Are you up to speed with the “No Kink at Pride” discourse? It’s a bit of a social media discussion so you might have been able to block it out. It’s tempting to ignore it all together – there’s obviously bigger issues out there – but this is a topic that is worth keeping tabs on.
What’s the debate about kink at Pride?
It’s not exactly clear when or how the “No Kink at Pride” discussion began to build momentum – writing for Vox, Alex Abad-Santos traces it back to at least 2013.
In essence, people who advocate “No Kink at Pride” want to see LGBTQ Pride events that are not overtly sexual. They don’t want to see gay fetish play, they don’t want to see actual or suggested nudity, and they want Pride events to be family-friendly and accessible to children.
While the phrase “No Kink at Pride” may be something that has emerged in the age of social media, the underlying sentiment – which is basic respectability politics – is nothing new. Respectability politics is something that the Mattachine Society unsuccessfully tried to navigate in the 1960s.
Think of the children!
There is almost a self-fulfilling logic to respectability politics that makes it hard to challenge.
Sure, we want as many queer people as possible to take part in Pride, to feel welcome and to feel included. Sure, the LGBTQ community includes people who are under the age of 18, and also parents who might want to bring their children to Pride events. Sure, Pride events should feel like a “safe space” for everyone that identifies as part of our community.
So, what’s the problem? Let’s just make Pride a non-sexual space where we wave rainbow flags and listen to some music. Let’s show the world just how normal and inclusive and family-friendly we are, right?
Assimilation versus Revolution
The Mattachine Society was established in 1950 – it was one of the earliest gay rights organisations in the US.
It’s an oversimplification, but you could broadly characterise the strategy of the Mattachine Society as one of assimilation. Much of their work centred around raising the visibility of gay men as a way of humanising us in the eyes of “mainstream” society. By demonstrating that we are average, everyday people, the Mattachine Society hoped to illustrate that we are just like everybody else and deserving of the same rights and freedom from discrimination as heterosexual people.
It was a strategy that met with some success, but it was a course of action that really only benefited white, educated men who could effectively “pass” as being straight in their day-to-day lives.
The Stonewall riots of 28 June 1969 weren’t the first protests or confrontations between police and LGBTQ people, but they’ve become symbolic of the growing consciousness and confidence that queer people were feeling – in the US and around the world.
What triggered the Stonewall riots was a police raid on the Stonewall Inn. In the heart of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn was a mafia-run bar that was a hub for the neighbourhood’s marginalised queer community – sex workers, trans people, queer kids who were no longer welcomed by their families.
In the late 60s, police raids on bars like the Stonewall Inn were commonplace – part of the continuing harassment and victimisation that LGBTQ people were experiencing at that time. The raid on the Stonewall Inn on 28 June 1969 sparked that sense of frustration into violent protests – protests that lasted six days and involved thousands of people. Perhaps most importantly, the riots received widespread media coverage.
Following the Stonewall riots, and in line with the counterculture movements of the late-60s, advocates for LGBTQ equality became increasingly emboldened and more confrontational. New organisations were established, community-focused newspapers were published, and there was more of a willingness to be open, to be visible, to be different.
The emergence of the modern Pride movement – it was on the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots that the first Gay Pride marches were held – was an explicit rejection of respectability politics. Pride was established as an act of radical existence – a rejection of the aspirations of assimilation, a rejection of having to look or act in a socially acceptable way in order to have our humanity acknowledged by a heteronormative society that deliberately and repeatedly excluded us.
Who is Pride for?
Inevitably, things evolve. We’re not living in the 1970s, we have to adapt to the shifting landscapes of queer existence today.
But we do have to be conscious about what is driving any push for “family-friendly” Pride events, and who that might exclude.
Sure, corporate sponsors might prefer not to have their brand associated with gay leather harness wearing bears, or mask-wearing pup-play enthusiasts, or sex-workers, but Pride is not there to help banks and big corporates to tick a box on their diversity initiative. Pride is not there to help the police demonstrate how community-friendly they are. Pride is an act of radical existence.
Resisting respectability politics
The people demanding that Pride conforms to a puritanical notion of what’s acceptable public behaviour in “normal” society aren’t interested in a discussion about kink, or sexuality, or identity. Let’s not waste our energy trying to respectfully engage in a debate about our existence.
Let’s make the most of Pride month. Let’s be whoever and whatever we want to be. Let’s exist authentically. It’s time to let our freak flag fly.
God created Adam and Eve naked it was Satan that provided the clothing. People should celebrate Pride however they feel comfortable.
Sorry but reread your Bible more closely. The SERPENT was responsible–not “Satan.” (And, um, just for what it’s worth, it was all the fault of “God” when you get right down to it. For an “omnipotent” and “omniscient” being, He kind of blew it by putting the “temptation” right there in the middle of the Garden. You put a plate of cookies out on a table in a house full of kids and tell the kids, “Do not eat these cookies,” if you think you’re going to come back to a plate full of cookies, you obviously have no business having kids.)
Satan’s first appearance in the Bible doesn’t come along till the Book of Job–and he’s there with God’s full consent.
Sorry, but there is a BIG difference between “kink” and “fucking in public.” I doubt that a bunch of leather daddies or mask-wearing pups are going to cause any pearl-clutching, even among the most uptight right-wingers but, it’s interesting that someone kind of forgot some of the behavior that got the Stonewall Inn in the troubles that led to the first Pride movement.
Until 1969–even in many big cities–it was ILLEGAL to dress in the clothing of the “opposite sex.” Drag queens could get away with wearing dresses as long as they wore “male underwear” underneath the dresses. Men could NOT dance with other men without a REAL woman also participating in the dancing. If you broke the “dress code” or two guys were caught dancing “together” (they didn’t even have to be holding each other–just the sheer proximity could constitute “dancing together”), you got arrested. No ifs, ands or buts. Most of the arrests at Stonewall (and other clubs) were based on “perverse/deviant acts” (ie, men wearing women’s clothing, men dancing “together”)–there was absolutely NO consideration of public nudity or fucking (not even the club owners–that is, bars–would consider letting that happen; you picked up your trade and you took him to a hotel where, if you were lucky, the hotel wouldn’t care that two guys were checking in or one guy would check in and a few minutes later some other guy was headed to the first guy’s room but the “classy” hotels in the cities generally had in-house detectives who had little patience for “deviants” or “perverts”).
The famous Stonewall riot was NOT about any “right” to have sex in a public place. It was a reaction against the legal system that arrested a man wearing a dress (without wearing boxers underneath it) or that would let you “off with a warning” (as long as you paid a “little fine”–ie, a bribe to the cop). And, it was largely because the cops pulled it on a night when so many gay men/drag queens/etc were mourning the death of Judy Garland.
So, please. Spare us this “kink” flag crap as if Pride were ONLY about sex.
This is a ridiculous.
Pride has always been about showing your kink. It’s only until the rise of these fuckin’ “Pronoun Princesses” and their bullshit “toxic masculinity” who tried to shut it down just like removing the police from the parade(s).
I don’t get this. “Pronoun Princesses” say, “We don’t want the police in the parade.” But the minute they see a porn star in police uniform…well that’s just dirty sexy and suddenly “consent” goes right the window? These “Pronoun Princesses” need an orgasm, a slap, and nap.
Piss off with your non-kink Pride.
I remember visiting in NYC with my mother, grandmother, and 10-year-old nephew in NYC in the early 1990s. We had no idea there was going to be a Pride parade until we were headed back from breakfast that morning and saw the crowds gathering and the participants marching down the street. Back then, my grandmother had no experience being around gay people and my mother was leaning more towards anti-gay. Me, being extremely ‘curious’ and considered myself potentially ‘bi’ but never having sex with another man, welcomed the opportunity for them to see the volume and variety of people who made up the spectrum of the gay community. Police, doctors, construction workers, office workers, young old etc. I wanted my folks, (representing 4 generations) to see that gay people were just like everyone else, that we were everywhere, and that we just wanted to be treated with respect like everyone else. We were just regular folks trying to make our way in this world like everyone else. Then, it all turned.
It started off great but not for long. It wasn’t the gay people who were stealing the show. No, they were being themselves; ordinary, considerate, respectful (cause after all you gotta give respect to earn it, right?) The main attraction were these men on top of the floats with their dicks hanging out gyrating, bending each other over, having erections adorned with all kinds of rings, spreading their asses, obscene, their intent to get the most attention. There was nothing that warranted the kind of behavior that was on display and had absolutely NOTHING to do with being gay.
My grandmother was so shock she stood with her mouth open before my mother quickly dragged her and my nephew away and we hurried back to the hotel. I remember being so angry about this for many years. Here was an opportunity for our community to make a positive impression and perhaps sway the minds of the old and inspire the young. This was not “kink” this was perversion.
We know there are those within our ranks who will stop at nothing to gain personal attention and to promote their own self-interest. Lets call it what it is. We can see it in action in any bathhouse, sex clubs, bars and its become normalized for some. Least we can do is reserve this one day to make a real difference. Everyone who wants to come out and see a gay parade should be able to do. People should be able to bring their children similar to a Macys’ parade. IT can and should be fun for ALL and not just the self-interested and perverted few. And later on, we can go back to our “kink”.
https://www.theonion.com/gay-pride-parade-sets-mainstream-acceptance-of-gays-bac-1819566014
It is absolutely ridiculous!! Since when pride was about sexual preferences and gender? It all was about being happy, being free and being safe. We used to March under one single flag. The Rainbow Flag. How’s that for inclusion and diversity. There are now over 20 flags to identify sexual preferences and gender and race and everything else we can imagine. We are a minority as it is and we keep fracturing the “community” so much farther by hanging new labels on ourselves. Further more…. We’re now fighting to change language and grammar to feel “included”. We seem to be eager to confirm the general perception that we are a bunch of twisted, confused people. So sad!