Pride Conduct Committee

no anything at anywhere

I believe that our responses to perversion, knee-jerk and otherwise, offer a wealth of information about our own values, desires, and political commitments. Whether or not one believes that kinks are “good” or “bad” has bearing on other, more ostensibly significant, beliefs. I’ve quoted Gayle Rubin on this topic before: “Disputes over sexual behavior often become the vehicles for displacing social anxieties”…I’ve never come across an anti-kink take that offered a solution to its perceived problem that didn’t include punishment, policing, and imprisonment; nor have I ever come across an anti-kink take that didn’t somehow, either directly or more subtly, implicate sex workers, transsexuals, neurodivergent and mentally ill people, or trauma survivors, though one or more of these are often invoked (alongside the ever-nebulous children) as the beneficiaries of a purely vanilla world.

— David Davis XVIII, on kink as therapy

Daniel M. Lavery @daniel_m_lavery

no sphinx at pride...what if children were to solve their riddles, thereby rescuing thebes? children are not prepared to handle the subsequent infrastructure issues

N.B. that “no cops at Pride” (whether in or out of uniform) is a straightforward good, not to say necessity; “no kink at Pride” is the offshoot of an entirely different tree, and the sole subject of our attentions here today. We join a committee meeting already in progress…

Okay, sounds good. Anything else? [inaudible]

Right, okay, no true crime enthusiasm. [writes on whiteboard] No talking about true crime, and no cutesy T-shirts about serial killers, things of that nature.

It’s not just — I don’t even mean whether it’s the incumbent on true crime writers to accurately reflect contemporary crime statistics, I just think it’s going to pretty quickly turn into a referendum on everyone’s ideas about white womanhood, and there’s no way we can get through that in a single weekend.

Anyone else? Yes, absolutely, those Instagram comics about diagnoses. Wait, Instagram comics like they make jokes about mental health diagnoses, or the ones who draw the little pastel comics about how ADHD feels? [Inaudible] Gotcha. Absolutely.

Just bullet lists of symptoms and an inability to move beyond the primary-stage “myth-busting” level of conversation into anything else. I already know “it’s okay,” you know? You don’t have to keep reminding me. It’s condescending.

[Inaudible] Hang on, hang on, let me just finish — fographics, yep — and what was that? I don’t really see the point in that. [Inaudible] Okay, just in principle, no John Dos Passos or William Saroyan. No discussion of, or…? Just not at all, got it. And does that extend to include all examinations of life in New York City from the Guilded age to the Jazz Age/human-scale minidramas in immigrant communities throughout California’s Central Valley, or just — Just Dos Passos and Saroyan, not of the types entirely. Got it. No, there’s room, it’s on the list.

What about when someone instantly corrects you to say “I think you mean vulva” when you casually use the word “vagina” to refer to like, the gestalt of the structure?

I mean — do we all think that’s always bad?

I think at Pride we can assume some familiarity with basic anatomy, and don’t have to bring down the hammer on casual reference —

I mean, can we assume that?

I thought I made it pretty clear a second ago that I thought we could, but it’s clear from the tone of your question that you disagree, and I’d honestly prefer you just went ahead and said so, instead of hiding behind general questions. But yes, I think it’s just like — it’s one thing to say that it’s important to learn basic anatomy, sure, but there are plenty of contexts where it’s totally fine to use a part of something to represent the whole —

Heh.

Sure, “heh,” but like, when people say “The White House said,” no one thinks the White House qua house started talking this morning. It’s that thing of, not metonymy, but —

Synecdoche?

Oh shit, for real? Like the movie? That’s actually what synecdoche is, that’s the word I was thinking of? That’s cool, because that movie is —

[From another corner of the room, inaudible]

Right, that’s vulva/vagina correction and discussing whether Charlie Kaufman is an egg, both off the list.

You can’t possible expect to administer all of these changes on a case-by-case basis.

Sorry, we’ve got to keep moving. Did I hear “new flags” from someone? No new flags, or new flag types, or new flag infographics, or anything like that. Are we keeping the old flags, though, or are we saying no flags of any kind? [Inaudible] Fine, to be on the safe side, we’ll have two flags, the regular one and one other kind, and that’s it. Two flags, dealer’s choice.

And no James Corden.

Jesus, right, he seems like the kind of guy who would just show up unless you had a specific rule against it, doesn’t he. No James Corden, no room for James Corden at Pride.

I don’t know how to put this exactly, but there’s a type of person who sometimes comes to Pride — or who I sometimes imagine comes to Pride — and I just really fucking don’t like them.

Okay?

Can we do something about that?

Like what?

Like….like can we just all fucking hate them?

Can you say a little bit more about the type first?

God, I just — I don’t know. It’s really hard to put into words. But fuck them. I definitely don’t want them to be there. Or gay. Or even think that they’re gay. You know what I mean? Like maybe you don’t know my type, but you know that feeling, about some other type maybe.

I think so, yeah. God. Fuck them.

Right?? And I don’t want to hear anyone say the word neoliberal again until someone can explain to me what it means.

Have people not explained that to you before?

I’m sure they have, I just didn’t retain it.

Is that an ADHD thing, do you think, or —

Come on, man.

Ahh, sorry, you’re right. Okay, so that’s — that’s it, then. Yeah? We got everybody? I’ll just finish circling everything up on the board, there. Was anyone keeping minutes? Great, Sharona, thank you so much. Then I guess we’ll just…hand the notes over to — is there someone in charge, I guess, of Pride? Is there a committee? I assume there’s a 501(c)(3) or something to plan the — who gets parking dispensation, or I guess, city permits for being a big group? I think you need permits from the city if you want to be a big group, unless it’s like a protest. Protests are legal, obviously, and you can just go be part of a big crowd any time you want. That’s my understanding. Anyways, just someone make sure this gets to whoever’s in charge of planning and what’s allowed, and make sure they see it before they — before they release the list of what’s allowed, and what’s good, and so on. And I guess see you guys at Pride! I don’t usually go to the Sunday thing, though. I usually just do the Saturday offshoots, maybe Dyke March, but I probably won’t be there on Sunday, but do let me know if anything comes up on the day and if I’m up and my phone hasn’t died from the night before I’ll be sure to come down there and see if I can help out.