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Why Drag Queen Story Hour?
Okay, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here.
Let’s say I am a liberal who wants to improve acceptance of trans/etc. people. Why on Earth would I have drag performers talk to kids? Teachers or storytellers do not normally dress that way. Heck, almost every workplace would look askance on that kind of attire. Why not have a trans-person dress like a grade school teacher or librarian? People who complained would look silly, and it would convey the message transgender people are normal and nothing to be scared of. This is how gays and lesbians were handled in media, after all.
Show of hands – would having a Chippendales dancer or Playboy bunny in their outfit be much better than a drag queen? Sure, the parents would probably pay more attention, but it would just be bizarre for the kids. If you really want to play up the dress-differently aspect, have the trans-person dress as a superhero or other costumed character.
It really does seem to be about the sexualization, disturbingly. Yet if you mention grooming, people jump on you as a homophobe. It doesn’t matter that people around here would probably rather let Rick Grinnell and Chad Felix Greene watch their boy for a week than leave their girl with Joe Biden for a minute.
The real question is what would motivate a parent to let their kid hang out with drag queens?
Published in Education
It’s black face for (of?) women. It’s just a modern minstrel show.
It’s pure misogyny.
And the left is all in on it.
Disappointing.
Which part of this is disappointing?
It is pretty hard to get a Scout troop in a school these days.
All of it.
I’m sorry, Ball, I guess I don’t understand. It seems like a perfectly defensible position that a) Chippendales/Playboy bunnies/drag queens are acceptable (if absurd and coarse) forms of entertainment for adults; and b) none of them should be allowed anywhere near story time for four-year-olds.
What am I missing?
The question in the OP was not whether they were acceptable for kids, but whether there was a difference in their acceptability for kids. I’ve despaired of answering it directly, as the whole thing is phrased as devil’s advocate, and it seems there’s more hypothetical to caveat than answer to give.
It’s bad enough to drag (!) kids to a straight burlesque; it’s clearly much worse to subject them at the same time to the gender-bending moral apocalypse. There’s a reason that as a society, we try to shield kids from grown-up sexual attentions, across the board. Also, not every unpleasant fact about the world is appropriate for kids to worry about. No barrier is foolproof, yet each such barrier is worthy.
Finally, I cannot imagine going to a drag show, nor defending it here. And this from a guy who like Hedwig, and has accidentally enjoyed drinks and shooting pool with a (whoops!) dude masquerading as a chick.
If your child “must” be read a story be either a sexualized scantily-clad woman or a sexualized scantily-clad man pretending to be a woman, I think the answer is clear. For everybody.
(Hey look, I answered after all!)
Obviously, disagreement welcome from [everybody], but I’m bracing to be disappointed. This is remedial right-side-of-the-aisle stuff. Not even for credit.
My impression is that the Scouts surrendered to the perverted LGBT agenda. I haven’t followed the issue closely. I just concluded that they were another institution taken over by the enemy.
BDB will have to speak for himself.
I find it disappointing because drag queens are vastly worse than Chippendales dancers or Playboy bunnies. The latter are bad, I think, and unsuitable for children. But at least they are an expression of normal human sexuality, images of male and female beauty. Male and female beauty are good things, though they can be misused and lead to improper lust.
Drag queens, however, are inherently perverted and twisted.
I did once make an exception for comedy. There was a comment about Le Cage aux Folles earlier, and I don’t think that I’ve ever seen it, and I have absolutely no interest in doing so. It strikes me as pure perversion.
On the other hand, I did find Cary Grant hilarious in I Was A Male War Bride, and Tom Hanks and that other fellow — Peter Scolari, maybe? – funny in Bosom Buddies. These were obviously comedy, with no suggestion that the male characters took some twisted pleasure in cross-dressing.
Today, given where our society has progressed, I’m not sure that I’d want to make an exception for comedy.
The couple of drag shows I went to were not any sort of sexual performances. They were men dressed and made up as women, generally wearing evening gowns, lip-synching to popular music. In one case, a few of them dancing to the Pink Panther Theme. The MC told some jokes. My mother was with me at one of the shows. It was just entertainment, it wasn’t a sex show, and it wasn’t titillating.
Some good wholesome drag:
Why did you go?
I thought it would be fun. And it was. I’ve gone to a rodeo a few times, I once went to a tractor pull, I’ve been to a vintage auto race, when I was a kid I once went to a professional wrestling match. I once went to see a ballet with an aunt and that was quite boring. I’ve done all kinds of things to see if they were interesting. I guess I’m a thrill seeker.
The Devil’s Advocate part was “how to encourage acceptance of transgender people and cross-dressing” I was saying that DQSH does not even make sense from a liberal perspective. I don’t want to encourage acceptance of transgender behavior, just to be clear.
I’m basically agreeing with you that people in skimpy outfits are for adults, not kids. The whole problem is about the sexualization, not the sexuality.
Oh yes, I’ve also been to the Great Wisconsin Cheese Festival but it was really oversold. The typical supermarket has more cheeses than were at that festival. The concession stands weren’t even particularly cheesy!
Up your game, Wisconsin. Sheesh.
I know. If you were going to have a food booth at The Great Wisconsin Cheese Festival, wouldn’t you offer a whole bunch of cheesy treats? Cheese ravioli, cheese taquitos, nachos, it’s all pretty obvious stuff. Maybe a grilled cheese sandwich booth that offered your choice of a couple dozen cheeses.
Yes, that was jut for context. I left out 4H and Future Farmers of America, too.
Yes, that was part of my point. Even Boy Scouts.
And this is the big difference between drag queens of just ten or twenty years ago and Gay Clown Story Hour for Children.
Seriously, there should be cheese curd dispensers there. All the cheese. There’s a restaurant in Chicago that specializes in Grilled Cheese, and I highly recommend it.
Back on topic before I get too hungry: Something like Mrs. Doubtfire is one thing, but everyone of the DQSH looked like an exotic dancer.
I’m not sure I get your likening of cheese and child sexuality. What is the comparison here?
[Edited]
Is it another instance of Conservatives being overly focused on sex? There is no there there?
you sure about that? Everybody had a type, Everybody has a kink. They are just trying to mainstream their kink just like the gays mainstreamed their kink.
Fair point. To most people?
Most people don’t experience a drag show as a sexual or sexualised experience, and my feeling is that this holds good for drag queen story time as well. Projecting adult sexual anxieties onto these events doesn’t seem like a smart, or self-aware, thing to do. I’m sure there are reasons to object to these for children that don’t hinge on adult sexuality. Howaboutit?
And Communists don’t? Puberty blockers, anyone?
The numbers are really small:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/
Why is it such a big issue?
If it’s not a big issue, then why is it everywhere? Is it only a small issue when Conservatives push back?
Also, it’s like asking why incest is a big issue. It’s monstrous on its own, and if it were being flogged the way other perversions are, you would certainly see us up in arms about that.
And in the distance, somebody would ask, “What’s the big deal?”
The numbers seem really small.
Has it moved from a (should be private) medical issue to something the Right and the Left use to motivate their respective bases?
I reject your premise. It is at best a mental health issue, not a medical issue, and at any rate is mostly a matter of confusion or perversion. Also, the left has used it as a cudgel for a decade, and just as with marriage, all we wanted on the right was to preserve our civilization. This corrupt decadence is its own apocalyptic warning.