Opinions About PRIDE

[TickTockMan]

My only request is that Pride never becomes so family friendly that it turns into a sporting tournament with hot dogs and clowns.

Too late. Its something I am trying to help change.

 

[gdude30]

There is a place and time for sex, our PRIDE event is not it. Its an open park with open tents put up with the so called “adult booths” set away from the others. The “toy” tent only differs because they are made to drape stuff down so you can not see into it from the out side.

As for the testing I agree. It should be out in the open. Even more, for our PRIDE event the testing is not on site. They just give out free info and can set up an appointment to go to the Heath County office for the tests. I don’t even know if a kid could get tested without an okay from a parent, but it seems paranoid to not even let kids see information on HIV and other STI’s. They need it just as bad as sexually active adults.

I never said that I wanted Sex at Pride. Did you not see what I said earlier about "people fearing that pride will become decadence, a sex party" and no one wants that line crossed really. Well most people don't. It still happens just not out in the open.

At the civic center two years ago they did not even really have that many adult stuff. Just some leather stuff, chains, cuffs, and etc. Not even sex toys really. Oh they did have a flesh jack booth this year XD. That was awesome. I actually have been thinking about trying one of those. I think it needs to feel less powdery on the inside than it would be more realistic.

Wait so there is an adult booth and a toy tent draped? Uhm that doesn't make much sense. Again guys don't really heavily make out or do a lot of body contact at pride out in the path that everyone walks on. If they do that they go somewhere less busy. The most that guys will do on the path that everyoen walks on is light kissing, greeting friends, holding hands, hugging, and that's really it. A little groping and pawing sometimes. But still they don't seem to strip naked and fuck and suck.

At least not at Atlanta Pride.

The Dildo toss does interest me though. Maybe I'll do that next year set that up somehow. And to make it safe and friendly. THE CONDOM Dildo TOSS

I love how someone at the parade dressed in drag and a had a dead fake baby in a sack representing abortion. That was really funny and that just pissed off that religious fuckheads from NC off so much. God they were annoying.

Well that sucks that they don't do testing on site. But at least they give out information on where to go and how to set up an appointment.

It sounds like your pride and my pride are a lot different. We don't have people in the straights waving their penises like they just don't care. There are lots of guys in jockstraps or underwear but never really what you'd call "nude". So the police don't let us break the law for one day. Which is why we can go "FUCK YOU"

However you are right I guess if they are nice enough to let us use the space and allow us to have our pride we should be a little more grateful. Doesn't mean we should tone it down though. But than again it doesn't sound like we need to tone ours down compared to the others.

I really am curious about folsolm now though. I wanna see men waving their penises in the air like they just don't care.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

well ok... knock yourself out.

You called the thread "Opinions about Pride" and then asked for them but when you got opinions that weren't yours, you attacked the people giving them if they weren't the same as yours.

It's ok, I'm a big boy and I can take it, but you should have called "back me up on my ideas to change pride day into a sanitized event."

If you want to take the sex out of gay pride day and turn it into a block party with clowns and hot dogs, I'm going to tell you right now that people will just stop going. You've already said that this isn't "Gay Pride" day, it's now just "pride" and it's to "foster diversity" which I guess means "don't have sex, just dress up the kids."

I don't live in Salem and don't know what your community standards are. Maybe children having a cross-dressing event is more acceptable than an adult's tent where they sell dildos and beer.

But your pride event sounds like a total bore that's being organized by sex-phobic women who consider themselves "bisexual" because they had a MFF three-way in college. Emasculate the little boys by dressing them up in women's clothes but DO NOT let adult men be seen touching in public and let's for SURE not let them buy a cock ring... think of the children!!

Count me out. Pride should be a big gay party, not a day for the kids to ride ponies in a mini skirt.

 

[gdude30]

softcore porn?

What is that?

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

...so, no kissing and touching then?
How about we just chop our dicks off and hand them in before we enter?

Well, and (I know I'm going to start a flame war about this but I don't care) that's what happens when sex-phobic people start to organize pride events.

The sex is hidden behind the facade of families having a picnic in the park. Much like their lives.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

shirtless guys are okay. even drag queens.
but i dont see the need for gyrating sexual looking movements. uh...yea..

So now you don't want people to dance in a possibly suggestive manner.

Why not just have a prayer meeting and call it quits?

 

[Kulindahr]

Um... a Drag contest for kids? Are you high? What freaking numb skull came up with THAT idea?
. . . .

I mean... wow, I've heard some really bad (bordering on intentionally sabotaging gay rights for the rest of the world) ideas, but that's pretty much up there with "taser the elderly."

That's a very colorful comparison. I think, though, that the only problem comes with the word "contest".

I don't think a lot of gay men know how to tone it down. That's why I will not go to anything Pride related. I don't really wanna see a whole bunch of ugly drag queens, and half naked white bears. No, no, no.

Your loss.
It's odd to me that people who want others to be tolerant are so ready to be not-tolerant.
I'd put up with a couple hundred " ugly drag queens, and half naked white bears" to get the kiss and hug I got from a hot guy a couple of PRIDEs ago!

We're at the point where law enforcement actually participate in these events and turn the other way when some nudist flaps his penis on the sidewalk. We need to show respect in return, not stick our noses up and say "this is MY day, not yours".

Whether the police look the other way or not is irrelevant: we should follow the law.
And FYI, no nudist "flaps his penis on the sidewalk". An actual nudist is respectful of the surroundings and those in them -- you're talking about an exhibitionist.

You go ask Jon Benet Ramsey's dad if she "wanted" to do it. You go find those phycho parents on Toddlers and Tiaras if the kids "want" to do it and you'll get a universal "yes."

Teaching kids that young to compete in beauty pageants, even with a gay twist, is just plain wrong. I shudder at the body images of 12 year old boys who think they look fat in fishnets.

I'm also kinda surprised that the guy who directs porn movies is more concerned for the mental well-being of the kids than their parents apparently are.

Again, the problem is in the word "contest". It's a problem with all sorts of kid activities, not just drag; it harms kids to be pushed into things whether it's baseball, soccer, motorcycles, golf, or whatever. Kids should be encouraged, but not pushed. If they want to do something, help them out, but don't try to instill some spirit of competition.

As a contest, I'd have trouble with it. Make it an "event", where prizes are awarded not as first - second - third, but for levels of quality and imagination. There are so many aspects to getting drag "right" that every kid could legitimately earn a prize of one sort or another -- prizes that don't say, "Ha-ha, I fucked you all", but "Here's what I did good!"

A big item would be, of course, media handling: you need someone able to think on his feet, fend off leading questions, and make clear that the kids asked to do this, no one pushed them, and it's for fun. I think a step toward that would be to collect old pictures of kids through the generations when we've had photography doing "dress-up", blow them up into posters, and hang them on the walls.

>>>With that said does it change your opinion?

I guess that all depends. Is this just a "kids who want to gender-bend can go get tips from the pros" sort of thing? Or is this going to be a "just for fun" pageant with judges in various categories and prizes for the winners?

Lex

Make it just for fun, and it flies.

 

[Kulindahr]

For perspective, I think it's important that everyone get a picture of just where Thynight is: Salem, Oregon isn't exactly your typical urban center. Counting the neighboring 'urbs, it has about a third of a million people, including a GLBTF population sufficient to keep just one "orientation-friendly" (as one of the owners jokingly told me one night) bar going. Part of that problem is that just up the interstate (I5), there are a dozen or more gay bars, etc.

Therein lies part of the problem for even having PRIDE in Salem: the drive to the Bigger! Better! event in Portland isn't that long, and a lot of people aren't interested in doing two, so their home town, or the town they're closer to, loses out.

Further, being the state capital makes things trickier: if this were just some city of a third of a million people, it would be different, but anything and everything that happens in the state's First City is going to be scrutinized, with an attitude, from every direction. Deciding what to do for a Pride event is political on two levels, then: the politics of the people trying to get things their way, and the politics of keeping it not-too-objectionable to all the people with the microscopes who are going to throw anything they find the least bit objectionable at their elected representatives.

In other words, Pride in Salem isn't just about Salem, it's about the whole realm of politics WRT gay issues across the whole state.

 

[G-Lexington]

>>>Make it just for fun, and it flies.

Agreed.

Lex

 

[Kulindahr]

Do you feel PRIDE events should be more family friendly, adult friendly (adult in nature), or both.



Back in September I was elected to our Board of Directors for PRIDE. It turns out there is much politics involved, more than I thought there would be by far. Something that keeps coming up is a lot of people think it should be kid friendly, but also a lot feel there should be more for adults. Those that feel that there should be more for adults tend to feel that PRIDE is losing the sexualness and queerness they go to PRIDE for. To put it anther way they feel our PRIDE in the past is trying to make them live “straight” lives.



Anyways I would like to hear opinions on this please.

For me it would help to know just what PRIDE consists of so far, to get an idea of what these folks are looking at when they say they want it more of something one way or another.

That said, it can be all those things, depending on how it's run. As others have said, divisions by time of day work -- I know of a family which draws two or three hundred for its reunions, and there are games for kids as well as poker games where adults end up broke and carried out 'cause they can't walk for all the booze; they manage it by time of day. In bright sunshine, it's the kids' time, and everyone focuses on them, etc.

Now, if they go to Pride to flaunt their sexualness in front of people to shock them, they shouldn't be going at all. Assuming that's not what they're after, then as the book says, there's a time for everything, and a place: it's just a matter of scheduling.

As for "kid friendly" -- which kids? and friendly, according to whom? Portland PRIDE, in my eyes, is quite kid friendly, but don't tell that to the self-appointed guardians of The Children™, who think everything should be as sanitized as on Leave It To Beaver. When I think of "kid friendly", my memory always goes back to the time up one of Oregon's beautiful rivers where just as I was ready to peel down and enjoy nature naturally, a gal came along with two boys; she proceeded to set up tripod and easel for sketching, and they proceeded to attempt to run the rapids in an inner tube. After a couple of minutes of chatting with her, I asked if it was okay if I went ahead with skinny-dipping. She pondered, and said, "Sure -- they're old enough to learn it's a free country". The point there is that kids are ready for a lot more than most parents think they are, and can handle a lot of things parents worry about so long as the parents don't freak! Which brings to mind another example: a mother at a beach came up to us, practically shrieking, once when I and friends were enjoying the sunshine on all our skin, how her "little girls" (fourteen-fifteen) "didn't need to see that"... but I heard the girls, all embarrassed at their mom, tell her as they left, "Mom, it's nothing we haven't seen in art class".

Anyway.....

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

Now that Kul has explained his a bit better, I'm understanding it a bit more.

It looks like the Salem festival is looking to become the sexless alternative to the Portland Pride Day.

Which I'm in complete support of.

Many a Pride Day have been ruined by the uptight puritanicals kveching about every guy in short shorts kissing his BF. If the people want a "pride day for everyone meant to foster diversity," great. Let them shun any sexuality out of it, teach kids to cross dress, stop men from showing chest hair and pretend that gay people are just as upset as nuns on the subject of sex toys and dancing.

Let the fun people party in Portland without having to deal with that set.

 

[rotary]

Whether the police look the other way or not is irrelevant: we should follow the law.

I've already said that participants need to show respect, not only for the law but for people showing up to watch. If you're going to comment on my posts, the least you could do is read them in their entirely.

 

[Chris421]

Jasun, I don't think anyone is saying that same-sex couples can't hold hands or kiss in front of children. There's a difference of affection and grinding the hell out of someone haha. If a family were against their children seeing that, I bet they wouldn't be at pride in the first place, especially with their kids. (I'm pretty tired so this is what I'm getting from it, correct me if I'm mistaken )

Personally at pride I feel safe and comfortable to hold my boyfriend's hand and kiss him whenever I want out there. No one within the distance of the field is going to tell me not to or is going to beat me for it. And if someone were to tell me to "think of the children" because I was just showing some affection, I'd tell them to grow up. But I can understand if I were crotch grabbing him and humping his ass that many people would find that inappropriate for such an event.

Now the adult only events after pride? Whoooole different story.

 

[TickTockMan]

well ok... knock yourself out.

You called the thread "Opinions about Pride" and then asked for them but when you got opinions that weren't yours, you attacked the people giving them if they weren't the same as yours.

It's ok, I'm a big boy and I can take it, but you should have called "back me up on my ideas to change pride day into a sanitized event."

If you want to take the sex out of gay pride day and turn it into a block party with clowns and hot dogs, I'm going to tell you right now that people will just stop going. You've already said that this isn't "Gay Pride" day, it's now just "pride" and it's to "foster diversity" which I guess means "don't have sex, just dress up the kids."

I don't live in Salem and don't know what your community standards are. Maybe children having a cross-dressing event is more acceptable than an adult's tent where they sell dildos and beer.

But your pride event sounds like a total bore that's being organized by sex-phobic women who consider themselves "bisexual" because they had a MFF three-way in college. Emasculate the little boys by dressing them up in women's clothes but DO NOT let adult men be seen touching in public and let's for SURE not let them buy a cock ring... think of the children!!

Count me out. Pride should be a big gay party, not a day for the kids to ride ponies in a mini skirt.

I didn’t attack anyone, you did by calling people that do drag hookers.

Also I did ask for opinions and got them. Your problem is you are giving me only a biased opinion with nothing to support your reasoning. Why should I listen to you? You say I am attacking people just because I want reasoning and you’re not giving any and can’t. You clearly are not reading and understanding the entire thread because you go off on things I never said, but on the opposite - meaning we agree - but you are so pissy that I just don’t bow down and take what you say as the word, that you don’t even see that I am agreeing with you.

I have did with you what I did with the others. I tried to clear up things. I moderated the tread by keeping things the way they were meant. You are the one with the problem. I didn’t want people to back me up or agree with me, I wanted to hear arguments that would let me try to get around all of the politics that is coming out at our meetings. Personally I don’t care one way or the other, but I do have a problem with letting bigots run MY PRIDE or anyone else’s. Bigots shouldn’t get to dictate what is okay for us, but that is what’s happening. You are so strongly opinionated if someone doesn’t agree with you in your own words/thoughts you attack them for attacking you.

 

[TickTockMan]

shirtless guys are okay. even drag queens.
but i dont see the need for gyrating sexual looking movements. uh...yea..

would personally like to see stuff that doesnt look like softcore porn

...so, no kissing and touching then?
How about we just chop our dicks off and hand them in before we enter?

We have the shirtless guys and drag queens, but the past boards have not even got good enough music to dance too for the most part. As I have said before affection is encouraged, but not sex.

 

[TickTockMan]

Well, and (I know I'm going to start a flame war about this but I don't care) that's what happens when sex-phobic people start to organize pride events.

The sex is hidden behind the facade of families having a picnic in the park. Much like their lives.

Your posts now are nothing more than trying to get a fight going.

 

[TickTockMan]

Family during the day - or at least a designated 'adult' area


save the adult stuff for the clubs for the approproiate audiences
By adult im assuming you mean graphic sex stuff and swearing...

Actually that’s not what I mean by “adult”, though it does include it. Last years board which I was not on thought the following booths should be in an adult area:

The “toy” shop booth - Which is entirely legal to take kids into their regular store.
The Marion County Heath booth - Which sets up appointments for HIV and other STI tests. The tests do not happen on site.
The Marion County Democrats booth - Because they didn’t want people seeing PRIDE as a political thing.

Plus there were a couple more, but they did not show up on the day so it didn’t matter.

 

[TickTockMan]

As a contest, I'd have trouble with it. Make it an "event", where prizes are awarded not as first - second - third, but for levels of quality and imagination. There are so many aspects to getting drag "right" that every kid could legitimately earn a prize of one sort or another -- prizes that don't say, "Ha-ha, I fucked you all", but "Here's what I did good!"

A big item would be, of course, media handling: you need someone able to think on his feet, fend off leading questions, and make clear that the kids asked to do this, no one pushed them, and it's for fun. I think a step toward that would be to collect old pictures of kids through the generations when we've had photography doing "dress-up", blow them up into posters, and hang them on the walls.

Make it just for fun, and it flies.

That’s all I would like to see. As I said in another post everyone would win something. I personally just don’t feel that bigots , by scaring people about losing their rights, should get to dictate what “we” do at any PRIDE.

 

[TickTockMan]

For perspective, I think it's important that everyone get a picture of just where Thynight is: Salem, Oregon isn't exactly your typical urban center. Counting the neighboring 'urbs, it has about a third of a million people, including a GLBTF population sufficient to keep just one "orientation-friendly" (as one of the owners jokingly told me one night) bar going. Part of that problem is that just up the interstate (I5), there are a dozen or more gay bars, etc.

Therein lies part of the problem for even having PRIDE in Salem: the drive to the Bigger! Better! event in Portland isn't that long, and a lot of people aren't interested in doing two, so their home town, or the town they're closer to, loses out.

Further, being the state capital makes things trickier: if this were just some city of a third of a million people, it would be different, but anything and everything that happens in the state's First City is going to be scrutinized, with an attitude, from every direction. Deciding what to do for a Pride event is political on two levels, then: the politics of the people trying to get things their way, and the politics of keeping it not-too-objectionable to all the people with the microscopes who are going to throw anything they find the least bit objectionable at their elected representatives.

In other words, Pride in Salem isn't just about Salem, it's about the whole realm of politics WRT gay issues across the whole state.

That is exactly the problem. Thank you for recognizing that.

I am serving on a board where I am the only one that is in their 20’s and as far as I know, I am the only one looking for a relationship and that gives me a different look at things than the others.

The past board for the last few years has even been too scared to advertise that Salem has a PRIDE. The only way you would know when it was going to happen would be to got to the local GLBT bar, go to one of the two GLBT churches in town, or read JUSTOUT - a magazine for Portlander’s. Sometimes they will put a small ad in the local paper, but now one really reads our paper because it’s a joke.

With that said the current board and community is not happy with the President and want her removed. For whatever reason they want me to take her place.

The way I see it, the only thing we have going for ourselves is Portland PRIDE is in June and ours in in August. People are ready to party again, but once they get here they find almost everyone is too uptight.

 

[TickTockMan]

>>>Make it just for fun, and it flies.

Agreed.

Lex

That’s all it would be.