


Now that it’s June — “Pride” month — I’m happier than ever to have moved out and away from Washington, D.C., which this year is hosting not just its usual week-long lesbian, gay, and trans celebration, but “World Pride.”
I’m not exactly sure what it entails, but because I’m gay and have gay friends, I know it’s supposed to be a much larger affair with more parties and more people. No, thanks! If I wanted to see 10 times the usual yearly glitter and flesh, I’d invite Sens. John Fetterman and Cory Booker to the beach.
I never loved “Pride” in D.C., where I lived long enough to see a whole 14 very sweaty pride months. It could be fun to go to the final festival on Pennsylvania Avenue, because it was a essentially a mini concert with food and beer, but everything else sucked, even as all the gays I knew desperately convinced themselves they were having a good time standing in impossible lines, navigating musty crowds, and spending $15 on small drinks. It was always too hot, too crowded, and too expensive. And progressively, too much public sex.
The public sex displays ruined whatever might have been fine about “Pride.” They still say it’s about “love” and “acceptance.” That stopped being true around 2013 in D.C., when it became common for shirtless old men to step out for pride downtown wearing leather harnesses, “transgenders” showing off their mastectomy scars and kinky deviants wearing fetish costumes. That has nothing to do with “love” or societal “acceptance” of romantic adult partners. That’s exhibitionism. And I never consented to being exposed to it. (Which is the same thing as sexual harassment, by the way.)
I’m not a prude. I attended plenty of the indoor pride parties at clubs where I knew what I would see. That was always at a private venue, usually requiring a purchased ticket and exclusive to 18-and-up. But in D.C., the most widely attended pride events are the aforementioned festival on Penn. and the parade in Dupont Circle, both of which are outdoors, free, and on public property. Pride attendees act the same there as they do in more discreet settings, and it’s foul.
Nobody has to make a concerted effort to find themselves confronted by the sluttiest aspects of “Pride.” People literally live in Dupont Circle (I used to). The festival takes place on the same street as the White House, the Capitol, and the National Mall. That it’s “Pride” doesn’t make sexual harassment family fun.
You can’t tell me that it’s “not everyone” or that “only a few” people engage in the obscene public misconduct. The very nature of attending those events and accepting the sexual activity that happens is an explicit approval of it.
The whole thing is trash, thanks to the exhibitionists and everyone who tolerates them. And yes, it’s mostly gay men like me who make up both groups. We’re the ones using what could be a benign (if obnoxious) celebration to throw our private sex preferences onto the streets and sidewalks. And if we’re not the ones doing it, we’re the ones saying it’s fine about the pervs who are.
Maybe you won’t be attending “World Pride.” If you live in downtown Washington, D.C., you might see the worst of it against your will anyway.
Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of "Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone."