#queer folks being awesome
“We can never throw enough people overboard to win approval from our enemies.”— Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation
anyway since the shitcourse has started earlier than ever this year I just want to say that my stance on kink @ pride is firmly that I’d rather see one hundred leather pups than a single cop at pride, and it is in fact the half-naked kinksters some of y'all are so afraid of who have, in my experience, been the safest people to be around when cops inevitably revert to their default state and start menacing any queers they don’t like.
also for all the “think of the children"s out there, I wanna let you in on a little something:
I’ve taught a human development class to kids ages 10-12 for the last four years. our curriculum covers a lot of topics, among them sexual intimacy. one of our lessons involves looking at non-sexual nude illustrations of people with visible genitalia, as part of a discussion about all the different ways that bodies can look. we don’t conceal anything - a child once asked me why someone might want to put a penis in their mouth, and we had a great conversation about how different people like different kinds of intimacy.
some of the kids are curious and have a lot of questions. those kids’ parents should be prepared to answer any questions they might have in a thoughtful and age appropriate way, the same way they would if their kid had questions about, idk, a victoria’s secret ad or a suggestive music video or a comedian telling a joke a bit above their maturity level.
some kids prefer not to talk about it; I’ve definitely had kiddos too embarrassed to even look at my very cartoony and poorly-drawn genitalia diagrams. those kids’ parents should be aware of that and check in with their kiddos, the same way parents should when they take their children to any large event that could be overwhelming.
and a lot of kids just don’t give a shit. especially for the ones younger than I teach, sexuality is barely a blip on the radar and public semi-nudity is something silly at worst - although it’s much more likely that they’ll be seeing less skin than they would have at a beach or public pool. seeing a harness or a puppy mask or a dildo isn’t likely to raise any serious alarm or any questions they can’t be answered with "that’s something some people like to wear to special events to express themselves” or “that’s a toy for grown ups.”
what I’m getting at here is that a.) being in the vicinity of a person who’s partially dressed or holding a flogger is not in any way innately harmful to children and b.) the comfort and safety of children in public spaces and the ways in which they process anything potentially confusing they may see in those places is always the responsibility of the caregivers who presumably brought them into that space to begin with.
obviously there is a level of individual responsibility to not be a freak to children, and if someone is, like, urinating on kids or purposefully exposing their genitalia specifically to children that’s Fucking Bad. but baselessly assuming that this is an endemic problem that must be policed and that queer spaces are somehow particularly hostile to children is uuuh homophobic, and if you think so little of your own so-called community maybe you’re the one who shouldn’t be attending pride.
Speaking as a children’s librarian, I’ve never seen anything at Pride (or Dyke March for that matter) that is inherently inappropriate for or upsetting to children. Acting like sexuality is harmful will only make children feel confused and ashamed when they begin to experience sexual feelings. Some of those children’s first sexual feelings will, in fact, be kinky, and there’s no need for them to internalize the idea that those feelings make them an evil, bad person.
