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?

"It's ok for a child to go to the zoo and see many types of primates. Some have brightly coloured faces and hairless behinds. Some have large testicles and penises.

But, an entertainer in a costume with those same features, somehow poses a threat to children, so must be banned?"

That is idiotic reasoning, on a par with "I bet you have a gender neutral toilet at home!"

Aren't the animals in zoos behind bars?

Ah I see they actually haven’t a clue about why people are annoyed and have immediately gone into defensive mode

To coin a phrase “dear mandiga, educate yourself”

Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of comments on the Mandinga twitter feed are calling them out for how inappropriate this was.

And then you get a few like the peach at the top of this page.

Excellent points from everyone about the analogy with zoos. Also, parents book to go to zoos on the understanding there will be naked animals. Very few parents expect there to be a fucking grown man dressed as a monkey with a giant dildo in the library

@Ereshkigalangcleg

"It's ok for a child to go to the zoo and see many types of primates. Some have brightly coloured faces and hairless behinds. Some have large testicles and penises.

But, an entertainer in a costume with those same features, somehow poses a threat to children, so must be banned?"

That is idiotic reasoning, on a par with "I bet you have a gender neutral toilet at home!"

We shall await Ash Sarkar's retweet!

It's absolutely astonishing to see people defending this. Like, I just cannot believe it. It makes it so clear how gaslighting and grooming takes place.

It's so knee jerk. Sometimes you need to take a step back and look at what you're endorsing.

It’s like Jez and Super Hans went into the children’s entertainment business.

@Theeyeballsinthesky

Ah I see they actually haven’t a clue about why people are annoyed and have immediately gone into defensive mode

To coin a phrase “dear mandiga, educate yourself”

Well, there you go. Now we know what to do with the troupe!

We wouldn't want to have one rule for monkeys and one rule for humans-dressed-up-as-monkeys, would we?

@Deliriumoftheendless

It’s like Jez and Super Hans went into the children’s entertainment business.

I know the situation isn't funny irl, but this made me cackle!

@bellinisurge

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.

This is very common. Of course it is. It makes sense to find work that brings you into contact with young children. I know someone who did therapeutic work in prison and praised a prisoner for his exquisite illustrated children's stories. He was going to help him get them published until he was told what the prisoner was doing time for.

Sorry, replied to wrong person

Masdintle

Aren't the animals in zoos behind bars?

Well, there you go. Now we know what to do with the troupe!

We wouldn't want to have one rule for monkeys and one rule for humans-dressed-up-as-monkeys, would we?

As a young teenager, I loved the novels of William Mayne. I was so sad when years later he was convicted of sexual offences against young girls and imprisoned. I don't think I could re-read any of his books now without my whole view of him being coloured by this knowledge. I don't know the circumstances of his offences. Did his status as an award-winning children's author facilitate things?

Why do these things keep happening in libraries? What is it about libraries in particular?

Why do these things keep happening in libraries? What is it about libraries in particular?

The target isn't libraries, it's children's libraries.
Perverts will target areas where they have access to children. Schools are pretty good at weeding them out these days, so they've moved on to places where safeguarding is not so good ... or worse, where safeguarding is deemed to be transphobic.

I think it's worth repeating for the benefit of anyone who's never seen this before that back in the 1970s on the back of huge social change and a move to ending stigma around sex outside marriage, gay and lesbian sex etc, the Paedophile Information Exchange (that was their name - nobody much knew that word at the time, so it didn't have the connotations it has now) campaigned for the age of consent to be abolished or reduced to well below the age of puberty - four is mentioned in the Morning Star article linked below (yes, 4 years old ).

They approached the National Council for Civil Liberties (now called Liberty) and asked to be an affiliate organisation. The NCCL said yes, fine, and that gave PIE a veneer of respectability which enabled it to operate in plain sight for years and years until finally shut down in the 1980s.

morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/easy-pie-rebranding-paedophilia

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26352378

A gay rights conference backs a motion in favour of paedophilia. The story is written up by a national newspaper as "Child-lovers win fight for role in Gay Lib".

It sounds like a nightmarish plotline from dystopian fiction. But this happened in the UK. The conference took place in Sheffield and the newspaper was the Guardian. The year was 1975.

--

PIE was formed in 1974. It campaigned for "children's sexuality". It wanted the government to axe or lower the age of consent. It offered support to adults "in legal difficulties concerning sexual acts with consenting 'under age' partners". The real aim was to normalise sex with children.

Journalist Christian Wolmar remembers their tactics. "They didn't emphasise that this was 50-year-old men wanting to have sex with five-year-olds. They presented it as the sexual liberation of children, that children should have the right to sex," he says.

And there we have it. Exactly the argument so many are using today, that those of us who object to highly sexualised costumes and performances aimed at children are prudes. Why can't children enjoy kink and drag, just like adults? There are, after all, people openly using Twitter to network with each other using the label MAP - minor-attracted person - or NOMAP - non-offending minor-attracted person. They claim to be perfectly safe around children as it's all in the mind and there's no actual contact with children. Twitter has no problem with this.

Long overdue that we all stand up and say this isn't OK.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41213657

I do wonder whether it's this kind of stuff that will open Labour's eyes to what is going on. As Labour councillors and the MP for the area are speaking out about this.

mobile.twitter.com/cllrkatebutler/status/1414251442312028164

@Furries

Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of comments on the Mandinga twitter feed are calling them out for how inappropriate this was.

And then you get a few like the peach at the top of this page.

all you’ve done is overestimate the intelligence of your audience.

Er, the audience are children. But this person means the parents, of course. Tweet strikes me as an accidental admission that a lot of the brainwashed woke types are aspiring to be sophisticated and clever. The people who go along with this are consciously attempting to signal “open-mindedness” but they’re conformists to the core.

It strikes me that performative, competitive “open-mindedness” is a very dangerous fashion.

Some monkeys in captivity have been known to throw their faeces. I'm assuming that this isn't being proposed as part of Storytime?

@PronounssheRa

MellieBellie

They have liked a few tweets blaming 'transphobes'. At this point my inclination to believe they are just a performing arts group who got something wrong has disappeared. They are knee deep in this stuff.

If this is transphobia, then colour me transphobic.

Lol at the 'how dare you suggest this is anything to do with LGBT' posts! How else do people think that an adult male dressed as a rainbow monkey with big fake schlong on display would have got anywhere near a kids library, apart from under that umbrella?!

I feel so sorry for gay people right now. All those years they spent campaigning to make people understand that their sexuality wasn't a kink, or dangerous to kids, or perverted. That they were just regular people who happened to be attracted to people of the same sex as them. Its all being obliterated by these people who are appropriating that struggle for... Well, God knows what really.

And the vast majority of trans people who aren't represented at all by these sorts of peverts. I feel very sorry for them.
Don't most straight people know lesbians and/or gay men now. I hope that at least isn't an issue.

@aliasundercover

Why do these things keep happening in libraries? What is it about libraries in particular?

The target isn't libraries, it's children's libraries.
Perverts will target areas where they have access to children. Schools are pretty good at weeding them out these days, so they've moved on to places where safeguarding is not so good ... or worse, where safeguarding is deemed to be transphobic.

Libraries are (as someone mentioned downthread) typically not staffed by anyone who has had safeguarding training. It is not a requirement.

Libraries use lots of volunteers to run them - no safeguarding training.

Children quite often (particularly vulnerable children who are facing difficulties at home) often use libraries as a place of refuge.

Off the top of my head, those are a few very good reasons why an adult who was wanting to exploit children might think a library is a good place to start.

Thanks for posting that Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g. I had no idea about PIE and I’m totally shocked. Exposing children to sexuality is not ok and the people concerned in this incident obviously have no understanding of that.