My whole opinion on the kink at pride thing can be summarized as: 1. If you want a Pride event in which to take your children without seeing anything sexual at all anywhere, take them to a pride that was designed to be family friendly or create one. I think going to a pride event that was already established as a adult oriented one and demand it to be kid friendly is too much. Those child friendly events already exist. Pride is not a finite resource so why we keep acting as if it has to be this very specific way or else is not happening at all is something I truly do not comprehend. 2. If you go to a pride event that DIDN'T specify that it was family oriented, you consent to see what a bunch of adults expressing their sexuality looks like. You might not like it, and you are free of stepping away in that case, but you should have been aware of the consequences. It's like going to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. You know what you could get and you still went there. That is consent. 3. There is nothing inherently traumatizing about leather gear. It's literally just clothing, clothing they see pops stars use on music videos all the time or in concerts if they went to one. Yes, adults will see that as something sexual and therefore something that should be kept away, but kids only see a bunch of badass bikers or maybe even Marvel villains. If you teach your children that they should be afraid of something like that, you are teaching them to be afraid of their own sexuality and teach them shame if they ever find themselves interested on any of that when they grow up. I know parents who takes their kids to events with kink displayed and they are fine, because they just tell the kids that the adults are playing or cosplaying. So the argument that just the sight of a kinky person being around with leather pants and jackets will be so harmful I see it as lacking any avidence. Kids won't think too much about it unless you go out of your way to teach them there is something wrong aboutit. 4. The kink community has been a vital part of the queer community just as much as gays, lesbians, transgender people and anyone else under the umbrella have been. They fought for our rights when no one else would. They took care of us. They marched with us. They are our siblings, part of us. You can't divide the two of them without causing harm somewhere. It's no coincidence that "kink critical" people are so very often radfems who are just one step away from saying all trans women have a kink with dresses. Anti-kink sentiments will always end in anti-queerness. So if you want a Pride without kink, you are free to organize one, but I think it's absolutely out of line to demand all prides to be without kink. So, basically. Make the pride you want to see and don't go to the prides you don't want to see. I honestly do not understand how something so easy and simple has devolved on the shitshow that has now, but May hasn’t even finished and I am over with this bullshit already.
