Pride Festivals are all about one thing. They’re not about cultivating the satisfaction taken in your life’s achievements. They’re not about topless musclemen conspiring to feed you a poisonous blend of jealousy and arousal. They’re not even about sitting in a field between the noteless thud of three different music tents, drinking warm white wine from the bottle.
Pride Festivals are about giving a fat kid a whistle and encouraging him to blow it for six fucking hours.
That’s fundamentally what Pride is. “Oh, better bring the kid,” they say as an afterthought, as they’re leaving the house. “He can blow the whistle for six fucking hours while we go on the Waltzers.”
Whereas the Fat Kid Whistling is simply whistling to make a noise, some whistlers do it to promote a sense of community. Take this totem of faggotry;
The man with the whistle is in a classic cocksure dance pose. Looking at him, you can see he knows his tunes, and he’s just got whiff of an anthem. This is all very well in a nightclub – however, when you’re standing in a field and no-one else is dancing, you do tend to look the cunt. I tried to take more photos of this fucker, but he just wouldn’t stop moving. Anyone would think he was on Ecstasy, or something.
Thoughts, from left to right.
- Why aren’t they dancing? Perhaps I didn’t blow my whistle persistently enough. Well, I’ll give it thirty seconds, then blow my whistle for another six fucking hours, and if they’re not dancing by then, fuck ’em. I’m going on the podium.
- I knew I should have worn a vest. All my mates are wearing vests, and here I am in long sleeves. It looks like I’m hiding something. Shit, I bet everyone thinks I self-harm. And I won’t even be able to pull a goth with these jeans.
- Arrrrrrrrgh. AAAAAAAAAAARGH. Fnnf. FFFFFFFF. VARK.
- I’m standing opposite a man who’s less interested in talking to me than blowing a fucking whistle in my face and trying to conduct me in some kind of awful dance. Is he trying to seduce me? Does he hate me that much?
You can’t be proud of something that is a source of shame, so a Pride event is necessarily shameless. As this photo proves;
DRESSING GEORGE
“What are you wearing to Pride, George?”
“Well, I was thinking… that white T-shirt. It’s a nice cut. And a pair of jeans.”
“Jesus Christ! This is Pride! Are you ashamed of your body, or something?”
“Of course I’m not.”
“Yes you are, you’re a self-hating faggot, and frankly I think it’s disgusting.”
“Well, what should I wear, then?”
“A little silver backpack and a few rainbow ribbons, of course. I would have thought that went without saying. Unless you’re still internalising your homophobia, not to mention your Catholic guilt and body dysmorphic disorder.”
“But I’d look like an arsehole.”
“There you go again. Using arsehole as a term of aggression? Why don’t you just spend the night writing suicide letters to your mother? Jesus, George.”
“OK, OK. I’ll wear the rainbows.”
“Don’t forget the rainbow wig.”
“Of course not. What are you wearing, then?”
“Oh, I’m not going. Field full of vile queens? Get real. Probably get bitten by an AIDS.”
Oh, and here’s a whistle next to a fanny.
This photo is a little blurry because it’s difficult to point a flash camera at a lady’s fanny without feeling a shade nervous. I will never have an adequate answer to the question “are you taking a photo of my snatch?”
Well, that was my Brighton Pride. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I got drunk.