Is Pride really just turning in to one big kink fest?

[TitsInAbsentia]

I mean, who wouldn't want to see this on a day out? 😡

twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1541196113222504448

It would be nice to think that the people pushing kink at Pride and the people pushing “family friendliness” just disagree, and stuff like the OP are a result of the movement being pulled in different directions. I think that’s true to some extent.

But it’s all got a bit Rainbow Dildo Butt Monkey/ Family Sex Show where it seems like kids being exposed to men who want to expose themselves is a feature not a bug.

And I don’t even see how gay people can claim it back from the QT types.

Definitely lost its focus. As others have said, it used to portray that gay and lesbian people are ordernary people and give them courage to come -out. It would provide support to this community.

I remember chatting to a gay work colleague about Pride who said it’s has served its purpose, and he wouldn’t touch the modern pride movement at all.

Please can we stop talking about Laurence fg Fox. And the poster who name checked him as 'talking commonsense'?!! And who basically said that the LGB community are all good now and should 'dial it back'?*

I think we're going to be hearing a lot more from him now that LGBA and KJK are working with him.

😡

No, disagree entirely.

We don't have a far right in the UK: you can't import the American one over here. In America our Tories are centre left and probably a bit more. And the original Pride did what was needed about dealing with getting used to seeing two men or two women kissing or holding hands, no this change in feeling is absolutely nothing to do with conservative views at all. And I say that as a lesbian who was actually marching at Pride in the section 28 days.

It is the TQ+ lobby and their pushing and overpublicising and forcing kink into non consenting people's faces and insisting that it's a 'normal part of LGB' (no, involving non consenting others in your sex life/being an exhibitionist really bloody isn't - that's just being an inappropriate pita, regardless of your orientation) and pushing it until it's a straight corporate fest, and getting men in drag being very inappropriate with kids and calling it inclusion - that is what has blown this all apart and will take down all of us. The swinging of 'homosexual' to mean anything at all (but not homosexual cos that's like being a nasty racist) the swinging of language to make 'woman' a dirty word and make everyone 'people' (which is default male) is all the gender ideology lobby's fault. They have to own that. They don't give a damn either, they have no care or interest at all in women or gay people, only in how they and their resources can be used.

And it's no good trying to spin this as being mean to poor trans people, this is the TQ+ Political Lobby . The difference being that they only and exclusively represent the interests of trans people who do what the political lobby want and are quite shockingly vile to TQ+ people who step out of that line or want to voice any other views. This is not T people, this is TQ+ politics. They are not the same thing.

And no, again, no good trying to push the American idea here that the only people who care about and speak against the appalling assault on gay and women's rights and children's safeguarding from the TQ+ lobby are nasty nasty religious right conservative nuts who don't like women and gay people (and so you don't have to listen or care what they say) - get a grip. Many of the women fighting on this in the UK are LBGT+ ffs. We do not have the American right here. I'm sorry that's inconvenient to your arguments, but this is a false trail. It would be better to face up to the reality of what this actually is, which is a political lobby with extremist views that have one fucking ton in common with the far right and other authoritarian totalitarian regimes, because all this bullshit is breaking down further and further by the day.

Applauds artichoke.

An interesting point, Purg. I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes sense.

We also know many (most?) transwomen are heterosexual too, as they demand the right to have sex with lesbians. And transactivists totally oppose LGB groups.

Heterosexual vs gay. Much to think about there.

They've been bounced out.

Like women have been bounced out of women's spaces, sports, resources, refuges.

If this is pointed out, there's a whole raft of deflection to avoid facing it such as far right conservative religious transphobic patriarchial old saggy titted dinosaur rights hoarding privilege inclusion beeeekind yada yada yada hurled in the hope that people will just shut up and put up.

No. Done now.

no good trying to push the American idea here that the only people who care about and speak against the appalling assault on gay and women's rights and children's safeguarding from the TQ+ lobby are nasty nasty religious right conservative nuts ….. We do not have the American right here. …. It would be better to face up to the reality of what this actually is, which is a political lobby with extremist views that have one fucking ton in common with the far right and other authoritarian totalitarian regimes.

This.

@Artichokeleaves 👏👏👏

Thank you for writing this so I didn't have to. I haven't been to Pride for many years for these reasons. I can't understand why so many people I know still go and excuse all the male indecent exposure, the drag queens, the leather pups with 'Oh, but it's Pride.'

I’m not really getting this. I think if you’d been to a pride march 20-30 years ago you’d see plenty of pretty raunchy stuff, depending on which city you are in, though not necessarily as part of the parade.
I think you’d be fantastically naive to take kids to a Pride event, and in my very limited experience from 20 odd years ago they are events dominanted by exuberant, young, intoxicated men, and with correspondingly wobbly boundaries.
Im sure there has also been massive encroachment from corporate interests and from the TQ element too, but as a baseline proposition, no, don’t take your kids to Pride.

The last Pride I attended was Cardiff Mardi Gras in perhaps 2008-9. I was there distributing leaflets promoting various lesbian groups and 90% of the women I approached said more or less indignantly 'I'm not lesbian!' There was a big funfair and boy bands and it felt like a day out for straight people and their children, with the drag queens and the guys in chaps with their bums out like a sideshow. After a couple of hours, as the proportion of drunk young men staggering around increased, me and the other lesbians of my acquaintance went off to find a bar and have a grumble. I've not been back since.

I agree. I was at pride marches 20 years ago and there were plenty of blokes in leather chaps with their arses out then. It’s never been a family event

IMO it's all become a bit of a competition of who can be the most inclusive and non-judgemental. No-one wants to be the one to say things have gone too far.

I don't go to Pride marches, so my knowledge of them must be skewed by the 'out there' stuff that makes the papers, twitter and, sometimes, threads like these. I choose to believe that most of it is people, grown ups, enjoying themselves, feeling safe, dressing up, and hooking up if they want to. I hope that naked perverts, puppy play - bring the kids!, is rare but should be better policed. But I'm being given the impression that pride is like the purge but for kink. I don't think this is the reality yet.

I remember being forcefully redirected from the men’s to the women’s toilets in a very crowded pub by a friend (gay man) who thought that my (straight man) circuits might be permanently fried by what was going on in the gents, so I think the “Purge” element has always been there, and always is there in certain sections of the gay community, it just spills out more into the public sphere during Pride.
And yeah, there is perhaps more insistence on “being seen” by some more politicised (humourless) elements, that might even detract from the free wheeling atmosphere of yesteryear? I’m not sure it’s a massive issue in terms of safeguarding kids unless you need to regularly walk them across Leicester Square for some reason, which nobody does.

I don't think adults getting up to stuff in the privacy of their own...public toilet is the problem. That happening causes me no surprise and I give zero fucks. I've not been to the smoke for a few years, wtf is happening on Leicester Square? Why shouldn't people take their kids there? Is it all the time, just during pride, at night? Do I really want to know?

@IcakethereforeIam ha ha, sorry, no, I just meant that gay male culture can be very debauched indeed, and that this usually is kept limited to gay clubs/spaces, but kind of overflows during Pride. My point, sort of point, being that it’s always been thus. Or at least has long been thus.

So you don't go, your knowledge is only what you're seeing and hearing in the press and here, but you don't think the reality is what LGB people here are explaining it is?

This whole personal reality thing that only happens to you is lovely, but you really can't require that other people agree that they share it with you, or call it objective fact.

I remember being forcefully redirected from the men’s to the women’s toilets in a very crowded pub by a friend (gay man) who thought that my (straight man) circuits might be permanently fried by what was going on in the gents,

Thanks a bunch, friendly gay man. Because women’s facilities must always be open to any man who wants to use them. Male distress must always outweigh female distress.

@Artichokeleaves I love your posts, here and on other threads. I'm probably still suffering from 'be kind' and wary of cognitive bias. I am more inclined to think the whole thing has been captured by TQ+, especially the +.

Gay men are often the most misogynistic.

I should have seen that one coming.
The women’s toilets were full of other friendly gay men and for the record I would never otherwise go in the women’s toilets but the whole place was pretty much peak sausage party.