#kink at pride discourse

[library-fae]

"kink shouldn't be at pride"

what do you count as kink? certain clothing? harnesses, nudity, pup hoods, leather, latex, chokers, leashes, whips, chains?

how do you decide what is a clothing choice and what is kink? where do you draw the line?

you know... people see cross-dressing as a kink too

what about sexuality around children? we can't expose them to that!

except its known that children learning about sex in a healthy and safe environment is important

if kink shouldn't be at pride, does that mean kink shouldn't be in public?

so you believe people should be shamed and shut away from society for expressing certain sexual desires or dressing a certain way?

kink is intrinsically linked with the queer community for a reason

maybe think about why

[shrimpmandan]

anti-kink people who are proshippers are the funniest group of people to me because they'll be like "YEAH FREAK IT I LOVE INCESTUAL ABUSIVE KINKY MONSTERFUCKER CONTENT HASHTAG PROBLEMATIC, CENSORSHIP HARMS LGBT PEOPLE, DON’T LIKE DON’T LOOK”, and then those same people will make a 4 paragraph post about how kink at pride should be banned because they had a fucking panic attack over seeing a guy on a leash in public

[feather--fae]

honestly it's kind of weird how some of yall will treat anything vaugly kink related like it's the same as full on public sex. like yall will see someone in a collar or, god forbid, a leash and act like someone just got fully naked in and showed you their junk instead of like,,,, wearing an accessory??? even like, puppy play or bdsm gear or whatever, it's just a costume they're wearing. like people will see kink gear at pride and be like wow that's so inappropriate they essentially whipped their junk out and started having hardcore sex in front of me :// like no, you saw someone wearing an outfit. it's like the equivalent of someone wearing lingerie out in public but lingerie that didn't actually show anything. like yeah, maybe it makes you a little uncomfortable bc it's not what you're used to seeing or whatever, and like that's fine you can feel whatever you do, but your discomfort doesn't mean you can dictate to other people what they can and can't do. seeing straight ppl make out on the bus makes me uncomfortable, but i don't think het pda should be illegal or whatever

[asagi-asagiri]

so now we've got 29 more days of conservatives/fascists/libertarians getting physically triggered seeing rainbows or anything that has more than two different colors on it

[americascomic]

I talked to a trans femme teen yesterday who told me to not use slurs (faggot, tranny) and I think people like to blame social media for these kids being so tenderqueer-y, but this kid also told me that of the 1,400 kids in her art school, there is lots of out gay, trans masc and non-binary AFAB kids but only 10 t-femmes, and I saw in her and this other trans femme teen I know this harsh assimilationist streak (they want to go stealth, strive for conventional beauty standards, jealous of the cis het white blonde girls) because they barely have a community and so it becomes a place to survive.

The internet is this boogieman that distorts what is the consensus. It has a selection bias of hyper isolated, neurodivergent, and anxious people who are just looking to survive

I look at queer kids with annoying conservative opinions I don't see the solution being "internet stop sucking" - the assimilationist woodworking "Cross Dressing Quarterly" trannies of the 90's didn't need TikTok to get this way, it was the violence of the closet.

I see the problem being them being scared kids - what bell hooks calls "the most oppressed class" and I see the solution being a more porous, safe community between kids and adults (outside of the nonprofit industrial complex that uses queer youth spaces to condescend, infantalize, and give resources in a nondemocratic way)

We always say "protect trans kids" and it's worth queer adults of all types toughing through bigotry and accusatory stares to find these kids, build relationships, give resources and love them. All we have is each other. We protect us. Us tranny faggots

[shrimpmandan]

Idk about the US but at least here in Brazil pride parades are marketed as +18 in part because of provocative drag queens and the leather/kink community tagging along, so this "ooh there are children there!!" argument just bugs me 'cause they're literally not allowed there?? If you wanna hide an important contributor of our rights movement at least base your arguments on reality bro. Plus, even in the US, free-for-all-ages LGBT events exist separately from the Parade, so kids (and adults who can't handle randos dressing up) don't have to sacrifice comfort in order to enjoy Pride

!!!

[enemywasp]

I think a lot of us all get so caught up trying to defend stuff cause "its not always a sexual thing!" That we overlook that sometimes it is tho and that's okay.

Like over the years people chant more and more about how furries aren't actually all getting off in suits so it's okay! To the point where I see people claiming that being a furry is more of a kids thing and anyone who sexualises it is some kind of predator. When actually, yeah for some people it IS a sex thing. And that doesn't mean they're destroying or butting into the community, you've just been so busy defending that YOU don't do it in a sexual way you've forgotten that it's not actually a crime if you do.

Same with dogboys, catgirls, catboys, etc and people who just like wearing ears and tails for the aesthetic and stuff. Good for you! Why are so many of you going feral at people who do that stuff sexually. Hell I'd argue wearing collars and chains with ears and a tail was more a kink thing first.

Same goes with being proship and shipping "immoral" ships, "its okay cause I'm not actually getting off to it!". Someone probably is tho and that's okay. That's directly leaning into a lot of soft antis ideals of "oh I can respect you slightly more if you're coping but if you're just into that you're disgusting"

Hell you can say that same thing about Pride. And how even people within the community are really against any forms of kink being celebrated. Cause "it doesn't have to be sexual!" But it can be, and it often is. We shouldn't all have to be these puritan cut outs. A lot of people are being considered sexual deviants just for being gay to begin with, why are you trying to please people who don't really like or respect us to begin with?

I think every single example here falls under the same ideal of throwing someone "worse" under the bus to gain approval of others who'll look down on you slightly less.

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

The more I think about Anharion and Sarcean the more I'm convinced they are an allegory for queer trauma and Will will have to embrace, accept, and forgive himself in order change his narrative.

In which case I don't think the collar is compulsion but something else. James - once Anharion in a past life and a former novitiate in this one (he knows all the stories) - did say it wasn't. "All the stories are lies" and "the collar was working but he felt no compulsion", as well as his speculation the collar became tawdry wishful thinking by those who objectified him.

In many ways James has already accepted himself and embraced Anharion, and in so doing made himself a villain to the Light, polite society, and a self righteous religious order. Everything he does is repellent to them but they're also obsessed with him. He is unmentionable but always present. He is condemned for killing the Stewards but they're surprised when reminded they've been trying to kill him since he was 11. Of course he needed to die, he's an abomination. The Stewards were doing the Lor– Lady's work by killing such a corrupt creature.

If Sarcean and Anharion are queer allegory then there is definitely more to their relationship and perceived villainy than what we've been told.

I'm especially struck by how the Light always calls the Lady Sarcean's former love – using language that describes a tragic romance. All the while they dismiss Anharion as a perverse sexual fixation when it's clear in Sarcean's POV that it's Anharion who was the love of Sarcean's life. That Sarcean had loved him long before the Lady. That Sarcean chases pieces of Anharion throughout all his chosen lovers. That it's Anharion he bound to him across time and space. It mirrors how often queer relationships are belittled, the acceptable heteronormative relationship romanticized.

Will/James and Sarcean/Anharion's kinky preferences play into that too. There's a pressure for them to conform and never give into what they want to indulge.

[alys-gay-parade]

Let me preface this by saying I - as a bisexual, transmasc enby who enjoys light bondage - am one of the more progressive people I know, only outshined by my partner (who I am reblogging this from) and their family.

The most important part of kink is consent. The random people you subject your puppy play kink onto are not consenting. Most people would feel uncomfortable seeing somebody in the mall walking their partner on a leash. Why would that be any different just because you are at a pride parade?

We aren't talking about the people just wearing their skimpy leather and pup masks. We're talking about the people who begin to act out their kinks in public, subjecting others to their kinks without consent. The adult people that hand out sex toys to minors, or have their whole ass cocks out, or are trying to explain the more explicit parts of their kink to curious minors they don't know who happened to ask why they're dressed a certain way. That's not okay. That's inappropriate interacrions with a minor, and in any other scenario would be considered grooming. But just because it happens at pride, we're expected to ignore it.

I don't know how to tell you this, but predators are everywhere, and they will take advantage of any easy opportunity to blend in with the crowd so they can offend without alerting anybody. That's how they operate. By not at least addressing this kind of behavior - which, contrary to popular belief, does happen at pride events - we are actually Putting children in danger by creating a space where predators feel they can get away with offending, or groom minors made vulnerable by their family not supporting their identity. Hidden predator + vulnerable minor + inattentive community = unreported and invisible abuse likely not adressed until decades into the minor's adulthood.

This is just drip.

[system-cypress]

Aces belong at pride!

Kink belongs at pride!

Two things can be true.

[lgbtlunaverse]

Everytime I see discourse about kink or nudity at pride I get reminded of the time I went to pride a few years ago with my mother and my sibling- who was 17 at the time and is somewhere on the ace spectrum- and about halfway through, the march went under a gatehouse. Some inhabitants were sitting in their open windows watching the parade. Right before we crossed under them, one of them decided to just... take her shirt off. She wasn't wearing a bra. And you know what happened? People whooped and cheered, and then kept walking. That's it. And there were kids around!! They didn't care. My sibling didn't care. My mother, a cisgender heterosexual woman in her 50s, did not care.

This stuff stops being such a big deal when you go offline. It was basically the same amount of boob you'd see in any perfume ad. No one was like 'what about the children?' And if you didn't wanna see it and looked down, no one would've called you a puritanical prude for that. And it helps to remind myself of that everytime I see kink at pride discourse getting rehashed because at actual pride, people don't care.

[repost-this-image]

...And the same person has responded again. Clearly, either I am explaining something wrong, or this is a fellow queer person who doesn't understand that agreeing with homophobes on issues of sexuality and gender identity is generally a bad thing.

So let's break this down.

LGBT is not a kink. This is true. However, LGBT people having kinks is also not an evil or disgusting thing. Many people have kinks. Kink is just human inventiveness and creativity applied to sex instead of, say, sculpture.

I'm sorry that you don't understand that wearing a leather harness in public is NOT THE SAME THING as having actual, literal SEX in public. But it's not. You know what you tell a kid who asks about that man wearing funny leather stuff? "Some grownups like to dress up funny sometimes." Crisis averted. You don't even have to mention the sexual aspect.

Being LGBT is, literally, a failure/refusal to conform to a world that says that everybody MUST BE cis, heterosexual, and allosexual. That is what we do not conform to. You are bisexual. That means that, like it or not, you do not conform to the idea that everybody must be allocishet. As long as society continues to be cisheteronormative, we are not conforming. Because that is what society wants us to conform TO. You don't have to see yourself as some kind of rebel to recognize that you don't fit into the allocishet mold.

Let me repeat myself again. To our enemies, you and I and "respectable" queer folks like Pete Butigieg, are exactly as much "disgusting, degenerate horndogs," and in exactly the same ways, as the people who go to Pride in leather gear or full drag. To them, a man walking down the street, perfectly normally, and holding hands with another man, is a sexual act. When you say "Don't do anything sexual at Pride, think of the children," the homophobes are assuming that you mean that gay people existing in public is bad and sexual and should not happen, because that is how they see us. Nobody is fucking in broad daylight. Nobody. If you see people actually fucking or showing off their genitals while they are at Pride, let me know because I have never seen or heard of that happening. I would be deeply angry if it did happen, because Pride is also not about having sex in front of people.

The first Pride in 1970 (the first anniversary of Stonewall) was not a fun family event. It was a literal riot against police brutality and laws against our existence. Until the 90s or so, Pride was always a riot. People do not bring small children to riots. Some Pride events may be family-friendly, but children are not the target audience of Pride. It is generally expected that if you're under 18 and at Pride, then you are old enough to have learned our history and the ways in which our history is bound up with the history of kink. It is assumed that if you are at Pride, you are mature enough to understand that even though kinky people like to wear leather during sex, and these people are also wearing leather at Pride, that they are not having sex at Pride. Again, please learn our history because you are embarrassing yourself.

In fact, here you go. Here are links to educate yourself, person whose username I am hiding for your safety. Because you seem to live in some fantasy world where nobody is homophobic or transphobic, and I assure you, an entire political party in the US is working very hard to try to make us illegal again. Pick one and get reading.

This one is a paid course, but looks to be well worth it if you can afford it:

And lastly, a current example of why this shit matters:

…And @renthony said it better than I did.

I just want to say it again for the teens out there:

The “groomer” rhetoric is not new.

I remember when all LGBT people were generally considered to be pedophiles. By most other people. I was y’all’s age.

When my parents were teens, two men holding hands in public could be arrested just for that, because it was “lewd and lascivious behavior.” Having gay sex was a crime. Dressing as the “wrong” gender was a crime. These things were considered pornographic by nature.

Leather and kink were featured in the first Prides, to flout society’s rules. To say, we’re here, we’re queer, and you cannot destroy us.

Again, until I was about 10 years old, there were still sodomy laws on the books in the United States.

And when I was a teenager, when Matthew Shepard was murdered (look it up, but be warned, it is gruesome), most adults still believed that gay men were pedophiles by nature.

The far right doesn’t just hate us. They want to go back to the days when children did not know about us, when adults could go for years without knowingly encountering a queer person.

They want every last one of us dead or in prison. Every single LGBT person in existence. Because to them, saying “some kids have two mommies or two daddies” is pornography. To them, saying “I’m not the gender I was assigned at birth” is pornography. You may as well be giving them a play-by-play of How To Have Anal Sex With Another Dude.

So when you act like the leather pride flag “isn’t a real pride flag,” when you say “no kink at Pride,” you are telling the far-right: “You were right. We are a bunch of filthy degenerate horndogs who shouldn’t exist in front of children.” You are playing directly into their hands.

Fuck that. I don’t need other queer folks doing our oppressors’ work for us.

If you are not for the LGBT community, warts and all, “freaks” and all, then you are against us.

[iwanttobepersephone]

Ok so I went to my first ever pride today and only then did it really click just how STUPID online pride discourse is

I saw like 3 fully bearded people with their tits half out. Good for them tbh they looked great

Atleast 4 queer Bible study groups were advertising, and this was a small pride parade too so it was definitely noticeable

A good chunk the people there were either on the older side of middle-aged or elderly

There were only like 3 booths that had kinky stuff, but it was all very polite, 2 of the 3 had like things that mostly covered the products so parents could make sure their kids couldn't see, it really wasn't like "oh there's penises everywhere!" You would just kinda walk up to a booth and realize that there's just a whole corner of bdsm gear. One of them was even handing out condoms which was kinda cool I guess

I saw a woman wearing an omnisexual pin and a man wearing an ally shirt with their 2 small children and they were having a great time. Nobody cared in the slightest and tbh the kids were adorable

All of which are things I have seen so many people make a fuss about, and I just. You didn't have the space to make a fuss about it irl cause there were too many people at every single booth having a great time! So, to anybody who sees this that has yet to go to a pride event but sees a lot of discourse online, it is all so so so much stupider than you could ever know. Like, I'm sure I still don't even know they half of it

[jotterstan]

I will say, I need some of y'all to have some introspection on why you think daddy kink confirms bottom!buck. Like I get that everyone's not gonna know every single facet of queer sexuality but some daddies like to get slutted out! Have some imagination, sometimes daddy want his big strong boy to make him sore and satisfied for hours cause good boys don't cum until they're told to.

[notaplaceofhonour]

Some people say “no cops at pride” because they want no cops at pride. Some people say it because they can’t stand competition.

[fucktoyfelix]

Needless to say if you or anyone else drags out these worthless takes onto my posts I will block you on sight. Reiterating: literally no one is sucking and fucking at pride in front of children...that genuinely just rightwing propaganda you are letting invade your brain. Unless you're conflating the simple act of wearing leather with a SEX SCENE in which case, take some time to actually unpack kink negative attitudes. As these directly oppose all queer liberation. Wearing kink gear is not a sex act. It's just clothes.