enoughtohold:

4everbored11-blog:

enoughtohold:

if you’ve never been to pride before, this pride season i want to encourage you to give it a chance if you can and not be deterred by whatever scary things you may have heard on the internet. for example, i’m bi and i’ve been to dozens of prides, in big cities and small towns, and have never once had anyone demand to know my identity or suggest that i shouldn’t be there. god knows pride celebrations have their share of problems, but being out in public surrounded by other lgbt people having fun and being themselves is an incredible thing that you deserve to experience for yourself before you decide it’s too good to be true.

I’m sorry but I just… can’t. I’ve seen too many videos of small children twerking and grinding, and folks walking around naked and basically having sex in public to want to be a part of that. I’ll just be a boring bisexual and lurk and root on from the sideline safety of my room.

i mean… this is a really good example of assuming you know what pride is like when you just don’t.

i’m really confused as to where you got the idea that pride is an event where gay people somehow force little kids into sexy dancing. leaving aside for the moment any questions about whether it’s wrong for kids to shake their butts (and the racial overtones of invoking twerking here), this is just… not even something i’ve ever seen at pride — at again, literally dozens of prides. this feels like a suggestion that gay people are a corrupting influence on small children. where is this coming from?

i’ve also never seen anyone “basically having sex” at pride, and really very few naked people (and then only in the biggest cities). (meanwhile, i’ve seen many more naked people and handsy couples at the beach, the park, and non-lgbt-related street festivals.)

again, where is this coming from? if you’re seeing a lot of this in videos, it sounds like you’re being shown curated compilations of “extreme” behavior, which are generally made by, like, fox news and other homophobes trying to scandalize people. luckily though, we have the internet now, which means easy access to copious uncut footage of real pride events. here’s a nice long one of the nyc pride march last year. i’ll be shocked if you see any sex, but you will see a marching band playing a justin bieber song.

obviously, you don’t have to go to pride if you don’t want to. that is entirely your choice. just, don’t tell us how icky pride is (and by extension, we are if we’re “part of that”) when you’ve never even been.