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

[Rob Ray]

Despite your protestations to the contrary, you have once again confused me with some other poster who is talking about drag.

Answer the question.

 

[Santino]

Answer the question.

I asked first.

 

[Rob Ray]

No you didn't. Answer the question.

 

[Pickman's model]

Sure, but the two aren’t synonymous. Trans people feel their biological sex doesn’t match what they feel their gender is. And they may or may not seek medical treatment for that. They may or may not enjoy drag, but drag queens aren’t necessarily or even mostly transgender people are they?

that's a really peculiar post. i don't suppose any sexuality or gender has a synonymity or monopoly on being drag queens.

 

[Pickman's model]

Pantomime and drag have similarities for sure, but they have differences as well both historically and culturally.

that's it, relax and release your inner pedant. you'll feel so much better.

 

[Dystopiary]

What sort of monsters would show sexualised performances to kids.... Original production cel from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? | Jessica rabbit cartoon, Jessica rabbit, Jessica and roger rabbit

I would love to see half all this outrage on how bloody awful "family" films are for their ridiculously sexualised and stereotypical female characters. Virgin/Mother/Whore.

Take Winnie the Pooh - one female character among all the others, and her role, aside from being a mother, is to cook and pander to the other characters after not going on any of their adventures. Yet people happily encourage their kids to absorb that crap.

 

[Santino]

No you didn't. Answer the question.

You've literally linked to the post where you avoid answering my question by asking your own.

 

[Pickman's model]

I would love to see half all this outrage on how bloody awful "family" films are for their ridiculously sexualised and stereotypical female characters. Virgin/Mother/Whore.

Take Winnie the Pooh - one female character among all the others, and her role, aside from being a mother, is to cook and pander to the other characters after not going on any of their adventures. Yet people happily encourage their kids to absorb that crap.

isn't there only one female womble? and the smurfs, there's doctoral theses could be written about smurfette

 

[Pickman's model]

You've literally linked to the post where you avoid answering my question by asking your own.

tell you what, answer the question and let's see what happens

 

[Dystopiary]

isn't there only one female womble? and the smurfs, there's doctoral theses could be written about smurfette

Exactly. It sends a terrible message about gender roles at a very young age.

 

[belboid]

You've literally linked to the post where you avoid answering my question by asking your own.

He linked to a post pointing out that one kind of 'sexualised dancing' raise no ire whatsoever (and is, indeed, widely praised as family entertainment) whereas another, no more explicit, is outrageous and child abuse. Seems pretty clear.

 

[Edie]

Exactly. It sends a terrible message about gender roles at a very young age.

Luckily nowadays men don’t have a virtual monopoly over literature and entertainment as they have in the past, and female voices and experiences are coming forward to create art about the world as we see it.

 

[Rob Ray]

You've literally linked to the post where you avoid answering my question by asking your own.

Nope, my question is challenging your initial characterisation. Try again. Answer the question.

 

[bimble]

You don't think it's potentially troublesome that all concerns about children's boundaries get coded as right-wing?

this (imo) is the thing. The whole shitshow all the attention on this is a result of some of the worst people in the world, the trumpist evangelicals and their friends, pushing their mad agenda, but then the utterly self defeating response is this argument that you're either one of them, you're a nazi-adjascent bigot who deserves to be excommunicated for ever, or else you fully embrace nipple tassle baby hour or whatever, one or the other pick a side. its just so very stupid.

 

[hitmouse]

What?

If you don't understand who Chaya Raichik is, or her relevance is to this discussion, then I think you're missing out on some fairly relevant context that would help you understand why you're getting the reactions you're getting. If you do a bit more reading about her, perhaps starting with this article, you might be a bit more able to grasp why some of us are very suspicious of the way this conversation has been shaped. I could add Patriotic Alternative to that list, how would you describe Patrotic Alternative?

You don't think it's potentially troublesome that all concerns about children's boundaries get coded as right-wing?

Do you think that some of the people raising concerns about children's boundaries, such as Patriotic Alternative for example, could fairly be described as right-wing? And do you understand how that could affect the way that some people might view this issue?

 

[Rob Ray]

I mean pretty much every TV show I ever watched as a kid was to one degree or another an exercise in propaganda. Sometimes good (the Racoons' environmentalism), sometimes bad (the gendered stereotyping of the Racoons) but always something. And don't even get me started on history lessons at school ...

 

[Dystopiary]

Luckily nowadays men don’t have a virtual monopoly over literature and entertainment as they have in the past, and female voices and experiences are coming forward to create art about the world as we see it.

Yes. We've still got a way to go though.

 

[hitmouse]

this (imo) is the thing. The whole shitshow all the attention on this is a result of some of the worst people in the world, the trumpist evangelicals and their friends, pushing their mad agenda, but then the utterly self defeating response is this argument that you're either one of them, you're a nazi-adjascent bigot who deserves to be excommunicated for ever, or else you fully embrace nipple tassle baby hour or whatever, one or the other pick a side. its just so very stupid.

I get what you're saying here, but surely it's hard to avoid being a bit defensive when, as you say, this whole discussion is taking place on terrain shaped by those people? Hard to know what the way forward is, but I'd think it'd have to start with people collectively admitting "I don't really know that much about this subject, I've never been to the event in question and everything that I know about it comes via mad right-wingers who don't seem like a particularly reliable source?"

 

[Pickman's model]

Luckily nowadays men don’t have a virtual monopoly over literature and entertainment as they have in the past, and female voices and experiences are coming forward to create art about the world as we see it.

entertainers have hitherto only reflected the world in various ways; the point is to change it

 

[bimble]

I get what you're saying here, but surely it's hard to avoid being a bit defensive when, as you say, this whole discussion is taking place on terrain shaped by those people? Hard to know what the way forward is, but I'd think it'd have to start with people collectively admitting "I don't really know that much about this subject, I've never been to the event in question and everything that I know about it comes via mad right-wingers who don't seem like a particularly reliable source?"

sure. thing is if people don't say exactly what you'd like them to say, and in response they're filed under reactionary nazi-adjascent Bigot, what next. Who benefits from that. i dont mean you personally btw.

 

[Rob Ray]

It's ultimately a balance and a damn difficult one to judge, dependent on where someone is on the spectrum of openness, ego, argumentativeness, how prone they are to manipulative approaches, patience, life circumstances etc etc. Which is difficult enough IRL with people you know, let alone with internet randoms who could usually be fine but sitting down with six pints in them this time, or who's taking out the frustrations of a difficult week on the world at large but will most likely have a proper think later in the evening when they've cooled off.

 

[Pickman's model]

It's ultimately a balance and a damn difficult one to judge, dependent on where someone is on the spectrum of openness, ego, argumentativeness, how prone they are to manipulative approaches, patience, life circumstances etc etc. Which is difficult enough IRL with people you know, let alone with internet randoms who could usually be fine but sitting down six pints in this time, or who's taking out the frustrations of a difficult week on the world at large but will most likely have a proper think later in the evening when they've cooled off.

And then realise what putdown they should have posted

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

And then realise what putdown they should have posted

l'esprit de l'escalier

 

[tim]

Sadly, they'll only find it again and continue throwing it at the rest of us

That's the pernicious influence of Jeremy Clarkson for you.

 

[mojo pixy]

I wasn't talking about drag queens, I was talking about what form of exercise might be befitting for a 12 year old girl and whether it's still sexualised if there aren't any creepy old men watching.

You can see that this is entirely different from DQST can't you? I'm in favour of both by the way, but they're absolutely wildly different things.

I agree they're quite different. The sexy dancing meme wasn't raised by me, I was pulling that thread myself because I wasn't sure it was relevant, so thank you for underlining that.

 

[smokedout]

This is just basic whataboutery.

I remember when family entertainment shows would be routinely interrupted by a dance group like Hot Gossip who would perform sexy dancing in skimpy clothing 'for the dads'. Carry On films were shown well before the watershed and adverts regularly featured highly sexualised imagery, usually of women but sometimes men such as Nick Kamen getting his kit off in the launderette or the Pepsi ads. Heterosexual coded pop stars, who are directly marketed at children, frequently use sexualised imagery. Boy bands strut about topless onstage singing sexually explicit songs to crowds of adoring pubescent and pre-pubescent girls. There are pole dancing competitions on the beach where you might find people strutting about in posing thongs or string bikinis. Burlesque performers do walkabout at family festivals or dance down the street, often very sexually, at carnivals surrounded by kids. Panto, and some kid's film, both then and now are littered with sexual innuendo. You can walk into a department store and hear Rhianna singing in the background about how whips and chains excite her.

Now some of this stuff is rightly criticised as misogynist and has become less commonplace. It was also historically criticised, usually by religious groups who thought sex outside of marriage was a sin and believed it would encourage young people to be promiscuous. But I never remember hearing anyone, even if they didn't approve, claim it was a safeguarding risk or part of some paedophile plot which many have claimed this event to be. And (hetero) sexualised displays both in front of and directly aimed at children are still widespread within culture to the point you could barely walk down a High Street without seeing them.

The deeply embedded slur that LGBTQ people, and specifically gay men, are a sexual threat to children has led to decades of violence and discrimination and the association between same sex attraction and paedophilia is still very live in some people's minds, and perhaps still there but more buried in others. So you can accuse me of whataboutery if you want but I'm asking you directly, do you think the outrage aimed at this event - which has now been shut down and the organisers driven off social media - has in part been driven by homophobia? If not then why was this event so vehemently targetted when all the others examples I gave are mainstream and largely ignored? And if so don't you think LGBTQ people have a right to be angry and concerned about that?

 

[stethoscope]

Fuck it why I'm bothering... all been reasoned before and just bewildered at the reactionary turn of urbans...

 

[Serge Forward]

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.

You do realise that it's fairly well documented that the sexual abuse of children is most prevalent in the more conservative religious households; whether Christian, Muslim or other religions?

In other words, families with the most unhealthily conservative attitudes to sex are often where the paedos hide.

Parents who take their kids to drag queen story time events and engage in a bit of "dirty dancing" at a family do are far less prone to noncery than those buttoned-down, keep it all hidden families.

 

[Edie]

You do realise that it's fairly well documented that the sexual abuse of children is most prevalent in the more conservative religious households; whether Christian, Muslim or other religions?

In other words, families with the most unhealthily conservative attitudes to sex are often where the paedos hide.

Parents who take their kids to drag queen story time events and engage in a bit of "dirty dancing" at a family do are far less prone to noncery than those buttoned-down, keep it all hidden families.

I didn’t actually, first time I’ve heard that. What’s your evidence?

 

[Serge Forward]

I didn’t actually, first time I’ve heard that. What’s your evidence?

Really? The first time?

Sorry, I can't give you an exact reference as it's years (decades?) since I saw those particular stats. There was also a higher prevalence of domestic violence in those stats. I'm sure a quick google for "domestic violence and child abuse in religious families" will give some pointers.