Attend a Pride event in almost any city or town and you’re sure to see the harnesses, leather, latex and fetish wear that represents various aspects of kink communities. You’re also equally likely to come across people who think it’s not appropriate.
People continue to disagree over whether kink and fetish have a place at Pride marches, particularly in the era of social media where everyone can share an opinion online.
While arguing about the morality of nipple clamps at a parade seems frivolous, especially compared with more serious, often life-threatening issues facing LGBTQ+ communities, it’s actually part of an older and ongoing tension revolving around mainstream—or rejection—of sexual identities.
Queerness is about Rejecting Norms
It’s not hard to see why many LGBTQ+ people, regardless of kink tastes, take issue with exclusion or censoring behavior at Pride celebrations. Queerness, after all, is a rejection of mainstream culture and a celebration of the things that culture deems “not normal.”
As early as the 1950s (and even earlier), queer folks began to explore their “nontraditional” sexuality and practices in secretive underground clubs and parties. These gatherings were often referred to as “kinky” or “leather” events due to their focus on BDSM and fetish activities.
It wasn’t until the late 1960s that these subcultures began to emerge from the shadows and into public view.
The Stonewall riots in 1969 marked a turning point for LGBTQ+ rights, sparking protests and marches across America demanding equality and acceptance. Marsha P. Johnson, one of the most prominent figures of the gay rights movement of the 1960s and 70s, was a transgender sex worker. In fact, many protesters on that historic night were.
Post-Stonewall, activist Brenda Howard organized what would become known as “The Second Annual Christopher Street Liberation Day March,” which later became known simply as “Gay Pride.” This event served not only as a celebration of LGBTQ+ identity but also an opportunity for people from all walks of life within this diverse community to come together in solidarity against discrimination and oppression.
This newfound sense of empowerment led many within the community to embrace their sexuality more openly, including those who identified with kinky lifestyles.
The leather community was among the first groups to organize against AIDS, a movement that forced folks to suddenly talk about what they were doing sexually—something that the underground leather and kink cultures were doing long before HIV and homophobic policies wiped out entire generations of queer people.
As Pride marches continued throughout subsequent decades, many participants became increasingly open about their interest in exploring alternative forms of sexual expression, including leather, fetish, and BDSM. In response, organizers began incorporating elements of these interests into official parade floats or side events associated with larger Pride festivals around North America, like the Folsom Street Fair, or the Torture Garden events.
But the Children!
Historically, and to this day, there’s a discourse that you can’t have kink and fetish on display at Pride because “the children might see!” Of course, small humans seeing things their parents don’t want them to see is a valid concern that transcends gender and sexuality.
Today, these arguments center around the ideas of consent and accessibility. The idea is that anyone—not just unsuspecting kids with their parents—who shows up to Pride and sees a flash of flesh or a glance at genitalia they did not consent to see could be harmed by it, which limits their access to Pride. This is of course a valid concern, to which the solution would seem to be to have a non-sexual Pride. But are we really being inclusive of all people if we eliminate sex and kink from Pride entirely? The two are inherently intertwined by their “other”ness. The purpose of Pride is lost if we only celebrate what’s palatable to society at large.
Children absorb the values and opinions of the adults that raise them. If we’re teaching them that nudity or expressing sexuality is bad or inappropriate, then they are likely to perpetuate a cycle of intolerance, stigma, and shame.
Pride encourages mainstream culture to broaden its horizons to accommodate the humanity of the LGBTQ+ community, instead of asking the community to change itself for mainstream sympathy.
There certainly are Pride events that are family-focused and more widely accessible, but that doesn’t mean that all Pride events should be family-focused. Queer and kinky folks deserve to take up space just as much as everyone else.
Queerness is and always has been about resistance to norms and embracing radical existence. The notion that marginalized groups need to behave or act in a certain way to validate the compassion shown toward them is in direct opposition to queerness—and Pride in general.
The Bottom Line
It’s likely no surprise that Kink Academy falls on the side of kink belonging at Pride, but it’s not just because we want to rock fetishwear in public. Kink and queerness exist in the same orbit as radical acceptance and a rejection of norms, and isn’t that what Pride is really about?
Kink belongs at Pride, period.