Walking Around Nude at Pride is Not Okay
June was busy with Pride. Our magazine had a booth at both San Jose and San Francisco Pride events.
I enjoy meeting our readers and listening to their comments about the magazine. Readers appreciate that the publication is free of hardcore sex ads, and inclusive of gay lifestyle from across the Bay Area for both men and women.
In San Francisco, people told me how much Pride events meant to them early in their coming out process. I even met a lesbian couple visiting San Francisco from a town in Kentucky near where I grew up. (It really is a small world).
In the midst of all the smiles on peoples’ faces, two guys walked up to our booth totally naked except for shoes and a cock ring. People were stopping to take a picture with the guy who was well endowed.
The guys didn’t say much, but seemed to love the attention. The endowed man was tall, slender, white and likely in his 50s. The other man was in his early 60s, and looked like he had been baking in a tanning booth far too long.
Did these guys ever consider that people didn’t want to see them naked?
Cloths are wonderful. They protect our bodies from the elements, and provide us with an opportunity to present a nice appearance. And cloths also guard the rest of us from looking at naked bodies we don’t care to see.
We were at our booth getting compliments from gay men and women about keeping our magazine clean, and not “sex focused” like so many gay publications. Then these guys walk up next to our booth naked. The irony.
To be fair, I also saw some women walking around topless. Some had less than an inch of tape over their nipples, but others didn’t bother with anything.
What does nudity have to do with gay pride or gay liberation? Our struggle is to be accepted and treated with respect in society. We just want to be free to work, live, play, marry and raise children without being harassed or discriminated against.
We are not fighting for the right to walk around naked in public. But our tolerance of this behavior sends a message to the outside world that we are all about sex, public displays of nudity and whatever people do is okay.
Well, it’s not okay. What people do in their home is their business, but there should be some level of decency in public.
My partner and I are considering adopting children. If we did, I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking them to our own Pride event in San Francisco out of concern for what they might see.
As gay men, gay women, bisexuals and transgender people we so desperately want the heterosexual community to give us the respect we deserve. With that said, we should start demanding a level of public decency in our community that’s no less than what’s expected in general society.
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