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After reading that Washington Post article about exposing kids to kink at Pride Parades, I feel more ashamed than ever about my sexuality. I was raised in a really religious household and struggled a lot with this shame growing up. Now with all things deviant being crammed under the LGBT umbrella, I am embarrassed to be associated with it. I feel almost like it would have been better just to stay in the closet. Everything the Christian right said would happen is now happening and I can't deny that it's wrong. It's wrong to expose children to sexually explicit material. It's wrong to accept every manifestation of sexuality, no matter how destructive, as a legitimate form of self-expression. And of course, they are using the momentum of the LGBT movement to do exactly that. It's no longer about the right to marry an adult partner of your choosing, but is legitimizing every and any sexual contrivance under the sun. For God's sake, someone posted a screenshot on the Antikink of a woman deliberating whether or not to stay with her boyfriend who literally fantasies about MURDERING her during sex. And of course, the comments section on the WaPo article was full of people asking "where do you draw the line? Where do you draw the line. I can only imagine that an overwhelming number of people, even liberal people, were probably thinking "we should have drawn the line at heterosexuality."
I have already been horribly depressed lately, and this whole thing has just made it ten times worse. I feel like a mistake. I feel like my existence has only served to make the world a more terrible place. I don't know what to do.
I'm on the same exact boat as you. It blows my mind how so many "queers" advocate for kink like it's on par with sexual orientation. They're not even related. Two women or two men being life partners has nothing to do with straight people in furry suits. For years the lgb advocated against the notion that we're sexually deviant. Now the current pride movement has undone all of that. I can't even blame people for thinking lgbtwtf is full of degenerates... in fact I would agree with them. Gay acceptance is decreasing in America and it's no wonder why.
Please don't be ashamed of your sexuality. This has nothing to do with us and everything to do with the tq. Society might not realize we're different yet, but I'm sure that will change in the future as the lgb pushes back. If people meet more lesbians like you and me they'll realize we're just normal people. I've volunteered to help organize family-friendly prides too, even though I wish it weren't necessary. Regular pride (at least in my city) is too cringy and embarrassing to deal with.
That's the thing. I can see people starting to hate us again, and I can't even blame them. I'm starting hate us. I feel sick every time I see some Pride display at Target (right next to the children's clothing section, of course). And I don't think anyone will take the time to distinguish us from "those bad queers". All they will see is the slippery slope in action and a bunch of LGBT-identified perverts trying to corrupt their children. Countries without LGB protections will double down on their anti-gay legislation and all existing LGB protections will be rolled back. It's just one or two election cycles away. And all anyone will see is a group of deviants who have broken the public's trust and exploited their compassion. They will make no distinction between "good and bad" queers. We're not staight white men. We will go down with the worst of them.
I'm afraid you're right, only the sex-positive kinksters will be willing to support us soon. Homosexuality is now seen as a fetish on both sides of the political aisle. Libfems are pushing the narrative that perversion is okay, instead of how the lgbt isn't inherently perverted. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle.
There are always going to be people who hate lesbians. I don’t think this will ever change.
As always, women are forced to rise above. Hang in there. ❤️
I think one of the best things for acceptance of gays and lesbians in our culture has been more people coming out. When people have an aunt, a brother, a coworker, a neighbor etc. who is gay then it takes the scary away. Going back into the closet and letting the wackos speak for us is the worst thing we can do. People fear what they don’t understand but when you know somebody who’s just a normal person who wants the same things everybody else wants, to be a productive and fulfilled citizen, it helps normalize it. Our existence doesn’t make the world worse, it makes the world better. Gays and lesbians add something to society and culture. I know you’re struggling right now but I want to tell you it gets better. You’re perfectly okay the way you are and you shouldn’t be ashamed of your sexual orientation - just shine your light and live your truth. You got this. I believe in you.
None of this is on you. Are you hand-in-hand with the kinksters and pedophiles trying to remove boundaries? If you aren't, then you aren't responsible for their bullshit, along with so many sane lesbians who just want to live. Both dominant narratives, of the conservatives and the liberals, can be wrong. It will suck once we're thrown off the bus when the conservatives regain power, but lesbians are the victims of the movement not the architects. Your existence has not made any of this happen.
And that's why it's important to speak up when we can do so safely, and support true lesbian voices and movements like the LGB Alliance. There is an illusion of lesbian empowerment which abusive men use to their advantage, but this conflict is a power struggle between conservative men and liberal men about whose patriarchy will reign supreme, with women suffering the collateral damage. Both sides take it for granted that we're here to be used up for their own purposes, and none of us signed up for that. We never had the power to make any of this happen, and the men on both sides manipulating our image against our will to control public opinion do so to violate us, not support us.
This! so much this! OP, please read the previous post as often as you need to and let it sink in. Lesbians led the charge to kick out PIE and NAMBLA the last time they reared their ugly heads. I too felt that guilt, that it looked like the slippery slope argument we hard so much about had been right and I was part of the problem. It isn't true, we simply never had that kind of power. Had this fight ONLY been about rights for LGB rights, and nothing else, with no assholery gloming on, appropriating and exploiting our movement, then there would be anti-bullying campaigns and education that simply let children know we exist, and are just like any other human on the planet, just with a minority sexual orientation. This new indoctrination, which btw ignores the LGB to a great extent, is not on us. It's on our NGOs selling us out for cash. It's on heterosexual men, with some homosexual men helping, taking advantage of the guilt people felt for treating us like pariahs, and manipulating society. The whole sale changes point to a glaring truth: marginalized people do not make these kinds of gains within the system, in this short of a time span. Within the system is the a big clue here. Yes, with large scale movements, things can change, but it takes huge numbers of people, and even then, if it's not a violent revolution, the changes are conservative at best in law, and often lip service in society. The ability to make law and societal changes belongs to the elite. We are not them. I got out, put away my rainbow flag, and searched for groups fighting this malignancy. You did too. We were never the movers and shakers, but we can lend our voices so that collectively we will be heard.
I mean one of the things that makes me proud(er) to be a lesbian is fighting against this crap. I know it is overwhelming, but we are homosexuals claiming back our territory from kinksters, paraphiliacs, etc. who have tried to take it over. We are slowly building a community as we wish to see it.
You're not one of them.
You're one of us! ^ __ ^
I relate to this so much. I also grew up super religious, and had no idea what the lgbt community actually was like before I came out. I'm pretty much back in the closet now, or attempting to be, and I deeply regret ever coming out. I want nothing to do with them, but I'm stuck now and don't know what to do. I fear that deep down a lot of people are willing to lump homosexuality in with all these other deviant sexualities, because they fundamentally see homosexuality as deviant and wrong. It's sad but also understandable, because the fact is that opening the door to homosexuality did create this avalanche of all this other weird shit.
One of the most obvious things about most "kink" is how male it is. When they get together in groups, there's someone is getting his willy out.
Its very frustrating. The good thing is that some lesbians are starting to clue in. I, too, was raised religious and from a conservative home. The kink stuff doesn't interest me and I don't associate myself with that nonsense. I've unsubscribed from local pride emails. The funny thing is that I was once on the planning committee for a pride in a very conservative city and imagine it being all the way to right. We had christian performers and it was VERY family friendly. NO kink or sex on display. This was in Baton Rouge, La about 8 years ago. Now I live in a large city in Texas and pride is basically a bunch of people, half naked getting wasted.
Do you live in the "Keep it weird" city because I would tbf expect that there, even if it's Texas. I guess I could see it in El Paso, too. If it's elsewhere I'll admit I'd be a bit surprised, but then again Pride has really gone insane over the past few years, nowhere is safe anymore, it seems.
I have already been horribly depressed lately, and this whole thing has just made it ten times worse. I feel like a mistake. I feel like my existence has only served to make the world a more terrible place. I don't know what to do.
Me too. I'm so sorry, my friend. It's a horrific feeling.
It is not lesbians pushing this, it is gay men and trans women who pushed "kink" under the "queer" umbrella.
I do not conflate lesbians with the transcult and never have.