The Straight Pride Parade

[Yukaphile]

I do wanna add this one point, though. Perhaps pride is still the wrong word, but... I can relate to the "happy to be heterosexual" attitude. See, I'm het-flexible. I've seen a few guys I wouldn't mind... you know, but in those cases, I'm extremely picky, and my preference is females anyway, so with that exception, I feel blessed sometimes as I am with my orientation. I simply love beholding beautiful women. I'm gaga about the girls, as you guys can no doubt probably tell, lol, and that's also why I take such a hard-line view on rape culture and victim-blaming, but leaving that aside, yeah, I'm pretty much in a state of hearts-in-eyes like in a cartoon or anime when it comes to the ladies. And so long as I still see them as human beings, there's nothing wrong with that, which I do. And if someone is likewise that... "eagerly heterosexual," as I'd term it, lol, they shouldn't feel diminished by that. The point of pride parades for gay people, however, is that they have as much equal right to be "eagerly homosexual," and yet there's still stigma around it, or was for the longest time. Confess to somebody you were interested in them, you'd get hit with stereotypes or be offended. I've had male friends who I'm not remotely interested in confess if I swung a bit harder... that way, they'd go with me, which while I find odd, is still flattering. A lot of people out there would probably be disgusted. Especially in the past, with religion's stranglehold on our society. I think this is the key point here, a lot of people need to address.

[Admiral X]

Do we "need" a Straight Pride Parade? Nope. Is there any sane reason not to let those who feel they do need to, have it? Nope, neither. I find it pretty amusing, to be honest, how the leftist elements rail so hard against it. As long as they do not hurt anyone with their parade, then: Who the fuck cares? Is your precious little ego really so fragile, that you need to put it down at all costs, call people names and burn all your bridges even to people and positions who would normally ally with you? All it does is show, how unsympathetic you truely are. You are much more like crusaders on a war of faith, not people who want want to create an inclusive society. You define yourself over your antagonism to an enemy and happily jump at every opportunity to fight what does not need to be fought against and that is what I find really sad about the modern left, they are fighting windmills and are proud about it.

My way of thinking as well. I find the idea of the parade kind of silly, but then I also find what gay pride parades have become to be silly, too. And I am not surprised at all at the reaction from certain people either. And I feel the same way about that, too. as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words, and while they might talk a good deal about inclusiveness and all that, anyone can see that what they actually do is exclude, and that they are all about "free speech for me, but not for thee," amongst other double standards.

[Yukaphile]

Well, let's not go crazy. Even if you assume battle for LGBT rights are over, gay pride parades were good for mainstreaming them. At a time when they were forced to stay in the closet or get fired or murdered. Though is a gay pride parade anything like the movie "My Fellow Americans?" Where they're dressed like girls (for the males) and flaming queens? Shit, that movie was made in the mid 1990s, and if that's not true to reality, then it shows how far we've come, from open mockery of gay people as flamboyant to having gay marriage.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I kinda remember that scene. IIRC the butt of the joke was the old men just having sift through that and reacted to everything like old men who weren't explicitly creeped out by it or anything but were still detached from the development of the pride parade convention just by their age.

[ProfessorDetective]

Oh, that's also a good one:

'[Straight Pride is] like billionaires getting labor day parades.'
--- Lily Orchard (https://lily-orchard.tumblr.com/post/185825771955/)

[Darth Wedgius]

Well, let's not go crazy. Even if you assume battle for LGBT rights are over, gay pride parades were good for mainstreaming them. At a time when they were forced to stay in the closet or get fired or murdered. Though is a gay pride parade anything like the movie "My Fellow Americans?" Where they're dressed like girls (for the males) and flaming queens? Shit, that movie was made in the mid 1990s, and if that's not true to reality, then it shows how far we've come, from open mockery of gay people as flamboyant to having gay marriage.

It's not unusual to have very flamboyant cross-dressing, or BDSM outfits, or high degrees of sexualization of the participants. Though I think most of the parade participants are not wearing assless chaps or such, it does happen, and the odder participants are often the ones getting the focus.

[Yukaphile]

It still plays to the stereotype of LGBT folks as an "other," when honestly, they can act just like your normal "cis-het" people, because really, they are your normal, everyday people, nuff said.

[Darth Wedgius]

I was just answering your question, Yuka.

[Yukaphile]

Fair enough.