Is showing kinks at pride where children are a good idea?

Sex positivity
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People like this certainly don’t think so. And while I think he is a horrible person, is it possible he has a point?

For one thing I did explore the possibility of nudity not having a negative effect on children, and found that at the very least, it doesn’t lead to child sex. I am also aware that prostasia takes a stand on consent and how children cannot consent to sex and the like, which I agree with.

He also mentioned Desmond is Amazing, ignoring that child protective services found no issue with it.

That said, would children imitate what they see if exposed to kinks?

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Outside of an educational context children should not be exposed to overtly sexual stuff.

I don’t know why you are trying to bring us into your kiwi farms drama but please don’t.

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The only kinks you’re likely to see in Pride marches are leather community stuff, which is really just costume theatre. Sexual dispositions aren’t acquired by imitation, and kids other than all-knowing teens would have no mental pathway to imagine the sexual expressions that might accompany such theatre. So this bit of mummery has no way to influence their sexual futures – except if, much later in life, they find they have acquired a similar sexual quirk from its primary roots (which relate to early childhood experiences where vulnerability is felt in connection with something that connects to the nascent sexuality, e.g., being spanked by a parent - arguably one of the major actual generators of later fetish), then they feel reassured that people like themselves have a place in the world. So it’s all good.

As for Desmond and his Canadian equivalent Lactacia, they’re doing what thousands of people like them historically dreamed of doing at that age, and did it themselves in play with friends or in backyard costume shows when they could get away with it. At some point, doing performances, they get into the conundrum of ‘should kids really be in show business,’ but they are arguably, because of the context, FAR better protected from sexual exploitation than traditional Hollywood and television kids who, as we’ve seen, were at the mercy of all sorts of people because there was a false atmosphere of sexlessness that the predators could hide behind.

The persecution of Desmond was a follow-on to Pizzagate and was supposed to show that Democrats were corrupting the moral fibre of America. Captain Trump to the rescue. The people who so vigorously sat there day after day composing sex rumours and spinning photos of harmless events were certainly at least partly paid disruptors connected to the same cyberwar as Pizzagate was part of.

On the other hand, seeing some gay guys cracking whips towards each other’s butts at a Pride parade once caused my Labrador retriever to associate parades with his dread of thunderstorms, and ever after that, if he ever saw a street being cleared off for any parade, he would run from it at top speed, pulling me along. So the kink thing may not be suitable for all dogs.

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I don’t want to get involved in Kiwifarms but to answer your question. Absolutely not.

LGBTQ+ Pride is fundamentally about sexual freedom, a very important goal for adults. Because minors lack the physical and intellectual capacity to manage their own sexuality in a safe manner, it seems only logical that minors should be barred from pride in general until they reach an age wherein they can safely reflect on and manage their own sexuality.

Also, there shouldn’t be any debate that nudity has a negative effect on children, it’s not that exposure to nudity will lead to underaged sex but rather because kids literally cannot process the sight of an unclothed body. We don’t know why this is, the human species is the only species on Earth with this unusual trait but we have to live with it.

I think many LGBTQ+ people would agree with me on this, the idea that we actively want to expose children to harmful imagery, sexualize them or alter/abolish age of consent laws is a tired, harmful and incorrect lie.

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This is actually really simple. Kink belongs at Pride. Kink is part of Pride history, the leather community was there at Stonewall and part of the fight, it hasn’t even been that long since Stonewall. If you tell an older Leather Daddy he doesn’t belong at Pride, you could reasonably be talking to someone who was there.

Pride is not for kids. Pride is not a family event.

I personally think there is great value in kids going to Pride and seeing what these communities actually look like. But Pride is not FOR kids.

Have a backyard BBQ for your queer kid if you want to dictate what they can and can’t see. Otherwise, respect Pride for what it is instead of trying to water it down. Respect the history that got us where we are now.

Editing to add: The conversations with kids who see these things needn’t be super involved. Age appropriate answers are completely possible.

“Why is that person dressed like that?” - Well, that person likes to dress that way because it makes them happy, like when you wear your [insert favorite garment]

"What is kink anyway? - It’s just a way of expressing love and affection that is a little different from the ways other people do it.

And so on…

It strikes me as a mistake to try to hide the existence of sex and non-mainstream sex at an event that is about the freedom to express those things. These are conversations we need to have so we don’t have adults with no idea how to navigate outside their own narrow experience.

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This probably didn’t help, in spite of the fact the guy’s crotch was covered…

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I personally wouldn’t even try explaining kink to minors because that almost certainly will harm them. There are many things that minors simply shouldn’t know or think about and kink is one of them.

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Really? Then all the nudist colonies, families have been abusing their children? I don’t think so. Wearing clothes is a societal requirement. Nudity is perfectly natural and does not harm children.

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What?! Where did you pull this crap from? Kids don’t care in the slightest about naked bodies, but they’re taught that people should only ever be nude in private and that nudity is somehow wrong or harmful. This requirement to wear clothes at all times is a purely societal construct.

There’s nothing about kink that would be more harmful than the rest of sexuality, after all it is just another aspect of sexuality and therefore something minors are discovering and exploring on their own. They have a right to information.

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Oh god… not piwi harms…
Used to be a fun forum back when I was into cringe culture but I sort of outgrew all that, I guess.

I think LGBT pride is for all, but kink is for adults.

I grew up with gay friends during the early-2010s so not having that socialized validation was difficult for them.
Did they uncover their kinks? yeah. But it’s best for kids to figure that stuff out themselves.

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Most nudist colonies don’t allow children for obvious reasons, nudity is perfectly natural but the fact of the matter is that children do experience severe mental trauma from being exposed to nudity, it is why we have laws against exposing children to such material.

Takes like yours are why this forum gets a bad wrap, we should not be advocating for a change or alteration to pre-existing laws.

Minors do not have the mental maturity needed to safely explore, analyze or engage in their own sexuality which is barely existent, to begin with. Minors shouldn’t be concerned with sexuality at all, for their own health and safety. This is not up to debate.

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That’s simply false, that’s just total crap.

That’s just not realistic at all.

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I was going to say total horseshit, but crap does cover it.

Early Childhood Exposure to Parental Nudity and Scenes of Parental Sexuality (“Primal Scenes”): An 18-Year Longitudinal Study of Outcome | SpringerLink

CHILDHOOD SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT | National Center on the Sexual Behavior of Youth (ncsby.org)

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Thats what I said! However a kink is different from nudity.

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This in direct opposition to the health and safety of minors.

Your real life argument that you think is sound is that minors should be kept in the dark about sexuality until they are legal adults wherever they live?

I feel like a lot of this conversation involves confusion about the difference between knowing sexuality/kink exists, and outright demonstrations. By saying minors should know nothing about sexuality until adulthood, you are also saying they shouldn’t know anything about sexual orientations, which they are likely to begin discovering in themselves well before they reach adulthood.

Minors can know that kink exists without being harmed in the same way they can know how babies are made without being harmed. We don’t need to go into specifics in order to set kids up with the knowledge they need to remain safe and we can build as they age/mature. No aspect of sexuality has to be taught in it’s entirety in one go. Because, if health and safety is your goal, you should probably teach consent and bodily autonomy and how those can relate to sexuality.

The idea that kids can’t know anything is straight up sex negativity which is rooted in purity culture. If I had known kink existed, I would not have felt so weird for so many years. Because we don’t discuss these things, there is little in the way of safer resources. I would have been SO MUCH safer as a young adult if I’d had a better foundation.

If we want adults to do it safely, we have to lay the groundwork long before then.

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For the record this is the idea behind comprehensive sex ed, and it does work, though I admit, learning about it in school is different from seeing it firsthand at pride. At the very least, they should be taught about that and consent before going just so they wouldn’t be overwhelmed, nor should they feel they have to join in as it were.

Off course, kinks are more private and ostensibly I would prefer if it wasn’t at pride, but I do know why it’s there, because of the necessity of destigmaization.

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jfc I’m so tired of this puritan insanity. No, nonsexual nudity is not harmful for even very young kids to see. It’s actually beneficial, as any civilized society understands. All across the world it’s common for parents to bathe with their children at least up until puberty starts. Public bath houses and saunas have all-ages and full nudity. They teach their kids about personal boundaries and how to not stare or be inappropriate. Tv and magazine ads in many places have topless women uncensored because not all cultures conform to the fetishization of mammary glands. The US is pretty much the only country that completely erases the boundary between casual nudity and sexual nudity, and it seriously contributes to how screwed up we are about soooo many things.

Now, early exposure to sexual nudity, as in, witnessing a sex scene on tv, that can very easily be harmful to young kids. But there IS a difference between that and just seeing your family naked, or even onscreen nudity that’s not in a sexual context. It’s been studied. And my mother thoroughly looked into this research as she was pregnant with me, so I grew up enjoying baths and showers with her that very naturally tapered off as I reached puberty. My father was only around until I was six, and I never saw him naked since he had body image issues due to a condition that left his ribcage somewhat concave, so even aside from being gay, I’ve never felt comfortable seeing dangly bits, and I have no way of knowing if there’s any correlation.

So seriously. Stop being a prude and learn about the world.

As for kink at Pride, it’s perfectly fine. “Kink” is not sex. These days, kinks and fetishes and paraphilias are interchangeable terms, which is frustrating, but essentially, “kink” is anything besides the “norm,” besides “vanilla.” Gayness is kink. Transness is kink. BDSM, D/S, DDLG, fursuits, pup/pony gear, etc are kink. None of that is inherently or automatically NSFW, since it’s all as much an aesthetic as an act. Kids will see ppl in bondage gear and leather and such and just see Halloween costumes, except less scary. That’s the only explanation they’ll need: “it’s a costume party for ppl who like specific costumes.” Nudity is not generally kink, and if you take your kids to the beach or pool, they won’t be seeing any more skin at Pride than they’ve already seen. If there’s nudist stuff ever going on at Pride, it’ll be a separate event that makes it clear that ppl will be naked.

Fetishes, on the other hand, are when something, usually a bodypart, is sexualized, or “fetishized” that is not normally sexual. Feet is an unexpectedly common one, but breasts are easily the most fetishized. Fetish can also extend to things like clothing, thus crossing over into kink territory. For instance, fursuits are always kink, but not always a fetish, bc not all furries find them sexually appealing, and there’s not much way to know who is who. Common fetishes are actually rather important for kids to learn about, and in the case of breasts, girls are already taught young that they can’t go shirtless in public even before their chests have developed. If an adult or older kid wants to see them shirtless, they’ll be more likely to know that’s abnormal and feel uncomfortable with that. It stands to reason then, that if kids knew to be wary of adults that seem to be fetishizing something about them, they have a better chance of speaking out about it, and to grow up not feeling like just talking about fetishization is taboo. Then we might not end up with situations like Dan Schneider getting all the kids in his tv shows to be barefoot and showing off their feet on camera for years while everyone was too embarrassed to say “Wait a minute. WTF are you doing.”

And as for paraphilias, that’s a wide range of things, but regardless, there’s nothing going on at regular, all-ages Pride events that will hurt kids. It’s just prude parents that can’t handle the thought of having to answer any questions kids may have. Is there a stall selling sex toys and condoms? “Those are adult things you’ll learn about when you’re older.” Are there shirtless women? “There are times and places when they can do that, and this is one of them.” Are ppl, I dunno, twerking or something? “They’re dancing.” Ta-da.

It’s all just your own hangups about sexuality. Stop pinning your unhealthy relationship with it on kids.

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I agree. I already gave studies on this.
Do you have more?

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Ok puritan
[filler words]

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