I have a slightly off topic comment, about something that I’ve noticed that’s kind of mystified me.

I’m a queer, kinky, polyamorous male. Being kinky is at least as big a part of my sexuality as being queer, and being poly is as important as either. I think of all three of these as being part of “who I am,” not just “what I do.” They are essential parts of me. Not action, but identity. Many people I’ve spoken with feel similarly.

Through this conversation, a sentiment that’s been expressed more than once is that, if the debate about making a gay pride parade childsafe is to be held, it should be held by the GLBTQ community itself or the parade organizers, not by straight folks or onlookers.

Leaving aside whether I agree with that stance or not, my question comes is why that same standard doesn’t seem to apply to BDSM or polyamory? I’ve seen debates here and elsewhere in which much was made of BDSM not being ‘off limits’ for discussion, and feminists who would take much affront at homosezuality being called ‘perverse’ seem to have no problem with BDSM being called ‘abuse.’ I’ve seen similar discussions of polyamory as well (although not here thank goodness).

I don’t think that a discussion of what behavior is appropriate at a pride parade needs to be restricted to the LGBTQ community (actually, I think that’s silly. Parades aren’t private), but if it is, then heck, I want the vanilla folks to butt out of discussions of BDSM and the mono folks to butt out of discussions of polyamory.

Really . . . it’s like some people think that it’s out of line to discuss what I do on a public street but totally within bounds to discuss what I do in my bedroom. What’s up with that?

And can I just say how sick I am of everything being about “the children?” Okay, I get you’re a protective parent. My question: why are queer folks and our sexuality the thing you’re *so* concerned about protecting them from–I mean just *seeing* it, knowing it exists–out of everything in this universe that you might want to be protecting them from?

Actually, it’s funny you should say that. I REALLY think you’re misreading the post. Gay people and their relationships (gays kiss and hold hands just like everyone else) are not what I’m protecting them from at all. Neither is the fact that gays have sex They’re young enough not to really go down the “sex” road at all (which is to say they don’t think or probably realize that I have sex). So the gay sex issue hasn’t come up yet, but it probably will as they age.

But it comes up in a normal setting. My big sister is gay; it’s been “normal” for them all their lifew. We hang out with my sister all the time (she and her wife have kids the same age as ours) and they’re at thte top of our list for people who would take my kids if my wife and I croaked. I’ve lived with her before and we may well again. Gay doesn’t bother me, or my children, at all. She’s just like their other aunts, except there’s no uncle around.

and, too: y’know, queer folks once were kids, too; and some of us would’ve been thrilled to know that, oh, hey, these people exist and seem to be happy; maybe someday…

Well, yeah, duh. What do you think I’m trying to teach my kids? Why do think I’d want to take them to a pride parade in the first place? Why do you think I like the poem? You think I’m asking one of their favorite aunts to not kiss, hug, hold hands with, or sleep with her wife just because they’re around? Don’t be ridiculous.

There seems to be a real inability to understand that this is a general statement.

Hell, i’ll flip it:

EXAMPLE A:
*I think violent rapists are absolute fucking deviants.
*Violent rapists are almost all heterosexual males.

*RESULT: This thought DOES NOT get read as “I hate males” or even “I hate hetero males”. Which IS correct, because I don’t. I hate rapists.

EXAMPLE B:
* I think people who perform overly sexualized acts in public are damn obnoxious.
*Those people are probably mostly hetero, though some easily identifiable subset of them are gay.

*RESULT: This, however, DOES get read as “I hate gays”. Which is NOT correct, because I don’t. I hate people who perform overly sexualized acts in public.

What exactly is it that’s supposed to happen to someone if they catch a glimpse of (person on leash, nekkid men kissing, topless dykes on bikes, drag queens, whatever)? No, seriously, what’s the problem? I see all kinds of shit I find not to my personal liking every damn day, never even mind het PDA’s. Obnoxious beer ads. Ads in general. Plug-ugly buildings. Terrible hairdos. What is it that’s so much worse about sexualized queer folks?

And can I just say how sick I am of everything being about “the children?” Okay, I get you’re a protective parent. My question: why are queer folks and our sexuality the thing you’re *so* concerned about protecting them from–I mean just *seeing* it, knowing it exists–out of everything in this universe that you might want to be protecting them from?

and, too: y’know, queer folks once were kids, too; and some of us would’ve been thrilled to know that, oh, hey, these people exist and seem to be happy; maybe someday…

if ya wanna talk I’ll talk. But you have to be willing to 1) read what I say, and 2) quote/summarize me accurately, or what’s the point? You’re not conversing with me, you’re not arguing with me.

You’re arguing with a straw man.

I suppose I could explain things to you, and you’d misquote them again, and I could explain them again, and you’d misquote them, and so on.

This is beginiing to seem like a waste of time.

And how dare, dare, you call me or even suggest I’m homophobic. not knowing me from shyt, nothing I’ve said would indicate any, ANY fear or hatred of homosexuals. I just have a different opinion and an outsiders opinion. You seem to be Heterophobic or even Heterosexist.

so whatever, its pointless. Like Amp said, I’m should keep my heterosexual ass out of this conversation.

I stand corrected–sorry. I’ve never been in a gay pride parade, and I would have sworn that (just upthread) someone said straights should butt out. Nobody corrected them, so I assumed that was true.

Because Amp has asked my to refrain from certain linguistic tactics, I am asking all of you to join me in a moment of silence.

‘kay?

We back on track together? Blood pressure lowered? Mine is; a little.

Sailorman: I’ll buy you a clue. Your participation in this thread is homophobic for the specific reason you stated above.

You have not been to a gay parade.

You don’t know what happens at gay parades.

You are willing to set up a hypothetical which makes certain aspects of gay parades immoral.

You are willing to forget that your hypothetical is, well, hypothetical and you get upset when we don’t dance to your general and principled “reasoning.”

You insist you are right.

Yet you have not been to a gay parade.

You insist you are right again and that we are dishonest because we don’t answer your questions.

You ask about the children. Teh Children! My gods!

You insinuate that rampant S&M deviance is marching down Main Street at high noon on a balmy Father’s Day. … you do know that most gay parades happen on Father’s day don’t you? How’s that for family-oriented, my friend?

Eh, the list is endless.

In other words, what–at this point–would convince you that I am arguing based on a generally applied principle, and not on a homophobic standpoint?

Anything?

Because there is nothing “general” or “principled” about your standpoint. You have suggested many times that S&M (or overt sexuality) takes place at gay parades. Then you suggest your’s is a hypothetical argument. Then you go back to using outrageous claims that this is a frequent and common practice.

Prove it. Prove that, on principle, given a gay parade, S&M is going to be widely displayed in public. Prove that “in general” gay parades are a frequent occurrence. Prove that kids are routinely exposed to gay parades.

Your stance is homophobic becuase you fail to regard any of the possible discourse that could be happening over the opening poem and you choose, instead, to pose a “hypothetical” that you soon get so lost in that it becomes less and less hypothetical with each subsequent post of yours until, well, it *becomes* your stance. You are now insisting on something that you originally brought onboard as hypothetical. So either you lost yourself, or your latent homophobia won out. Occam’s Razor and all that, I’ll put my money on the homophobia.

I understand the “It is our culture, stay out” part just fine. But Helloo–ooo? “Stay out” and “parade down a public street” are not generally compatible things.

And this was written with no sense of irony, eh? I suggest, Sailorman, that you read the poem at the beginning of this thread.

It would have been easier for you to say: “I don’t mind queers, as long as they act straight!”

Q-Grrll - I have have no idea how common they are. I only know that the major cities and gay friendly towns in my geographical location tend to have one every year,

I would suggest then that you do some research on gay parades. How many per state? How many per capita? Also, look for who is defining gay-friendly and whether or not that term comes from inside the community or from the straight folks looking on. The high visibility of queers does not always mean that a town or area is gay-friendly. In fact, the visibility might be a backlash against homophobia and active homophobic practices.

In NC, there might only be three parades in the entire state (Durham, Wilmington, Charlotte). Per capita, that’s not a lot of parades. And it means that for queers outside of these areas that 1) it probably isn’t safe to be out and on parade [think Fayetteville, the US Army and Marines] and 2) a great deal of personal planning, risk, and travel is invovled in attending a parade. Why, again, should any gay person take your child into account? Or the needs of the straight audience?

Then there’s the fear over whether you were seen at the parade; if you were caught on tape; if protestors from your town are there. Will your boss find out? Your landlord?

And yet ya’ll want us to worry about your kids.

And further more I think a pride parade should be kid friendly and family friendly. The problem homosexuality has right now is that it is seen as sexual deviancy and lumped right along with overal sexual deviancy. Pride week and the parades are probably the biggest events to celebrate the GLBTcommunity. It should include families and children. Unless you make the assumption that there aren’t gay families with children or Hetero families with gay children that would like their children to be proud of who they are.

But you’re straight, right? This is what straight people want for gays and lesbians. I’ve said it before in regards to SSM, and I’ll say it now: it won’t be long before the only good queer is a married queer, preferably now with children in tow.

Assimilation, folks, is assimilation, no matter how often it gets covered up as “kid-friendly” or “well, some queers do it too”.

Gay pride is there for the straight folks, but not as a form of entertainment or reassurance. We’re not around to coddle your insecurities. In most cases, pride parades are meant to highlight your fears, your homophobia, and your sense of personal normalcy — and then shake them all up together. Why should a pride parade conform to *your* needs?

The early parades I went to in the late ’80’s were a celebration of our BRAVERY for stepping outside the closet and insisting that straight folk recognize us and get over themselves and their homophobia. It was a way of highlighting our challenges and the depth of our personal convictions and courage in light of straight folks who were/are willing to assualt us, kill us, and criminalize our basic humanity.

Now you want us to think about your children. What an insult. Your children are not mine to raise: EVER. And don’t try to guilt me by saying “but my kid might be gay for all I know.” Well let me tell you — they are going to be far more harmed by your homophobia than by my not catering to their needs at a once a year parade.

You are correct and I apologize to you and to Sailorman, RonF and Robert for using the language I did. The emotions behind it still stand however.

People in New York are beaten up, harassed for being black or even for being white anything else. This is not because people have not seen a black person or a white person before (they aren’t shocked by the sight of them)but, because they harbor hate, fear, and irrationality in their hearts and minds. Nothing will prevent that. Those people exist, they have existed since man first began “othering” and I doubt there will be a utopia anywhere that they won’t exist. I get harassed because I’m black and have a mohawk (I guess thats not allowed)After all this is New York and there are millions of people from all different walks of life and mindsets (ignorant or otherwise) crammed one space. But its also one of the most tolerant places i’ve lived in in my life.
:)

They are rather dealt with and subsequently ignored because we are bombarded with these images and can’t seem to escape them or get rid of them.

But they don’t stop consuming mass media. They don’t stop looking for positive images of straight sexuality, or romance, or existence in general. They find them, too, because straightness dominates and they have a buffet of choices.

What I’ve been trying to point out is that a Pride parade is, in a sense, a tiny version of mass media for a GLBT community. It brings together all sorts of people and gives them a chance to express emotions that they feel constrained from expressing when they are isolated in smaller numbers. So the straight folks here who insist that somehow a single group of marchers is just so scandalous and discomforting that they completely color/define the rest of the march, and thus a straight parent must keep their child from seeing any of this parade, is advocating a doulbe standard.

To feed one’s kids either a distorted image of a community or no image at all when there are other options available is to foster ignorance. And it perpetuates the crap that people like Jack and her partner go through, every day, even in supposedly forward-thinking regions/cities.

Qgrrl will probably show up and let me have it for implying that Pride exists so that straight folks can learn about queer folks. Honestly, though, I know that’s not the main reason it exists. So if I created that impression, I apologize to the queer folks on Alas.

Where I’m from, homosexuality tends to not get much of a second thought except ffrom tourist. There is nothing abnormal about seeing two men walking down the street holding hands or two women kissing while pushing their child’s stroller.

From your references to Hunts Point and Hell’s Kitchen, I assume you live in NYC. And as a queer living in NYC, let me disabuse you of the notion that it’s all happy dandy for all queers, genderqueers and trans folks in NYC. It’s really not, and I hate when people who don’t even have to live with it pronounce that it’s not so bad for queers. And it’s most certainly not only “tourists” giving relatively harmless second glances. People often get harrassed and even beaten in this city because of their sexuality and gender presentation. And the more one deviates from being “straight-looking” and “gender-appropriate,” the worse it often gets. I’ve been yelled at in Chelsea (a very “gay” neighborhood) for kissing my girlfriend, and that’s only one among many other incidents of harassment that I’ve experienced since moving to the city four years ago.

The I believe the reasoning is that certain types of lingerie are deemed sexual explicit and some just fancy underclothing or “Classy”. A better example would be to compare an man in black leather pants and a leather jacket to a man(or woman) in black leather chaps with a leather thong on being lead around on a leash attached to a studded collar and brings to mind certain images (Bondage(sex), Masochism(Accepting violence), Sadism(violence), etc) . This more than the man wearing leather pants and a leather jacke(maybe just a tough guy?). Or maybe a hooker dressed in neon green stripper’s string suit and clear platform heels standing on the corner of HuntsPoint avenue to a Lingerie model wearing La Perla and a pair of Jimmy Choo slides on a Times SQ billboard. One bring images of pornography(sex), pimps, maybe even drugs and violence, and the other high fashion.

And one of the things I think that is being missed is that heterosexuals constantly have been fighting against so called ‘Indencency’. The Victoria Secrets fashion show caused a big stink. They pushed back the time, ABC was flooded with letters about it. Billboards have been pulled, stations fined, things boycotted, and some have even served jailtime. Janet Jackson staged nipple shot was a good example. Look at the outcry that cause. No heterosexual sexual displays are not accepted. They are rather dealt with and subsequently ignored because we are bombarded with these images and can’t seem to escape them or get rid of them. And until homosexuality is the majority and not the minority that is how it will be.

If the AXE man was spraying his tightly speedo-ed crotch directly…

What Robert and the others are saying seem very clear to me.

Where I’m from, homosexuality tends to not get much of a second thought except ffrom tourist. There is nothing abnormal about seeing two men walking down the street holding hands or two women kissing while pushing their child’s stroller.

However, we still get shocked when we see above HuntsPoint(Well now it seems they moved near a school in Hells Kitchen) hooker walking around in broad daylight with no clothes on or above guy on the leash with his butt hanging out of a pair of leather chaps.

The poem addresses the first and not the latter. I believe the way this discussion has gone is that an extreme was presented and put in context of this poem. It cannot be. The poem is more a comment on what is considered normal heterosexual behavior but when homosexuals commit the same acts its being seen as being blantat or forcing in their homosexuality. The hypocrasy seems to not bein the fact that heterosexuals express their heterosexuality (marriage, pregnancy) in nonchalance, but when heterosexuals say they accept homosexuals(either by same nonchalance or being resolved to it) but in the same breath want them to not display anything indicating homosexuality aka “Well atleast pretend that your normal like the rest of us, don’t make it so known” aka stay closeted.

Normal has nothing to do with this issue.

Oh come on, please be serious. Are you trying to be silly here? What do you think a lot of people wear? A huge proportion of women I know wear lingerie

…And? This is still irrelevant. A lot of women wear lingerie; a lot of women wear clothes that display their bodies in sexual ways. If you can explain that away, you can explain away a leash. There’s no difference between the two.

Hmm. I actually agree with you–certainly that gay sexuality is underrepresented (from y limited TV watching). But I think you’ll see I”m consistent and that the effect on my “is an S&M outfit during a daytime public parade acceptable?” meter is pretty negligible.

And I hope you understand why I say that all those qualifiers are self-serving and illogical.