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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

DQ Story Time kicked off in Bristol

194 replies

McDuffy · 29/07/2022 06:40

I'm going to wade into the comments...!

Protesters try to arrest drag queen Sab Samuel

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2ad0798c-0e9d-11ed-93cf-b011fa7fe86b?shareToken=3c528b6084adfbc7a3f1da805c2c7ee5

OP posts:
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6
SolasAnla · 29/07/2022 10:22

Anactor · 29/07/2022 09:19

"I dont see why they cant be expected to say no. I mean they could couldn't they? That's not to say councils and libraries aren't responsible for poor choices and irresponsible actions but I dont think that means we shouldn't be able to expect a person to do the right thing."

It's paid work, it's in their area of work and it means they are doing their act rather than their survival job. If the job is offered, a lot of performers will take it. The recent problems have been when the performer didn't have child-friendly costumes, or didn't re-write the act enough. In both those cases, it could be argued that the performer didn't realise there could be a problem.

Actors and performers often have to do things for work like strip naked, simulate sex, or undress very quickly in an area where people of both sexes will be rushing around. Do that long enough and our sense of 'what's appropriate' will become a bit blurred. There's a reason child actors must always have a parent or chaperone in attendance when not actually on stage.

No the problem is that the people, males, who decided to go into adult entertainment made a choice so child entertainment is 100% not their area of work.

The males opted to work in adult entertainment not as a clown or a magician or other type of child entertainer.

The males choose their profession.

It is the adult nature of their work which remains unsuitable for children.

If they are offered work the male could refuse on the basis of their profession like other adult professions are not and will never be suitable for children.

ThickCutSteakChips · 29/07/2022 10:28

SolasAnla · 29/07/2022 10:22

No the problem is that the people, males, who decided to go into adult entertainment made a choice so child entertainment is 100% not their area of work.

The males opted to work in adult entertainment not as a clown or a magician or other type of child entertainer.

The males choose their profession.

It is the adult nature of their work which remains unsuitable for children.

If they are offered work the male could refuse on the basis of their profession like other adult professions are not and will never be suitable for children.

Exactly.

There have been several 'child entertainer' drag queens now, who have had highly questionable public social media pages. Aida H Dee and Flo Job, come to mind, both public social media with sexually explicit content on there.

In what other arena would this be acceptable? If you were looking for a magician for your kids party and you looked on their Facebook page and there were sexualky explicit memes on there, would that be OK? Would you want to hire that person?

Apart from anything else, it shows that these men do not have anything close to sufficient training on working with children and safeguarding, if they don't even know that they shouldnt have explicit content on their public profile, and therefore should not be working with kids.

ThickCutSteakChips · 29/07/2022 10:30

I remember when Mhairi Black brought 'Flo Job' into a school in Scotland, Flo then posted pictures of the event on their public social media, without any parental permission. The school were also unable to tag their visitor on their Tweet about the event, because doing so would take a user from their school page directly to a page with explicit content on it.

Just, what the fuck?

SunThroughTheCloudsAt6am · 29/07/2022 10:31

It's paid work, it's in their area of work and it means they are doing their act rather than their survival job.

No it's not - they're adult entertainers, not children's entertainers. I bet they couldn't even make a credible balloon animal. All entertainers are not alike!

If the job is offered, a lot of performers will take it.

Pretty sure DQSH actually went out touting for business, councils didn't go looking for adult entertainment to expose kids to.

The recent problems have been when the performer didn't have child-friendly costumes, or didn't re-write the act enough. In both those cases, it could be argued that the performer didn't realise there could be a problem.

Then they are not suitable for performing to children! Ignorance is no excuse.

DisgustedofManchester · 29/07/2022 11:27

Oh look who is protesting.... La creme de la creme of feminism

DQ Story Time kicked off in Bristol
Abhannmor · 29/07/2022 11:48

Yes , @DisgustedofManchester ignore the women protestors and focus on Alpha men. Who sound like they're trapped in the Marvel Universe.

Deflection won't work here. Away with your Jedi tricks !

Ramblingnamechanger · 29/07/2022 11:53

I don’t much like the shouty men. And neither do I like the men that come on here and tell us to be kind, that our concerns don’t matter, and that we are wrong

Namerchangerextraordinaire · 29/07/2022 13:12

If they were having prostitute story hour, or dodgy massage parlour worker story hour, or striptease story hour, or male stripper story hour, or junkie story hour, or murderer story hour, or bulimics story hour, or rapists story hour, or BDSM story hour, or Roy Chubby Brown story hour it would be exactly the same.

Not everything is suitable for children.
Just because some adults like it, doesn't make it a great thing to shove down the throats of small vulnerable children.

Drag queens are absolutely not suitable.

EmbarrassingHadrosaurus · 29/07/2022 13:17

Ramblingnamechanger · 29/07/2022 11:53

I don’t much like the shouty men. And neither do I like the men that come on here and tell us to be kind, that our concerns don’t matter, and that we are wrong

They do, however, mark themselves out as unreliable narrators and unable to meet the demands of their self-appointed roles as disruptive to whatever their current slur or unevidenced claim/assertion is.

It's remarkably in line with the extracts here from Lifton's 8 Criteria for Thought Reform.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4382551-Live-not-by-lies-Solzhenitsyn-no-tambourines-involved?reply=111900052

FrecklesMalone · 29/07/2022 13:20

Treelines · 29/07/2022 07:07

Panto Dames, Justin in Gigglebiz… performers. That’s all.

Justin's a dick too

KatVonlabonk · 29/07/2022 13:25

Aida got aidaself a twitter ban for threatening and doxing women. That's a rubbish role model for kids.

Picketing is not the way to go though, it will backfire

SignOnTheWindow · 29/07/2022 13:27

SunThroughTheCloudsAt6am · 29/07/2022 07:28

Dames (well, in the old days, personally I think they've been well over the line in a couple of recent pantos I've seen - whilst absolutely fine in others), Justin etc. = aimed at children. Drag is adult entertainment.

Lets try it with something else - how about dance - everyone wears fairly revealing/skimpy costumes, but there's a fundamental difference between taking the kids to the ballet vs Burlesque no?

That's a very good analogy.

VestofAbsurdity · 29/07/2022 13:35

OldCrone · 29/07/2022 09:48

Has anyone explained yet what benefit there is for children from being read stories by a man dressed as a hyper sexualised grotesque parody of a woman?

No-one ever answers this question, not the one I keep asking - What Diversity and Acceptance is DQSH teaching children?

Answers come there none.

Boxowine · 29/07/2022 13:39

SolasAnla · 29/07/2022 07:35

Drag is adult entertainment.

Its adult entertainment for homosexual men, its not homophobia to point out that an adult entertainer is not a suitable role model for children. That is a very basic safeguarding fail that the council employees who are authorising paymemt of these acts fail to recognise.

Its intresting to see safeguarding play out on twitter, so many beard accounts in support or indifferent don't have an answer when asked why would an adult entertainer want to involve children.

It is sexist homophobia to pretend that drag is the cultural pinnacle which represents LGBT because its adult male homosexual entertainment.

That being said the article looks as if it has been lifted off twitter. This protest will be seen as "Right Wing" not "Anti-Government" / "Left Wing" because protests outside US vaccination centers were by the US political right, which totally ignores the political reality that most protesters were public facing working class as the office class were not as impacted by vaccine refusal as working from home was possible.
The "arrest" move is always a stupid one as it is false imprisoning which is a serious arrestable offence.

More importantly the protesters should be protesting outside the council offices as they are the ones who control what is paid for, from public funds. If I remember correctly this council had elected members who had no problem with the Family Sex Show being staged so their and the whole council's "understanding" of any safeguarding policy is not translating into actions.

The protest will be seen as right wing because it is linked to right wing groups in the US, some of whom have been engaging militant groups like the Proud Boys to not only protest but to arrive armed at dqst events in the US and clear the building.

I have no idea why you would compare this to Covid protests except to say that I definitely see that right wing groups are clearly attempting to link a number of causes together, one of them being anti-vax/anti-mask and this is not something relegated to the working class. Not when you start seeing Robert Kennedy Jr, Alex Jones et al involved.

I wish that British people were as committed to addressing Prince Andrew's involvement in child sexual abuse and sex trafficking as they are to eradicating drag queens from libraries.

MangyInseam · 29/07/2022 13:42

Abhannmor · 29/07/2022 09:37

I've always thought of libraries as a haven , almost like a secular church. Its horrible to see them weaponised in the culture wars like this.

And I'd feel the same if it was Christian story hour. Or Army recruitment story time or whatever. Sad.

I work in a public library. The one I used to had a DQST.

I think it's fair to say that there is a ton of tokenism, of all kinds, in libraries now.

Public libraries are of course meant to be accessible to all people and to support their interests and needs in terms of information access. They also have a strong mandate to be politically neutral and to maintain balance in their collections as far as reflecting all public views.

But a combination of political pressure and the fact that the majority of people working in libraries see themselves as politically progressive means that being inclusive has largely been interpreted as being a venue to push id pol, in much the same way schools have been.

It's a fine line, but behind the scenes I think it's pretty clear that this goes beyond just trying to respond to the community. Just as an example, the library I used to work at was very strongly taking that approach. When directed at the political level to concentrate programming on diversity, they came out with a list of 10 children's authors for branches to invite. All ticked some diversity box - not including being a woman in that - none were white. This is a region which is over 90% white.

As you might imagine, collection diversity was also poor - there was certainly a concentration on what were seen as marginalized voices, a full third of the YA books were queer oriented. But if you wanted to have political diversity in the collection you would not find it. (They were terrified about the possibility of having certain books on the shelves that people might be upset about.)

There are groups that don't feel all that included in the library any more because it is so clearly oriented to a particular progressive political view. When it comes down to it, you can't have an institution that is really inclusive - in the sense of being politically neutral - and also so committed to being a vehicle for social change, even what it sees as positive social change.

MangyInseam · 29/07/2022 13:49

SolasAnla · 29/07/2022 10:22

No the problem is that the people, males, who decided to go into adult entertainment made a choice so child entertainment is 100% not their area of work.

The males opted to work in adult entertainment not as a clown or a magician or other type of child entertainer.

The males choose their profession.

It is the adult nature of their work which remains unsuitable for children.

If they are offered work the male could refuse on the basis of their profession like other adult professions are not and will never be suitable for children.

Realistically there are always people with poor judgement.

Part of the reason we have rules, including just social norms, about what's appropriate is because there is a % of the population, which is not tiny, who are likely to misjudge what is appropriate.

Yes, people should know better. Certainly there are plenty of gay men who realize this is inappropriate. But there are also people who have poor boundaries of their own, who are not very bright, who are young and don't really know much about child development. It's not like there is a set of standards around these things required to be a drag queen.

And it's often a blind spot when people have good intentions themselves, that they do not consider that good intentions aren't enough to make something ok.

The real failure is with organizations and people who are supposed to know what is right for kids.

Penguintears · 29/07/2022 14:04

When people say that drag is suitable for children I always wonder if they would allow their Primary school-aged son to dress up as a drag queen on non-uniform day. Fake books an' all.

Penguintears · 29/07/2022 14:04

Fake boobs

Franca123 · 29/07/2022 14:21

Apart from the obvious wtaf problems with this. Do any kids enjoy it? I would expect my 3 year old to be terrified of someone with hair and make up done like that? It's freaky as hell. Mr Tumble dressed as a woman looks warm and cuddly. This dude looks like the child catcher. I can't see how this is aimed at children? I don't want to sound reactionary but are we sure he's not beating one out at the end of the show?

ChagSameachDoreen · 29/07/2022 14:22

If a white man dressed up as a black man, would he be welcomed to read stories to children?

If a gentile dressed as a Jew, would he?

Or if an able-bodied woman sat in a wheelchair and pretended to be disabled, would she be invited to read?

Mennex · 29/07/2022 14:32

My hulking great teenage sons were petrified of clowns and Ronald McDonald, and most of the widow twankies at pantomimes, as were their friends, up until about 6 or 7. Even after that they disliked clowns and people wearing garish make-up - The joker, Pennywise etc - all portrayed as evil in popular media.

Why do these parents think their toddlers will enjoy being told a story by a man dressed like an OTT clown? It baffles me. Why can't the librarians tell the story?

AmericanStickInsect · 29/07/2022 14:39

Saw an article in the Independent about protesting of DQST (Adie H D?) which said it's just a parody of women! And it actually upholds gender stereotypes rather than breaks them! The implication being you conservative bigots should be pleased??!
Parodying women...which about half the kids at that story time will grow up to be, and all of them will interact with. Upholding stereotypes...that harm every child there, but those whose adult form you are 'parodying' especially. Why would anyone be ok with that?! Why would only conservatives have a problem with it? Aren't decent people allowed to have a problem with the specifics without being written off as dumb reactionaries?

AmericanStickInsect · 29/07/2022 14:43

His defence:

"Drag queens are (typically, at any rate) over-the-top parodies of women: they are more gender-rigid than gender-fluid, for goodness’ sake"

Why are over the top parodies of women acceptable? Replace the word woman for any other group and ask if it would be ok to play it out in front of children. Urgh.

MrsWooster · 29/07/2022 14:45

It’s not inclusive of gay men, who’ve fought for years the idea that gay = effeminate.
It’s certainly not inclusive of women, since DQs aren’t women and their presentation is misogynistic caricature.
At best, it’s inclusive of drag queens.
At worst it’s inclusive of men who refuse to acknowledge boundaries and safeguarding.

What could possibly go wrong?