Drag Queen Story Times picketed by protestors who claim that it grooms children and promotes paedophilia

[Edie]

What a fucking dangerous liberal load of bullshit this is. The rest of the world thinks your all insane.

Children and sex don’t mix. End of.

 

[krtek a houby]

What a fucking dangerous liberal load of bullshit this is. The rest of the world thinks your all insane.

Children and sex don’t mix. End of.

"Liberal"?

Earlier it was "authoritarian" and "far left" you were against.

 

[Edie]

"Liberal"?

Earlier it was "authoritarian" and "far left" you were against.

You might not have noticed but we’re discussing different topics here.

 

[elbows]

What a fucking dangerous liberal load of bullshit this is. The rest of the world thinks your all insane.

Children and sex don’t mix. End of.

The world according to a certain form of cultural imperialism, the world according to straight people that dont understand queer culture, the world according to your own dull reflection. The world according to those who either dont recognise, understand or appreciate subversive currents, and its history of use within minority cultures.

 

[krtek a houby]

You might not have noticed but we’re discussing different topics here.

Urban is both authoritarian and liberal then?

 

[Rob Ray]

Ick.

I’ll say it again, it’s a hard no for me when it comes to children and young adolescents being exposed to sexualised performances.

That's not actually your hard no at all, unless you're the ghost of Mary Whitehouse. Kids see sexualised content from very early on in life, even in the most Christian of households via adverts, telly or movies, on the internet, on the billboards they pass in the street. Such content is saturated across pretty much all media. I assume you're not about to picket Ofcom.

It's the type of "sexualised content" you think they're seeing at drag storytime that's at issue.

 

[Santino]

That's not actually your hard no at all, unless you're the ghost of Mary Whitehouse. Kids see sexualised content from very early on in life, even in the most Christian of households via adverts, telly or movies, on the internet, on the billboards they pass in the street. Such content is saturated across pretty much all media. I assume you're not about to picket Ofcom.

It's the type of "sexualised content" you think they're seeing at drag storytime that's at issue.

Is anyone here picketing anything?

 

[Rob Ray]

Is anyone here picketing anything?

That's the ballpark perspective of a "hard no" isn't it?

 

[pogofish]

I was just thinking today that the Right, both here and elsewhere, have realised they can't create a better future, that they've lost the right to say they are the best stewards of the economy etc, so they have seized on culture wars as a way of making new enemies for their supporters, or winning supporters through making the 'right' enemies among vulnerable groups who make the status quo feel threatened by daring to exist and, y'know, wanting rights. Because making things better for people is hard; but making things shittier for vulnerable groups is easy. 'Look, we've fulfilled our promise to things worse for people you don't like' - piece of piss!

It's a vile form of politics.

I a similar vein, I've noticed a fair number of far right-orbit people/nutters actually warming to and even supporting some of Jeremy Corbyn's output recently.

Worrying!

 

[Santino]

That's the ballpark perspective of a "hard no" isn't it?

I'm not entirely sure what this means.

 

[Edie]

The world according to a certain form of cultural imperialism, the world according to straight people that dont understand queer culture, the world according to your own dull reflection. The world according to those who either dont recognise, understand or appreciate subversive currents, and its history of use within minority cultures.

Oh give over do you think this goes down well in Muslim communities?

Involving children in sexualised acts is not subversive. It’s fucking weird.

 

[Rob Ray]

I'm not entirely sure what this means.

It's not complicated.

 

[Edie]

And actually if that’s the direction of subversion then I’m having nothing to do with it.

 

[Santino]

No one here is picketing anything, so the fact that they are not also picketing OfCom is not evidence of some homophobic hypocrisy.

 

[Rob Ray]

No one here is picketing anything, so the fact that they are not also picketing OfCom is not evidence of some homophobic hypocrisy.

Jfc you're being a bit dense here, it was a rhetorical device based on "hard no" generally implying you're very strongly against a thing. I wasn't literally accusing Edie of picketing a library (let alone Ofcom). I also didn't accuse her of being homophobic (I would suggest you have a bit of a think about your apparent view that "drag" and "homosexual" are synonyms though).

 

[hitmouse]

I have, and I haven't ever needed to take a baby/child to an event involving nipple tassles and thongs I mean, you can just go to actual baby sensory sessions where everyone is dressed.

Will it harm the children in the audience to take them to this? Probably not. Is it a pretty weird thing to take your baby to? Yes.

I don't think it's a paedo plot though, just middle class parents trying to look transgressive

Well, if we're agreed that this is probably harmless but a bit weird, surely the question is why we've ended up with several pages of discussion about a harmless event that none of us have any intention of going to? Without wanting to get too tinfoil hat, I think it's worth asking about who's pushing this as a story and what their agenda is. We could start by asking what the source of that image is, for instance.

But people tend to exclude themselves from groups when they discover that their opinions are considered problematic by a significant proportion of the group. They want their bigotry to be met with agreement and approval, and its hard to get anywhere if they cant accept that there are problematic aspects to their views, they are tempted to go looking for a less challenging environment.

I mean, there's disagreement and disagreement, innit. I think there's lots of different ways of expressing disapproval of someone's opinions, and the internet/social media does definitely tend to encourage certain ones - pointscoring, performative dunks, owning the libs/terfs/whoever - over others, like mutually respectful discussion with the aim of finding common ground where possible and prioritising the possibility of repair and continued connection.

 

[Santino]

Well, if we're agreed that this is probably harmless but a bit weird, surely the question is why we've ended up with several pages of discussion about a harmless event that none of us have any intention of going to? Without wanting to get too tinfoil hat, I think it's worth asking about who's pushing this as a story and what their agenda is. We could start by asking what the source of that image is, for instance.

I mean, there's disagreement and disagreement, innit. I think there's lots of different ways of expressing disapproval of someone's opinions, and the internet/social media does definitely tend to encourage certain ones - pointscoring, performative dunks, owning the libs/terfs/whoever - over others, like mutually respectful discussion with the aim of finding common ground where possible and prioritising the possibility of repair and continued connection.

Another question is why a very mild assertion that children should not be exposed to sexualised dancing is met with a raft of accusations of bigotry, homophobia, prudishness and pearl-clutching, and whether this may be inadvisable in some way.

 

[elbows]

I mean, there's disagreement and disagreement, innit. I think there's lots of different ways of expressing disapproval of someone's opinions, and the internet/social media does definitely tend to encourage certain ones - pointscoring, performative dunks, owning the libs/terfs/whoever - over others, like mutually respectful discussion with the aim of finding common ground where possible and prioritising the possibility of repair and continued connection.

Well we could compare and contrast that with how people dealt with racism in the pre-web era. What respectful conversations were possible in that area, what stories can people share of helping some people with problematic views progress via respectful discussions etc? I dont think there was a shortage of red lines being drawn, polarised battles, polarised struggles, and I think that many things attributed to the internet are just more visible via the internet and things being written down rather than shouted across the street.

 

[Rob Ray]

Another question is why a very mild assertion that children should not be exposed to sexualised dancing is met with a raft of accusations of bigotry, homophobia, prudishness and pearl-clutching, and whether this may be inadvisable in some way.

So you're against kids watching Strictly then?

 

[Santino]

So you're against kids watching Strictly then?

Is everything permitted or is nothing?

 

[Pickman's model]

What a fucking dangerous liberal load of bullshit this is. The rest of the world thinks your all insane.

Children and sex don’t mix. End of.

They're very closely linked, you don't get one without the other

 

[Rob Ray]

Is everything permitted or is nothing?

Strictly fills every one of Edie's red lines. Sexualised dancing done in front of millions of people every week, including kids. It's a fair question. Look, here's a screengrab of a specific moment that is very sexualised.

 

[hitmouse]

Another question is why a very mild assertion that children should not be exposed to sexualised dancing is met with a raft of accusations of bigotry, homophobia, prudishness and pearl-clutching, and whether this may be inadvisable in some way.

How would you characterise a) Chaya Raichik, and b) The Sun?

 

[Edie]

Another question is why a very mild assertion that children should not be exposed to sexualised dancing is met with a raft of accusations of bigotry, homophobia, prudishness and pearl-clutching, and whether this may be inadvisable in some way.

It’s through the fucking looking glass. Like now it’s controversial to assert that children shouldn’t be exposed to sexualised acts, or that women should be able to say they don’t want men in their toilets.

It’s almost like the boundaries for women and children don’t matter if some men want to break them.

 

[belboid]

What a fucking dangerous liberal load of bullshit this is. The rest of the world thinks your all insane.

Children and sex don’t mix. End of.

Who, other than you, is talking about children and sex? It's a bit of a performance, nothing more.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I think some folk have lost touch with reality wrt what hill they're willing to die on.

 

[belboid]

I think some folk have lost touch with reality wrt what molehill they're willing to die on.

cfy

 

[Santino]

How would you characterise a) Chaya Raichik, and b) The Sun?

What?

 

[Rob Ray]

It's only "through the looking glass" if your vision of what storytime involves is a more aggressively sexual performance than is done in front of kids every week up and down the country. Otherwise it's about the drag, not the sexualisation.

 

[belboid]

It’s through the fucking looking glass. Like now it’s controversial to assert that children shouldn’t be exposed to sexualised acts, or that women should be able to say they don’t want men in their toilets.

It’s almost like the boundaries for women and children don’t matter if some men want to break them.

Like it's controversial to assert that people shouldn't write user bullshit based on Daily Mail frothing and gross distortion of reality.