Kink at Pride

It's June, and the middle of Pride Month. Here in NC, we tend to spread it out from now through September because it's so overwhelmingly hot and humid, and no one wants to see a leather daddy go down from heat stroke. We wrote about this a few years ago, but it seems we need to do so again.

There's been a few recent posts on a lot of crunchy mom's blogs about should kinky people be allowed at Pride. Yesterday, Instinct Magazine put out an article about it and we're a little pissed off about it. Seems a lot of people need to remember that history has a bad way of repeating itself and Kink was at the center of the Pride movement for longer than most of these people have been alive.

The problem comes down to: who's allowed to dictate what happens at pride. 20 years ago, it was the attendees, the performers, and the vendors who dictated the limits of "good taste", and kinky people were honestly some of the best dressed folks. They held a silent line in front of people screaming hatred for hours. They were peace keepers between the event and the police. They kept tempers in check. In 2003, they stood in a wall as pieces of masonry were thrown at the march from Duke University Campus while the police watched, and the following year, they brought cameras and paid for off duty state troopers to keep the protestors in check.

But now it's a combination of corporate sponsors, "family first" moms, and city officials who are all uncomfortable with the kink scene at pride. What flummoxes us is that the kink crowd are not the most outrageously dressed. Many performers and attendees are more provocatively dressed, some vendors actively sell adult toys, and even some acts are almost a striptease. Yet it's folks in harnesses, leather vests, with floggers clipped to their belts that bother people?

It comes down to two different aspects of the event. Who has the right to dictate what is Pride, and if kink has a place at pride. Kink is rooted in Pride's history just as much as Pride is rooted in BDSM rights. The two are intertwined in such a fashion that they can be traced to the same roots. Read any of the top LGBTQA+ books (We like Queer America by Vicki L. Eaklor and Stonewall by Martin Dubberman) and you'll find the roots of Pride and Kink in the same place. Read any BDSM history books (Leatherfolk by Mark Thompson is great) and you'll find yourself reading the same history from a different perspective. If you go to the GLBT Historical Society, they have dozens of examples from the past 100 years of Kink being integral to LGBTQA+ culture, and the same goes for the Leather Archives and Museum. There's not a case to be made that Kink has no place at pride.

So, it seems that the corporate donors, crunchy moms screaming "family friendly event", and nervous city officials are the ones pushing the narrative. Like always, it's all about making everyone "feel comfortable". Except that's not what PRIDE is. Pride is an event that was created in the face of hatred and institutionalized bigotry that made queer people either insane or illegal or both. If you listen to your elders you will hear the stories of those dark days, and there's a lot of the same language happening again. Instead of gay people being dangerous, it's trans. Instead of it being disgusting to be gay in public, it's now gross to be a drag queen. It's always been a little chique to be friends with the "right kind of gays" but not the ones who are "too out there". Yet, until all of the LGBTQA+ community is accepted, then none of the community can lay down.

On a side note, if you'd asked us in 2016 what we thought 2026 would be, we would have been gravely mistaken. It seems we've taken 10 steps back. Now, more than ever, we need solidarity. If anyone needs resources or support, please don't hesitate to contact us. We keep a big list of resources for our community. Know that you are loved and you are one of us.