists to break down the unthinking prejudice many people had that gay men had predatory intentions towards little boys and young teenagers (and some had similar fears about lesbians and girls) .

Judging by some of the responses from the citizens of Redbridge and further afield to this furore, that link is still there in the minds of many. This sort of thing will lead directly to open homophobia and make the lives of LGB people that much harder. What a disaster

There's a concerted effort from some religious groups in this and other areas to use a school's Sex Relationships Education parental consultations to censor various aspects of the SRE (and Science) curriculum via organised campaigns. Offensive stunts like this do everything to whip up a belief that libraries and schools are in the grip of activists looking to groom children into sexual behaviours.

It's so massively irresponsible, yet too many clueless people support things like this around children.

Previously women have been sacked, hounded and receive death and rape threats for pointing out a lack of safeguarding and that has directly led to not one single adult speaking out when a Rainbow coloured monkey dangles genitalia in-front of children’s faces.

Some time over the past 10 years we have switched from ‘what can we do to protect children from flashers and unsolicited dick pics’ to this. I blame it squarely on the mainstreaming of Kink #acceptancewithoutquestion

I worked for a large children’s charity for 3 years and used to commission services for CYP, including arts.

To me Mandinga Arts looks like a typical well-meaning creative group that has been taken over or influenced by the woke without realising it.

This is what happen when all the usual safeguards are eroded by Kink and Sex Positive groups forcing their way under the LGBT umbrella. (And after the robust kicking dished out to anyone who questioned the inclusion of the T, is it surprising that there has been little opposition to this?!)

As a commissioner you should always be cautious with arty groups because their job is to push boundaries. A lot of people fucked yo big time here, but the real culprit is the culture behind it.

There is definitely an infiltration at Mandinga Arts by "furries" and others of a similar persuasion... grooming and fetishs in plain sight.

But how does that 'culture' come about? Who pushes the 'culture' into the mainstream? The same sort of people who threaten women with death and rape and doxxing and reporting to employers, I'd wager.

I don’t doubt that Masdintle

I meant that I hope they don’t simply single one or two employees and volunteers out for this, declare job done and move on. They (as in all the organisations involved in this) need to closely examine what factors, people or external organisations Stonewall created a culture where this was acceptable to so many and/or in which people did not feel they could speak out.

Ah I get you TheSockMonster. I agree entirely

Wearing of carnival costumes does not make you a furry necessarily that’s really culturally insensitive.
Also funnily enough most LGBT people want to claim furries about as much as straight people. I’m sure there are LGBT furries but statistics would say straight people have more of a claim to them.

Trans has nothing to do with sexual orientation, which is why many people are against the inclusion of 'T' into 'LGB'.

LGBT+ can certainly include straight people, since (a) the T might be straight, (b) the + stands for something like QIIAAPP, where one of the Is stands for Intersex (who might be straight), one of the As stands for Allies (who might be straight), one of the Ps stands for Polys (who might be straight), and so on. (See www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-33278165 and www.unomaha.edu/student-life/inclusion/gender-and-sexuality-resource-center/lgbtqia-resources/queer-trans-spectrum-definitions.php.)

So, it is a difficult question whether a particular carnival act comes under the LGBTQI+ umbrella.

It probably has nothing to do with LGB or indeed T. However, the significant point is that whichever alphabet letters it comes under (if any), it is part of the same process of chipping away at society's boundaries, and it comes in the context of the library DQ acts that have been doing that already for a while.

Here's boris with rhe monkeys, they sure do get about.

"Exotic dancers" there... now children's entertainment. Something has gone awry somewhere.

Ah yes. Safeguarding culture has gone out of the window.

The monkeys may or may not be LGBTQ+ linked... but the loss of Safeguarding culture is definitely linked to the vociferous push for "acceptance without question" from the TQ+ end of the rainbow.

Is that picture of Boris genuine? Obviously we can't see the dildo but it appears to be the same costume, bear nipples and all.

How could anyone think for a second this was acceptable? Horrific

@TurquoiseBaubles

Is that picture of Boris genuine? Obviously we can't see the dildo but it appears to be the same costume, bear nipples and all.

I googled "london mayor boris johnson attends exotic dancers" just now and the top result was a link to a page on alamy.com (the respected stock photo agency) with a URL and description "London Mayor Boris Johnson Attends Photocall Exotic Dancers" and text referring to mandinga arts. However, on clicking the URL it then says the page doesn't exist. I'd guess it has been deleted.

Other links appeared referring to Getty Images Canada and other respected sources (also mentioning Mandinga in the link titles, which I didn't mention in my search terms) but again appeared absent when clicked.

It looks like, for now, it's still present here: www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/london-mayor-boris-johnson-attends-a-photocall-with-exotic-news-photo/834798114
but get your screenshots quick.

The child in the picture posted on Sun 11-Jul-21 23:12:52 by ItsAllGoingToBeFine couldn't look more uncomfortable, resistant and afraid if he tried, the furry rainbow person can see the child's distress and he just doesn't give a toss. All those who think this is acceptable around children justify that picture and the child's reaction.

Waving dildos in children's faces has nothing to do the LGBT community. I'm bi and have many gay friends and they are just normal people. It is not all kink all the time, it is not semi-sexual displays around children. The gay community has fought hard for acceptance and to show people that they're not deviants or paedophiles or anything of the sort. Shoving this sort of thing in front of people's faces is going to undo any progress made with conservative and/or religious types, isn't it? We're going to regress in terms of gay rights if people keep insisting this is what LGBT is all about. I'm so angry.

@TurquoiseBaubles

Is that picture of Boris genuine? Obviously we can't see the dildo but it appears to be the same costume, bear nipples and all.

It seems to be from the launch of the Thames festival in September 2008. Most of the images are Alamy or Getty stock images, but here they are on the London Se1 community website in 08. www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/3489

In my job I came across a convicted paedophile whose approach was to groom adults to grant him access to children by doing a kind of nursery rhyme/fairy tale pastiche. He was creating something "fun and quirky ". He even had different versions for different age groups.
Scumbag.