The Holy Month of Pride has become a shrine to narcissistic kinksters with a woman problem. It's time to put an end to this shameful spectacle and rebuild what was once a great liberation movement
I remember my first couple of Pride marches the 2nd Brighton Pride (the 1st before I lived there ), the year they kicked gc lesbians off was my lightbulb moment for this insidious cult of alphabet bollox . And bollox being the operative word , in a world where straight men cosplaying being transbian are celebrating and actual real lesbians are villified.
Thank you for being the lone sensible voice in the media on the "porn" issue for 20 years. I am so sick of being gaslit into oblivion by academics and the media on this. Not to mention "feminist" politicians like Justin Trudeau. Women did the most effective gaslighting, unfortunately, because if women don't mind, than hey, what's the problem right? They like it! That's the fundamental lie of “porn”,- along with “boys love it” . NO, they’re addicted and having puberty weaponized against them. Again, thank you Julie. Modern Internet Porn is psychic terrorism.
Here is a perfect example of political, media and academic collusion on the issue. It’s enraging.
Julie is a woman. I'm not blaming women. I blame academics who insist “the studies” show no link between porn and violence. Bullshit. The elusive connection is on every porno website homepage. What I’m saying is, men didn’t get away with making and distributing internet “porn” all over the place (to kids!) by saying “hooray for misogyny”; they got away with it by citing these academics and using liberal "sex-positive" feminist rhetoric as a cover. As well as the absurd idea that it’s free speech. I’m not blaming women, good lord. I’m blaming the media, courts, academia, education, health care and the general public for our silence.
However, if women could unite in condemning it, the issue would be clear, absolutely. But too many are giddy about the transgression of "patriarchal" norms around sex, and afraid of being aligned with conservatives on anything. Men who condemn it are dismissed as slut-shaming misogynists, or religious prudes so we can't help much. Of course the reality is that it’s rocket fuel for misogyny. But it also destroys the boys it preys on! That’s what I’m saying. People who care: unite, and demand political action!
I remember when my sons, then 14 and 11, no longer wanted to be in Pride parade with their father, a man who identifies as female and tried to impose a version of Mum on them, as their address for him. My older son, then passionately in love with his first girlfriend (that was a disaster but didn't last too long) asked me how he could get out of it. I suggested he make up an invitation for some intriguing outing that had already "been planned for that day." He couldn't believe how easily that could be done. Since I believe my ex is actually a gay man with a fetish, I find his presence at Pride completely logical. I wonder if he realizes most of the gay men in their chaps see him as a gay dude in drag, which I know they do, from reliable sources.
I'm so sorry you and your kids had to go through that. For the life of me, I'll never understand the inclusion of children in “Pride”. Why that isn't seen as a big red flag for grooming and abuse, I will never know. Kids don't belong there or bars or sex toy stores. They are kids.
Brilliant writing. A few years ago I saw two people I know in purple tutus, makeup, and rainbow gear on Pride. Both straight, and married, one with children. There as part of a corporate sponsorship and to promote their affiliated business. Over the last few years Pride has aged like milk
It’s become like Mardi Gras in my town, except instead of seeing it as one parade of excess and lasciviousness, it’s extended beyond “pride month” into “pride season” and EVERY wing of our municipal and provincial government, as well as EVERY business and corporation, must fly the flags, don the tutus, and wear the beads, as it were. The absolute worst is that it’s billed as “family friendly,” and our downtown festival featured a kids’ craft tent and bouncy castle just metres away from a booth with a life-size spread-eagle photo of a female porn star, draped over the front table right at child’s eye height.
It's so sad what has happened to Pride. It has a really sinister and threatening edge now. I used to like the Sydney ones back in the 80's as a teenager but it's changed so much. It's just a performance of male sex and perversity now, not inclusive at all.
The entire trans agenda is no more than a men's rights movement in drag. The incredible levels of homophobia and misogyny, not to mention the rampant abuse of children, should be a clue to this. I always wonder just what these people are so "proud" of? The erasure of women? The hypersexualizing of children? The ruination of so many young lives?
Great piece. I went on a few Gay Pride marches in the mid 80s. It was a small affair - no corporate sponsorship - just people being proud and very funny. Tom Robinson singing "Glad to be Gay" (with it's lyric about being called "queer") in the little park where the London Eye is now.
Now it's just a corporate freebie for spicy straights. Stay away.
The key is to remember this, and not let the parade become a parody of what those cops were worried about, which it did in the 90''s, but now its gone beyond parody and in fact IS what those cops were worried about. The solution is not to crack skulls, but to let arguments and democracy win the day, while keeping the cops in line too.
Absolutely. Pride is no longer for me. I marched proudly from 1980 onwards until the mid 90s when its shift to partying over political statement made it less important to me. I continued every now and again re raising awareness but, in recent years, it no longer represents me and I now dislike it with a passion. It’s time is past, but we still need what it was as our rights are eroded by bandwagon fetishists that claim it as their own. So - we need something new - but what?! Anecdote: I do remember going to a local Pride in the early 2000s, as part of a choir, and the police were there in large numbers. This, to me, meant trouble from my previous experiences of lesbian and gay marches, including London Pride during the Thatcher years. A group of uniformed police came up to me and I prepared myself. One of the officers said, “would you like a rainbow rubber?” and handed me a branded rainbow eraser and a pencil. That was my first experience of the police as participants in Pride and not as a threat or trouble!
I've sent this post -- and James Bessinger's (@thecarolinacourier) "Ashamed of Pride: Why Traditional Gays and Lesbians Want Nothing To Do With 'The Community'" -- to several of my gay and lesbian friends (the ones who haven't cut me off entirely over the trans issue).
I hope that by hearing it from someone other than me, a straight female, they might finally get it. Fingers crossed.
This is so refreshing to hear. No doubt gay people face discrimination historically. But any straight man objecting to the vulgarity of the parade was branded a bigot for 20 years. Shutting any mans opinion down who was not an avowed feminist got us here. Honestly. I have gay friends i've respected and admired. But its pretty rich to hear people blame ordinary men for the pornification of society, when anyone representing the dreaded patriarchy was shouted down as a bigot for 30 years. And here we are. On the issue of "porn" - nothing has undermined mens self respect more. It is a giddy spite-filled attack on patriarchal sexual norms, especially on teen boys. Time to stop alienating many allies on this fight by wagging a finger at "men" for our grooming and exploitation by harcore internet "porn" while we were children. Just saying. Fourth-wave feminists and extreme libertarians brought us "porn", not the patriarchy. If "the patriarchy" had its way, "porn" would be banned 20 years ago. Trans also was brought to us by extreme "sex-positive" (ie. porn-positive) feminism, not regular men.
I've worked for cities for most of my working life. I recall the firefighters balking at being mandatory participants because the parades were getting so gross and firefighters were being fetishized by weirdos. I also was given projects that were pride-related without a choice on participation, although thankfully mine were remote or library-based and the people who showed up were more tame because the setting was academic and not a parade. I resented not being able to decline involvement.
We are seeing pushback against getting extorted into compliance by being called a bigot if we decline. It’s a also a full-on effort to normalize hardcore pornography, imo.
I have read Dworkin, thanks. She is one of the second-wavers whose analysis I believe has been shown to be incorrect—a conclusion based not on feelings but rather on observation and evidence.
I respect your anti porn stance. This is what I mean by alienating allies. Of course men are to blame for “porn” along with women who go along with it.
I agree but I haven't seen any rainbow flags for years, it's all those hideous "Progress Flags" that are now being called "Pride Flags". I've not seen any examples in the wild of the version with the red umbrella for "sex workers" and I hope "Pride" withers away into nothing before I do.
Do you think there is any chance the LGB will reclaim the actual rainbow flag or has it been lost to the cause?
There still is a cause while homosexuality is illegal in some countries on pain of death.
At my local cinema tonight in a small Somerset town, the only nod to holy week was a tired looking row of rainbow penants displayed quite low down along the snack counter. By contrast, my GP surgery has a huge flag in their reception area all year round, and today, while waiting for my appointment, I learnt about the perils of biphobia. I guessed what it meant, but really, is it a thing? Nobody gives a crap.
Just now, on a lark, I looked up 'arophobia' because I knew there would be a Google entry:
Arophobia is a negative attitude, prejudice, or fear directed toward aromantic individuals and their experiences. It encompasses a range of behaviors, including dismissing aromantic identity, exclusion from LGBTQ+ spaces, and viewing aromanticism as a disorder.
I always thought and still do that "arophobia" was a fear of herbs and spices...especially in those who don't "like foreign food"! And those who don't like "foreign food" seem to like gingerbread and Xmas cake! All those who use the "phobia" words seem to have likes that give them a different phobia but are not personally willing to recognise them...Language is amazing, people less so!
I remember my first couple of Pride marches the 2nd Brighton Pride (the 1st before I lived there ), the year they kicked gc lesbians off was my lightbulb moment for this insidious cult of alphabet bollox . And bollox being the operative word , in a world where straight men cosplaying being transbian are celebrating and actual real lesbians are villified.
“Insidious cult of alphabet bollox”: poetically succinct 👏🏻
I thought so 🤣
Thank you for being the lone sensible voice in the media on the "porn" issue for 20 years. I am so sick of being gaslit into oblivion by academics and the media on this. Not to mention "feminist" politicians like Justin Trudeau. Women did the most effective gaslighting, unfortunately, because if women don't mind, than hey, what's the problem right? They like it! That's the fundamental lie of “porn”,- along with “boys love it” . NO, they’re addicted and having puberty weaponized against them. Again, thank you Julie. Modern Internet Porn is psychic terrorism.
Here is a perfect example of political, media and academic collusion on the issue. It’s enraging.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-poilievre-porn-age-verification-1.7122645
Julie is a woman. I'm not blaming women. I blame academics who insist “the studies” show no link between porn and violence. Bullshit. The elusive connection is on every porno website homepage. What I’m saying is, men didn’t get away with making and distributing internet “porn” all over the place (to kids!) by saying “hooray for misogyny”; they got away with it by citing these academics and using liberal "sex-positive" feminist rhetoric as a cover. As well as the absurd idea that it’s free speech. I’m not blaming women, good lord. I’m blaming the media, courts, academia, education, health care and the general public for our silence.
However, if women could unite in condemning it, the issue would be clear, absolutely. But too many are giddy about the transgression of "patriarchal" norms around sex, and afraid of being aligned with conservatives on anything. Men who condemn it are dismissed as slut-shaming misogynists, or religious prudes so we can't help much. Of course the reality is that it’s rocket fuel for misogyny. But it also destroys the boys it preys on! That’s what I’m saying. People who care: unite, and demand political action!
I remember when my sons, then 14 and 11, no longer wanted to be in Pride parade with their father, a man who identifies as female and tried to impose a version of Mum on them, as their address for him. My older son, then passionately in love with his first girlfriend (that was a disaster but didn't last too long) asked me how he could get out of it. I suggested he make up an invitation for some intriguing outing that had already "been planned for that day." He couldn't believe how easily that could be done. Since I believe my ex is actually a gay man with a fetish, I find his presence at Pride completely logical. I wonder if he realizes most of the gay men in their chaps see him as a gay dude in drag, which I know they do, from reliable sources.
I'm so sorry you and your kids had to go through that. For the life of me, I'll never understand the inclusion of children in “Pride”. Why that isn't seen as a big red flag for grooming and abuse, I will never know. Kids don't belong there or bars or sex toy stores. They are kids.
Brilliant writing. A few years ago I saw two people I know in purple tutus, makeup, and rainbow gear on Pride. Both straight, and married, one with children. There as part of a corporate sponsorship and to promote their affiliated business. Over the last few years Pride has aged like milk
It’s become like Mardi Gras in my town, except instead of seeing it as one parade of excess and lasciviousness, it’s extended beyond “pride month” into “pride season” and EVERY wing of our municipal and provincial government, as well as EVERY business and corporation, must fly the flags, don the tutus, and wear the beads, as it were. The absolute worst is that it’s billed as “family friendly,” and our downtown festival featured a kids’ craft tent and bouncy castle just metres away from a booth with a life-size spread-eagle photo of a female porn star, draped over the front table right at child’s eye height.
Did anyone protest or take that down, Mollie?
It's so sad what has happened to Pride. It has a really sinister and threatening edge now. I used to like the Sydney ones back in the 80's as a teenager but it's changed so much. It's just a performance of male sex and perversity now, not inclusive at all.
I totally agree about Sydney Pride.
The entire trans agenda is no more than a men's rights movement in drag. The incredible levels of homophobia and misogyny, not to mention the rampant abuse of children, should be a clue to this. I always wonder just what these people are so "proud" of? The erasure of women? The hypersexualizing of children? The ruination of so many young lives?
Piss off with your gender shite, there are only two sexes, and you can't identify out of either of them: https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/we-told-you-so
I said more or less the same thing and got banned from the "Ask A Liberal" subreddit!
Great piece. I went on a few Gay Pride marches in the mid 80s. It was a small affair - no corporate sponsorship - just people being proud and very funny. Tom Robinson singing "Glad to be Gay" (with it's lyric about being called "queer") in the little park where the London Eye is now.
Now it's just a corporate freebie for spicy straights. Stay away.
The British Police are the best in the world
I don't believe one of these stories I've heard
'Bout them raiding our pubs for no reason at all
Lining the customers up by the wall
Picking out people and knocking them down
Resisting arrest as they're kicked on the ground
Searching their houses and calling them queer
I don't believe that sort of thing happens here
The key is to remember this, and not let the parade become a parody of what those cops were worried about, which it did in the 90''s, but now its gone beyond parody and in fact IS what those cops were worried about. The solution is not to crack skulls, but to let arguments and democracy win the day, while keeping the cops in line too.
Absolutely. Pride is no longer for me. I marched proudly from 1980 onwards until the mid 90s when its shift to partying over political statement made it less important to me. I continued every now and again re raising awareness but, in recent years, it no longer represents me and I now dislike it with a passion. It’s time is past, but we still need what it was as our rights are eroded by bandwagon fetishists that claim it as their own. So - we need something new - but what?! Anecdote: I do remember going to a local Pride in the early 2000s, as part of a choir, and the police were there in large numbers. This, to me, meant trouble from my previous experiences of lesbian and gay marches, including London Pride during the Thatcher years. A group of uniformed police came up to me and I prepared myself. One of the officers said, “would you like a rainbow rubber?” and handed me a branded rainbow eraser and a pencil. That was my first experience of the police as participants in Pride and not as a threat or trouble!
Thank you, Julie, for your unflagging efforts.
I've sent this post -- and James Bessinger's (@thecarolinacourier) "Ashamed of Pride: Why Traditional Gays and Lesbians Want Nothing To Do With 'The Community'" -- to several of my gay and lesbian friends (the ones who haven't cut me off entirely over the trans issue).
I hope that by hearing it from someone other than me, a straight female, they might finally get it. Fingers crossed.
That was also a great piece!!!
Thank you Julie!
A great and well written take down of what ‘Pride’ has become; treacherous, entitled and pornified.
I’m proud to stand with you.
😘
Wish sex stayed behind closed doors... don't want to hear it, don't care... do whatever but close the door.
Totally agree with all of that, Julie.
We are having a counter protest Terf Month with great women's rights speeches on our substack. Next up Lierre Keith.
Will cross post in due course
Dusty
Have cross posted
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/are-you-for-womens-lib-dismantle
Dusty
This is so refreshing to hear. No doubt gay people face discrimination historically. But any straight man objecting to the vulgarity of the parade was branded a bigot for 20 years. Shutting any mans opinion down who was not an avowed feminist got us here. Honestly. I have gay friends i've respected and admired. But its pretty rich to hear people blame ordinary men for the pornification of society, when anyone representing the dreaded patriarchy was shouted down as a bigot for 30 years. And here we are. On the issue of "porn" - nothing has undermined mens self respect more. It is a giddy spite-filled attack on patriarchal sexual norms, especially on teen boys. Time to stop alienating many allies on this fight by wagging a finger at "men" for our grooming and exploitation by harcore internet "porn" while we were children. Just saying. Fourth-wave feminists and extreme libertarians brought us "porn", not the patriarchy. If "the patriarchy" had its way, "porn" would be banned 20 years ago. Trans also was brought to us by extreme "sex-positive" (ie. porn-positive) feminism, not regular men.
I've worked for cities for most of my working life. I recall the firefighters balking at being mandatory participants because the parades were getting so gross and firefighters were being fetishized by weirdos. I also was given projects that were pride-related without a choice on participation, although thankfully mine were remote or library-based and the people who showed up were more tame because the setting was academic and not a parade. I resented not being able to decline involvement.
We are seeing pushback against getting extorted into compliance by being called a bigot if we decline. It’s a also a full-on effort to normalize hardcore pornography, imo.
Commercial interests built porn, with considerable help from many liberals and leftists.
Women create porn and men consume it. The phenomenon of OnlyFans has thoroughly debunked most of the second-wavers analysis of the industry.
I have read Dworkin, thanks. She is one of the second-wavers whose analysis I believe has been shown to be incorrect—a conclusion based not on feelings but rather on observation and evidence.
🙄🙄🙄
Thanks again! Downloaded to save and share.
I respect your anti porn stance. This is what I mean by alienating allies. Of course men are to blame for “porn” along with women who go along with it.
In the West, polite society is now Matriarchal.
Some of which is pro-porn..
You're very aggressive:(
The Patriarchy is a Feminist Myth.
Thank you!
I agree but I haven't seen any rainbow flags for years, it's all those hideous "Progress Flags" that are now being called "Pride Flags". I've not seen any examples in the wild of the version with the red umbrella for "sex workers" and I hope "Pride" withers away into nothing before I do.
Do you think there is any chance the LGB will reclaim the actual rainbow flag or has it been lost to the cause?
There still is a cause while homosexuality is illegal in some countries on pain of death.
Then go to those countries and protest !
That would make a big difference, I am sure. Should I take a Rainbow flag with me to wave? Would that help, do you think?
At my local cinema tonight in a small Somerset town, the only nod to holy week was a tired looking row of rainbow penants displayed quite low down along the snack counter. By contrast, my GP surgery has a huge flag in their reception area all year round, and today, while waiting for my appointment, I learnt about the perils of biphobia. I guessed what it meant, but really, is it a thing? Nobody gives a crap.
Just now, on a lark, I looked up 'arophobia' because I knew there would be a Google entry:
Arophobia is a negative attitude, prejudice, or fear directed toward aromantic individuals and their experiences. It encompasses a range of behaviors, including dismissing aromantic identity, exclusion from LGBTQ+ spaces, and viewing aromanticism as a disorder.
Everyone is a victim now, tis the law.
I always thought and still do that "arophobia" was a fear of herbs and spices...especially in those who don't "like foreign food"! And those who don't like "foreign food" seem to like gingerbread and Xmas cake! All those who use the "phobia" words seem to have likes that give them a different phobia but are not personally willing to recognise them...Language is amazing, people less so!
Haha, if they ever invited me to an event, “Oh no, don’t invite me. I’m aromatic”
Brilliantly written Julie.