I Attended My First Pride

Hi y'all,

On june 15, so yesterday, I attendend my first ever gay pride and I wanted to share my experience and my opinions.

DISCLAIMER: Don't be a bigot in the comments, ty!

It was great, there were lots of people just having a good time and there were also a lot of associations and political parties that promoted the pride parade (the latter are lame tho).
I didn't stay there much, maybe like 1 hour and a half? Regardless, I was content with the whole experience and I even met a former teacher (THAT BLEW MY MIND LOL), but I was kinda let down by the fact that there was a significant portion, yet the minority, of people that were... provocative to say the least.
Generally the people that attended the pride were totally fine and manifested their rights respectfully, but I couldn't help but notice that some people were wearing BDSM gear or... almost wearing nothing.
And most of them were in their 30s maybe and I didn't like what I saw especially for the fact that there were families with kids there.

I want to clarify that I support gay pride and all stuff and I can even tolerate the fact that some people may want to show up wearing puppy hoods, but I'm concerned with the fact these same people may even show up almost naked (some women even did show off their breasts) and engage publicly in fetishistic behavour (which, at least for the time I was there didn't happen, hopefully, but that's something that happens).
I want to also state clear once again that this was the minority, to the point you could literally count them with your fingers.

Still, I think this behavour could be easily preventable by just hiring some staff, but I think the problem comes from the perception that people, especially elder queer folks, have of the gay community: it's absolutely fine to show your pride in what you are; it's great to express yourself and your sexuality, even in unconventional ways, but we as a community should keep in mind that:
1) Our objective is to ensure that a public event like the pride should be inclusive and open for all ages, therefore we should avoid explicit nudity (ex: showing breasts and bulges) and fetishistic behaviour, or at least keep it away fo these public occasions; not just for the kids, but also for those who just don't want to see this stuff;
2) We have the moral duty to preserve the image of the LGBTQIA+ community and making society aware of our claims for freedom and dignity; therefore it is fundamental to avoid any behaviour that divides us from the rest of society as it not only will get us nowhere but could actually lead to a new age of repression and discrimination.

I personally think the LGBT movement must have the objective to fight for the right of people to freedom, dignity and expression for the whole society, non-LGBT people included.
Siding with the LGBT movement is not just an act of support for the queers, but a firm commitment to ensure humanity is able to affirm its natural rights.

Oh and, while i criticized the presence of fetishistic stuff, I'm in no way supporting kink shaming!

I think I've said pretty much what I wanted to say.

TL;DR: the gays were nice but there were some problems.


P.S: I attended the pride in Rome, so my experience may be different fromt the other prides of other countries. The drags were fire tho!