Conservative homo journalist Brad Polumbo has penned an op-ed decrying the “degenerate gay community” for celebrating at the annual Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend (MAL) in Washington D.C. last weekend.
While Polumbo dined at “a fancy Mexican joint” and then headed home to re-watch HBO’s Game of Thrones, he was apparently appalled that “public displays of debauchery” at MAL was giving us all a bad name and “annihilating what progress we’ve made.”
Last weekend, D.C.’s degenerate gay community was busy celebrating “leather weekend” — giving gay people a bad name and annihilating progress.@Brad_Polumbo says it’s bizarre to see anyone so openly boast about their sexual “kinks” and perversions.
https://t.co/gMmcUUzPer— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 22, 2020
From his essay in the Washington Examiner:
Many of the events took place at gay bars, and the agenda included events such as “Deviant,” a “circuit party and celebration for queer people of color,” as well as “Sungay,” described as “an outdoor day party with leather aficionados, muscle boys, bears and more.”
This is disgusting. But it’s more than that: It’s eminently harmful to gay progress and acceptance.
Wait – a celebration for queer people of color and a tea party with muscle boys, leather guys and bear sounds ‘disgusting?’ It sounds like a fun time to me.
Polumbo goes on to list why he’s so angry.
First, he thinks it’s “bizarre” for folks to be open about their “sexual kinks and perversions.” And worse, that people “conflate their sexual deviancy with homosexuality.”
The strange thing about that assertion is that in the next breath he admits leather or fetishes aren’t strictly gay flavors writing, “I would argue that these people are no different from heterosexuals with similar perversions, so why the exhibitionism?”
I would ask, “Why the outrage?”
Polumbo claims is that holding events like MAL are “an affront to gay acceptance, they fight for which was actually rooted in an appeal to family values and bourgeois norms.”
Of course, he’s wrong on that point. In reality, the fight for queer rights emerged out of standing up for equal treatment under the law and against discrimination, not “an appeal to family values.”
He closes his diatribe by claiming LGBTQ activists are trying to “sneak debauchery into the gay community’s public image.” And he feels that proudly flaunting “perversion” and conflating it with “all gay people” won’t change the minds of bigots who already say the gays are “immoral.”
Someone should tell Mr. Polumbo that no matter how “boring” (his word) his life might be, anti-LGBTQ bigots are still going to judge him.
Remember, MAL is a series of events behind closed doors that the public pays to get into. It’s not about anyone’s public image or conflating a leather fetish with “all gay people.”
In sharing his op-ed on Twitter (more than a dozen times in less than a day), he whines that “the LGBT ‘community’ has shown me zero kindness” which seems to be more telling than anything.
It sounds like he doesn’t get laid enough so he’s mad at others for having fun? Or for being proud of who they are or what they like?
It’s also notable that if you Google his name, the first hit to come up is another essay he wrote complaining that gays won’t date homo conservatives.
And there you have it.
In any case, the Twitterverse did clap back at the judgmental screed:
the bottom line (no pun intended) is that you can lick boot all day and the status quo that you’re spinning your wheels so hard to try to appeal to will, when it comes down to it, will absolutely discriminate against you just for being who you are
— jean jean ✨👹✨ (@nattobeanjean) January 22, 2020
As a libertarian, how exactly do you justify trying to attack people expressing their own sexuality in a way that doesn’t actually impact you?
— Sailor Brendan (@SailorBrendan) January 22, 2020
I’m just going to sit back and wait for your piece that marginalizes the mostly heterosexual attendees of Burning Man. Or any other kink event held by heterosexuals. Are they the deviants of the straight community? Or do they get a pass?
— Doug Miller (@DougMil22154992) January 21, 2020
Oh Brad, so sowwy your sex life is so desperate. But doing this will not help it, I guarantee.
— Sinead O’Brien (@Sinead_OBrien5) January 21, 2020
2. The idea that people who hate LGBTQ people are somehow going to respect us if we do stuff acceptable to them is absurd.
They’re not degenerates and deviants @brad_polumbo, they’re human beings who enjoy something different. Something that does not impact anyone but them
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) January 21, 2020
Let’s dash off to Brooks Brothers,call Bunny Bixby for her recipe of the perfect Brioche and have Miffy and Biffy over for a play date with our two darlings Eloise and Marion Francis.We can discuss what “those people” are doing to destroy our heteronormative Shanghri La FUCK YOU
— 🅰️LEX TIK🅰️S🇬🇷 *OFFICIAL* (@alex_tikas) January 22, 2020
But I feel bad you that you struggle to be heteronormative and fail at doing so AND also can’t fit in the gay community and it’s diversity. Must be lonely. Find some self love before shaming others who aren’t harming anyone and are celebrating love.
— Sean Harding (@SeanHardingXXX) January 21, 2020
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and not representative of Instinct Magazine or its other contributors.
“the progress we’ve made.” People like him benefit from the progress others made, and never actually contribute.
Why change tactics now? What we’ve done for decades has worked. Tired of self hating gays, tired of people wanting to make Pride ‘safe’. Oh, ya wanna bring the kids? Maybe create something specific for them at a special venue, instead of trying to police the rest of the world.