CDR Chat Thread #31 (how to, men, family, American)

[Damnitjanet]

Originally Posted by timberline742

But drag isn't sexual in nature inherently. It's nothing like stripping. It's playing a character in costume. Some drag kings have bawdy skits, but only (from what I've seen) at adults only shows.

Never heard of kids doing drag, but I'm sure kids put on costumes and do plays. I've just never heard of it as such.

I'm amazing people can find reading stories to kids while playing dress up as offensive. Sounds like someone is looking to be offended to me.

Its the clthes that they are wearing highly fitted and the exaggerated female body parts. Again if adults want to do this fine, but why introduce it to kids and put it in the schools?

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

And you could argue that performers like Dolly Parton, Lady Gaga, Lizzo, Cher, etc, perform in drag. It's not inherently sexual, but it's an exaggerated version of traditional femininity. The bottom line is that if you don't want your kids to go to drag bingo/story hour, don't take them there.

I don't think that performers who may do shows for an adult audience are unable to edit themselves to be family friendly. George Carlin starred on the US version of Thomas the Tank engine for years, and I doubt any children learned any bad language from him there. Eddie Murphy's comedy act was raunchy, but he also starred in a bunch of kids movies in a fat suit.

But why are they doing it in public school and in public libraries? Why the procactiive clothes? Why target kids?

Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork

And see... I'm still kinda in the middle about it all. Like I don't really think that it's "sexualizing" kids necessarily (hell, far less so than child beauty pageants!) but at the same time, I DO think that it's deliberately provocative.

I don't think that violence is a justifiable response, but like you, I also don't think that it's exactly surprising, especially since mass shootings have become a way, in my opinion, for a certain kind of person to express their anger and outrage about a society where they don't feel comfortable anymore.

That kind of person being unstable, yes, but also often of a group that was used to getting their way. And one that has reacted with violence to feelings of threat to their comfortable normalized and assumed supremacy throughout American history. Those who carried out lynchings across the South during parts of the last century also felt like some kind of comfortable reality they believed they had a right to, was under threat. They were wrong, but that didn't stop them from behaving as they did.

I don't want LGBTQ+ folks shoved back in a closet, and I do want there to be support and acceptance and resources for LGBTQ+ youth (there are two community center type organizations in Colorado Springs that I know of, that provide such, and I support them!) but the performative in-your-face-ness of the drag queens for kids events feels a bridge too far, bound to stir up trouble, and designed, perhaps, to do so. Controversial on purpose.

I agree with you about the childhood beauty pagents. Would you be surprised if there was a mass shooting at a childhood beauty pagent? I really wouldn't. I expect it there too. They just take more work to find.

My issue isn't keeping gay people away kids, if it was just a gay man in dockers reading to their kids, I would think why don't we see more gay men acting normally around kids? But that is not the way activists work. The activism always seems pretty focused on kids. Its in the schools, its in the public libraries and it involves young children in a real sexualized manner. It always needs a grandiose display. If heterosexual activists were demanding the right to read to kids in fishnet stockings and club attire I would be just as upset about that too.

The shooting happened because guns are easy to access in this country and a certain part of the population is mentally ill with poor impulse control. It doesn't take a lot to push them over the edge.

Originally Posted by timberline742

True.

I also very much think if it was a drag king in a tux with a top hat and mustache, it wouldn't get anywhere near the pushback.

Nevermind that I think much of this has to do with ignorance. People seem to be (even just a couple of posts ago) confusing drag with trans. And then trans (gender identity) with sexuality. At a certain point I can say hey, ok, you just don't get it and its a learning opportunity. BUT, I don't think a bunch of that group want to learn. They're so wed to being angry.

People are angry because activists have figured out that if you can get people upset, they can draw attention to their cause. That is why they need to keep constantly trying to provoke people. Would there be a controversy if gay men were reading to kids in dockers? No, that is why they won't do that. Getting people upset is a feature not a bug.

You are missing my point. I am not confusing being gay and being trans. It is LGBQT+ activists who are driving a lot of this activism, if they are going to claim to be working together as a broad LGBQT+ coalition to push an agenda, then the backlash is going to target the entire broad LGBQT+ coalition as well. The gay clubs are just the most prominent symbols of the broad LGBQT+ coalition. That is why they got targeted here. There is no self policing of what these activists are doing under their name, so the whack job with a gun targeted the gay club.

Should there be less guns and more restraints on guns ? Yes. Should there be fewer mentally ill people with better treatment options ? Yes. Do I think either of those things are going to happen any time in the forseeable future? No. Do I think mass shootings are going to keep happening in gay clubs? Yes.

[timberline742]

I have seen many a drag show, and yet to see provacative clothing. More like ballroom gowns and loads of sequence.

I have no idea what drag shows you've seen, if any. They're generally in very covered clothing in their costume.

I guess costumes and playing dress up is not allowed with children. If a guy is going to dress as a woman to play a character, or a woman to dress as a man to play a character, they're going to use clothing and make up, wigs, beards, etc to accentuate that.

The idea of reading books as "activism" is quite bizarre to me. The drag performers, both kings and queens, aren't interested or haven't been in activism about drag shows. They're performers into performing and promoting their brand/characters.

[RbccL]

At the restaurant with the drag brunch a couple of blocks away from me, I was surprised there was a big crowd of activists outside actively protesting. The word spread about the protesters, as this is the restaurant of an amazing couple who are always giving back to our community. The whole community.

The activists aren’t inside, the people inside are entertainers and/or being entertained. There were children there, and I don’t think any of the children are wondering who is having sex with who, and if they’re a boy or a girl, and what their body parts under the clothes are, they were just being entertained. It’s way more entertaining than just a gay guy in Dockers show.

The activists who heard the rumor or specifically look for something to protest, knew there was going to be a Drag Brunch and all show up, not because they want entertainment, but because they actively want to make sure people know they think it’s wrong. In this particular incidence, it caused more people to patronize the restaurant, as a show of support. Next time they should hire some people to pose as activists marching outside, because it encourages way more people to come inside to show support.

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by RbccL

At the restaurant with the drag brunch a couple of blocks away from me, I was surprised there was a big crowd of activists outside actively protesting. The word spread about the protesters, as this is the restaurant of an amazing couple who are always giving back to our community. The whole community.

The activists aren’t inside, the people inside are entertainers and/or being entertained. There were children there, and I don’t think any of the children are wondering who is having sex with who, and if they’re a boy or a girl, and what their body parts under the clothes are, they were just being entertained. It’s way more entertaining than just a gay guy in Dockers show.

The activists who heard the rumor or specifically look for something to protest, knew there was going to be a Drag Brunch and all show up, not because they want entertainment, but because they actively want to make sure people know they think it’s wrong. In this particular incidence, it caused more people to patronize the restaurant, as a show of support. Next time they should hire some people to poses activists marching outside because it encourages way more people to come inside to show support.

This is great. Yeah. The activists aren't the performers, it's some uptight people that are chasing "woke" ghosts to be mad about. Loads of those in this country.

I also don't buy for a minute that if it was a gay guy in dockers that the fringe conservatives of this country wouldn't have a fit and call that a gay agenda thing to indoctrinate children, or even claim it was grooming for sexual assault. It would be far less fun for kids though.

[DontH8Me]

Originally Posted by RbccL

At the restaurant with the drag brunch a couple of blocks away from me, I was surprised there was a big crowd of activists outside actively protesting. The word spread about the protesters, as this is the restaurant of an amazing couple who are always giving back to our community. The whole community.

The activists aren’t inside, the people inside are entertainers and/or being entertained. There were children there, and I don’t think any of the children are wondering who is having sex with who, and if they’re a boy or a girl, and what their body parts under the clothes are, they were just being entertained. It’s way more entertaining than just a gay guy in Dockers show.

The activists who heard the rumor or specifically look for something to protest, knew there was going to be a Drag Brunch and all show up, not because they want entertainment, but because they actively want to make sure people know they think it’s wrong. In this particular incidence, it caused more people to patronize the restaurant, as a show of support. Next time they should hire some people to pose as activists marching outside, because it encourages way more people to come inside to show support.

The idea of drag as entertainment is nothing new - I wonder if everyone has forgotten about these:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfemsVOgSFU

Fast forward to 3:05 for when he's dressed as Jane Fonda:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gStx4fVgYcA

Some people just want to complain because they are parroting what they heard their favorite Internet personality say in their over-dramatized over-inflated way.

By the way, the nightclub suspect is the grandson of a CA GOP assemblyman (Randy Voepel) and CO's red flag law should have worked on him, as he threatened his mother with a homemade bomb, forcing the neighbors in surrounding homes to evacuate while the bomb squad and crisis negotiators talked him into surrendering a few years ago - but the whole case was sealed and there is no evidence that there was even prosecution, let alone conviction. He never had his guns removed, all because of his connections.

But heaven forbid - a guy wants to put on a sequined dress, makeup and some high heels and people want to take to the streets with pitchforks and torches.

Where were these right-fighters when an actual threat to society grabbed his guns and went on a rampage? Where were they when granddaddy was fixing little Baby Huey's terroristic threat charges years before innocents got slaughtered?

[timberline742]

Our country is bizarre. We love guns more than life. Fun and laughter (what drag entertainment is about) is a threat, but anger and violence is seemed as normal and expected.

And yeah, drag queens and kings have been around longer than any of us have been alive.

[fleetiebelle]

The ironic thing is that starting this weekend, parents of small children will line up at the mall or other places and plop their kids on a stranger's lap because he's dressed like Santa (who they've been lying to their kids about their whole lives.) But it's dress up story hour at the library that's problematic.

[Sonic_Spork]

My opinion of drag shows as "adult" is because the drag shows that I have seen, have been adult. Including the ones in Colorado Springs. I'm not condemning them. I like them! I'm a big fan of a drag queen named Jackie Beat, too, and you can go listen to her songs on Youtube but I suggest you do so when you aren't at work or around kids. I love her songs, they are hilarious, but I did not play them for my KIDS.

I don't actually believe that adult content is being shown to children, necessarily (I don't know), but I do think that there is solid cause for people to consider drag shows to be usually of an adult nature.

And every drag queen I have ever known is one of the most attention demanding and melodramatic human beings to ever walk the earth, and I'm down with that in general, but again...I think that the beginning of this whole thing was not about promoting a brand, it was about shocking the squares. Which...I'm not always against that, either, but in the context of the times, though? We have about a quarter to a third of this country that is largely against about half because their guys told them that liberals are out to sleaze on or harm children. It's the modern iteration of blood libel. It's horrible and it's wrong, but I feel that in light of having to try to push back on these bogus claims, we did not need over the top outrageous performers to be like "hey I want to hang out with a bunch of kids!"

The forces of common sense in America's political landscape are hanging on by their fingernails. We don't need to waste precious time trying to educate certain people (like ahem a certain poster n.t.v. ahem over in p.o.c.) about what is the difference between trans, drag, tv, etc and whether or not the outfits, dances or lyrics in these performances are explicit, and so on and so forth. They aren't going to listen anyways. But they have some kind of means to persuade others that the left has an agenda to expose kids to adult stuff because they can easily find videos and such of these events of kids watching drag performances. I don't see the sense right now in giving "proof" to such arguments.

All I'm saying is that for the time being, the drag queens could be content with performing for adult audiences. That's it. Maybe, hopefully, at some point in the future, we won't have some of the tension and violence that are ready to boil over and it'll be safer, I don't know. I don't think that the child demographic is where they make most of their income. I see no need for them to "promote their brand" to little kids at the library.

I suspect there's a good chance it isn't "problematic."
I just don't see a point in provoking the crazy people with guns when our system is not keeping them on a leash right now.
Obviously it SHOULDN'T be that way. But.

[timberline742]

The ones that I know that do story time aren't being paid for that, its a community service, though there is some promotion of their character of course in a community. I'm sure they hope it will result in adults (parents) attending paid gigs, though I doubt it primarily done for the advertising. It's fun, people like it. If people didn't go and enjoy it, it wouldn't have become a thing. It's not a "drag show", its storytime with costumes.

I'm VERY VERY hesitant in telling people to closet or subdue themselves, or fear having fun and laughter, because there are crazies out there. I mean, where does that end? Gays not holding hands? Sikhs not wearing turbans as people think they're Muslim? Muslims not wearing hijabs? Jews not wearing a Star of David? Interracial couples not kissing in public? Those sentiments have been around as well to not provoke crazies. I think its a good thing that the issue was pressed. I mean, in the 80s I didn't think gay marriage would be a thing anytime soon (civil unions seemed like the goal), and what do you know, totally normalized (except in extremist areas) everywhere now. Thankfully.

I think though people REALLY are trying hard to find something to be mad about if they have an issue with a person in character reading a kids book at a library. If you're not down, don't go. Simple enough.

Then the crazies are crazy. Loads of them on this far right forum. I mean, people believing that Democratics are killing and eating babies, and Biden is pedo (no idea where that came from). There is no calming those people down. They're just whack jobs. Unfortuately our country doesn't deal with mental health issues well (and won't) and we love our guns and for everyone to have them. I don't want people hurt, but gay clubs have been attacked WAY before there was ever a drag story time. That's not the reason these things happen. It's an excuse for mentally ill people to go off. You get rid of all drag shows today, and even get rid of gay marriage, and that's not going to change attacks on gay clubs at all.

(Of course there is another dark side where some of these attacks are perpetrated by in the closet / in denial gay people, as there are sections of our society that really still relish in making being gay evil, and people adopt a deep self loathing and then take it out on others. That's, well, much of that is thanks to the evils of organized religion.)

[mlj1225]

Another mass shooting.... gut wrenching.