West Village Parents with their Panties in a Bunch
Seems the city is able to handle a little leather since yesterday's open air S&M street fair went [off cleanly]relatively speaking. It's always fun to see a little public flogging done by some organization other than the NYPD.
Youd think that only PETA would object to a consensual gathering of like-minded leather aficionados. Yet because the street fair involved dirty dirty sex, parents of immaculately conceived children tried to ruin the fun for everybody. Ostensibly uber-liberal West Village residents [called for the heads ]of Brad Hoylman and Bob Gormley for the original sin of giving the fetish revelers a city permit.
Assuming the objecting parents are sufficiently acquainted with the 1st Amendment, this fuss is just another attempt to turn the United States of America into Kid Nation. Parents who live in the West Village should know among other things that they live in the West Village of NYC for the love of He who is called I Am. Kids who live in the West Village are going to see things, and they are going to hear things that are not always totally appropriate for children. It happens. Thats what makes those kids cooler than the rest of us when they grow up.
If you live in New York, you dont get to decide what's appropriate for your kids to see on the street. All you can do is provide your cherished progeny the appropriate context to frame what's going on around them. Use the experience to introduce little Boomer to the concept of a safe word. Or, I dont care, blame the lack of clothing on global warming. However you handle it, stop trying to reduce the adult world into a Nickelodeon broadcast.
Adults have sex. Some adults have kind of weird sex, and many of the adults that are having weird sex prefer to congregate in the West Village (take that Brooklyn!). If a leather choker is too much for Junior to handle, please consider moving out of the West Village before strangling the joy out of the neighborhood. Believe me, there's a long list of folks who'd be happy to take your place.
Photo courtesy of [eyewash on Flickr]