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I recently unfollowed a gay blogger. The last straw was his account of Pride events in Germany: apparently, there are painted-up men, fucking in the streets, and Russia does not need any of that at all.
That sounded especially rich coming from someone who has no problem going to gay saunas himself and can then go into great detail about why bottoms do not want to travel across the entire city to see him or show up inadequately prepared.
In other words, homosexuality itself does not bother him. The main thing is for it to take place in a windowless room somewhere in a basement.
And I constantly encounter this “I’m gay, but Pride has gone too far” attitude.
They keep promising all this fucking, but I still haven’t seen any
The most disappointing thing is that I have never once seen this famous fucking in the streets. Everyone talks about it and tells legends about it. I go to Pride regularly and, believe me, I watch closely. Every time I arrive hoping to finally see what the internet has been scaring me with for years—and every time I leave disappointed. I dress appropriately, too, and I’m not so far off the market that I couldn’t get my own harassment story.
Although that’s a lie.
I once saw a man in his fifties simply walking down the street without any underwear, though the fig leaf was larger than the area it was meant to cover. But he did not look like a sexual threat. He looked more like a public service announcement showing what will happen to us in a few years if we do not stop sniffing everything in sight in saunas.
And it is not just a matter of my own observations. For example, Pride in London’s rules explicitly prohibit nudity, indecent exposure, and sexual acts along the parade route; the organizers’ minimum standard of dress is swimwear.
But in the stories told by Pride’s opponents, a man in leather briefs somehow instantly turns into a public sex act.
Perhaps the problem is that, for the first time, they showed a kind of sexuality that actually exists.
So these pups are out walking. It’s not like they’re fouling the grass.
Recently, a woman on British television also decided to speak her mind in our free society, whereupon that very same free society, incidentally, piled on her with considerable enthusiasm.
Caroline Farrow began by claiming that Pride was supposedly no longer about fighting for gay rights and had turned into a celebration of all sorts of “strange and unhealthy” fetishes. What followed was painfully familiar: furries, bestiality, pedophilia. More than 12,000 people complained about the GB News broadcast, prompting Ofcom to launch an investigation into the program.
See a man in a pup mask, mentally add a dog and a pedophile—and your social commentary is complete.
So these men are walking around in little masks. So what?
They don’t foul the grass. They don’t bite passersby on the legs. They go for a quiet walk, rub against a leg, pose for photos, take off the mask, and head home (that was sarcasm; I know many puppies and love them dearly—they are wonderful and loyal friends, whether they are wearing a mask or not).
There are also furries who really remind me of the entertainers from my childhood. Except their costumes are much better and, more importantly, more expensive. Incidentally, when I see a good furry, the first thing I think about isn't sexual deviancy, but the financial circumstances of the person inside.
Because a proper, high-quality fursuit can easily cost several thousand. One British maker, for example, charges around four thousand pounds or more for a full suit.
Yes, that's one of my flaws: I judge people's financial well-being by their hobbies.
But it is an effective method, by the way.
If someone can commission a fox for four thousand and then take it to events several times a year, I already have a pretty good idea which of the two of us is more in need of financial assistance.
And a separate point: furry does not automatically mean a sexual fetish. Researchers of the furry fandom have noted for years that a sexual element does exist for part of the community, but it is inaccurate to reduce the entire fandom to that.
But who needs such boring details when pedophilia is right there for the taking?
We're being asked to be good gays again
What annoys me most isn't even the argument about bare asses.
It's the bargain itself that annoys me.
Be normal—and then society will treat you normally. And then comes the painfully familiar list:
Don't flaunt it.
Don't provoke people.
Don't walk around half-naked.
Don't kiss too much.
Don't put your fetishes on display.
Don't make Pride so flashy.
Show people that you're just like them.
Fine.
Take your average gay man. Husband. Job. Mortgage. Vacation twice a year. Aldi on Saturdays.
A wonderful gay man—everyone wants one of those.2;
Almost human.
But as soon as that same man puts on a harness, goes to Pride, and stops looking like a character from a Sparkasse advertising brochure, it begins:
“This is why people don’t like you.”
But why should my rights depend at all on whether someone likes a stranger’s harness?
Every year at Oktoberfest, I see people whose appearance and behavior raise far more questions for me. But I have yet to demand that Bavarians’ rights be reconsidered.
And what is especially funny is that Pride has never been a showcase for respectable gays
The first New York Pride march took place on June 28, 1970, one year after the Stonewall uprising. Even then, people within the movement argued over who was presentable enough to represent the community: the Library of Congress notes that the Queens Liberation Front emerged in part in response to attempts to push drag queens to the back of the first march.
More than fifty years have passed.
We are still deciding who should be placed in the front row so that straight people won’t be ashamed to look at us.
In Berlin, this looks especially amusing. The official Pride Month 2026 program included a dedicated tour of the city's kink, fetish, and sex-positive culture: BDSM, sex clubs, consent, and the history of Berlin's queer nightlife.
In other words, the official Berlin CSD considers this culture so integral to the city's queer history that it offers a tour devoted to it.
But someone on the internet had already figured it all out and announced that all of this only damages the reputation of gay people.
“But there are children there”
Of course.
Children come up in any conversation about Pride about three minutes in.
Sometimes even faster than the enormous LGBT community does.
And yes, public spaces have rules. I absolutely do not believe that a Pride flag gives anyone the right to have sex in the middle of the street in front of people who neither signed up nor paid for it.
But there is quite a lot of middle ground between “having sex in the middle of the street” and “a guy wearing leather shorts.”
A child saw a pup mask.
Fine.
He most likely thought: doggie.
A grown man looked at the same mask and imagined BDSM, sex, bestiality, and the end of Western civilization.
So which of them is sexualizing the situation?
And we already know how to put on a respectable Pride
You could take this idea all the way to its logical conclusion.
Get rid of the bare asses.
Then the leather—it’s too sexual.
Pups are weird.
Drag queens are provocative.
Men had better not kiss—there are children around, after all.
There are too many rainbow flags, too. Everyone already knows why you're here.
And then, at last, you end up with a completely safe Pride.
People walk down the street in ordinary clothes, they don't bother anyone or show anything out of the ordinary.
You might as well not hold Pride at all.
Then surely not a single heterosexual will think anything bad about us.
Actually, no.
They will.
Because someone who needs to check the length of my shorts before respecting my rights will find a reason anyway.
Don't like the guy in a harness? Don't look.
I don't find half the people on the street particularly aesthetically pleasing either .
But if you go to gay saunas yourself and then claim that Pride damages gay people's reputation, you really need to make up your mind. As the saying goes, either take off the cross or put on your underwear.
Does fucking make you uncomfortable?
Or is it the fact that gay people sometimes exist outside the places where it's convenient for you not to see them?
✦ This article is published as written by the author. The opinions, assessments, and conclusions expressed in the text are those of the author and may not reflect the position of the Doberman.media editorial board. The editorial board is not responsible for the author’s interpretations, statements, or conclusions.
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