the issue of kink at pride
^{21:09, june 7th, 2021}

Kink being present at pride has been a very touchy subject around quite a few of my friends lately, with a few divided opinions. I'd like to touch on it but I'd rather not upset someone I'm going to have to see face-to-face eventually, so I'm writing on it here.

I will be using "queer" to describe the LGBTQ+ community, as I describe myself as queer and its easier to type than an acronym. I understand and acknowledge that not everyone prefers or likes this label.

The discourse at the current moment boils down to whether or not kink and BDSM belong at pride parades.

Kink spaces and LGBTQ+ spaces have long been heavily intertwined. Kink and BDSM have a long and taboo history. The norm has long been to not discuss sex, sexuality, and relationships that fall out of a traditional box. Queer relationships and kink/BDSM (hereinafter just shortened to 'kink') relationships very obviously both fall under this taboo. Before civil rights movements had established themselves, queer communities and kink communities found themselves in many common spaces, with the common idea of forming relationships and discussing ideas that didn't fall into the societal norm. In an environment where both were pressured into limited spaces, those spaces ended up having to be shared, and communities flourished and thrived together.

Along with kink comes the encouragement to openly discuss sex, sexual health, and healthy exploration of different types of relationships and boundaries. The open discussion of these topics is something that should be approached with heavy tact and care, and they definitely should not be ignored.

At the same time, however, children should and need to be allowed to feel safe in public, and in queer spaces, where it may be most important to them. To have kink at pride is to invade a public space with mature content, which is undebatably NOT okay for minors to be so heavily exposed to. Sex, kink, BDSM, and everything related need to be conversations that are encouraged, but the actual visual content should be kept to particular spaces, not to discourage it, but to protect minors. Similar to how you don't want a 12-year-old watching an R-rated movie, you don't want to expose children to R-rated content, regardless of the community it has history with.

There is a deep and long (pardon the innuendo) history between kink and queer spaces, and they do tend to overlap. However, that should not be taken as, and is not, an invitation to walk around in a public space with a BDSM harness on and your dick out. It's a situation of "appropriate time and place" and a pride parade, where children and minors are supposed to feel safe and supported, is not the time or the place for that. The discussion and education of history and health is welcomed and encouraged, but the practice of such should remain what it is, a private, adults only event where all parties are consenting. Children can not consent to seeing sexual content, so exposing it to them at a place where they're supposed to feel most safe is a violation of their trust, comfort, and boundaries.

It's a delicate balance of ensuring that they are safe, and not exposed to mature content and themes, but at the same time making sure that they know it's okay to discuss subjects like that and seek guidance without feeling ashamed.

Ending this, I'd like to reiterate that I in no way think that anyone should feel ashamed of sex, the consenting relationships they have, or any kinks they enjoy. However, I care more about the comfort of children than the visibility of people having sex, and that's just how it is for me.