I think you’re conflating drag with sexual performance. If a performance is sexually explicit or bawdy, I agree it should be restricted to adults—and those performances are usually held in nightclubs and other adult venues.
But if nonsexual drag is evidence of moral decay, then Bugs Bunny has some explaining to do. One of my favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons is What’s Opera, Doc?, where Bugs appears as Brünnhilde in a dress, wig, and full operatic performance. Oddly enough, Bugs Bunny is probably where my interest in opera started. Every time I sit through Wagner’s Ring Cycle, I still think of Bugs as Brünnhilde on that old black-and-white TV screen.
The sensible standard is the content of the performance, not the costume. Parents can certainly decide drag story time isn’t for their children, but calling any nonsexual cross-gender performance “perversion” says more about the adult interpretation than about what the child is actually seeing.
Last night at the weekly summer Thursday night performance the drag queens took questions from the audience. A well-spoken child of maybe 5 or 6 who was with him mom & dad asked "How long does it take you to put make up on?" to the performers, one of whom was Bolivia. Children know this is dress-up. Children "get" the drag part. They are not confused. Any child in the audience for this or any public drag show or the story time the article is talking about is there because their parents took them there. No child is accidentally stumbling upon this on their own.
Pardon me for being repulsed by public display for all aged viewers. This bawdy performance should be held in theaters that do not allow children.
Our youth are being subjected to an adult theme that has no reason being revealed unless your goal is perversion.
Portland needs no further evidence of its moral decay.
I think you’re conflating drag with sexual performance. If a performance is sexually explicit or bawdy, I agree it should be restricted to adults—and those performances are usually held in nightclubs and other adult venues.
But if nonsexual drag is evidence of moral decay, then Bugs Bunny has some explaining to do. One of my favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons is What’s Opera, Doc?, where Bugs appears as Brünnhilde in a dress, wig, and full operatic performance. Oddly enough, Bugs Bunny is probably where my interest in opera started. Every time I sit through Wagner’s Ring Cycle, I still think of Bugs as Brünnhilde on that old black-and-white TV screen.
The sensible standard is the content of the performance, not the costume. Parents can certainly decide drag story time isn’t for their children, but calling any nonsexual cross-gender performance “perversion” says more about the adult interpretation than about what the child is actually seeing.
Last night at the weekly summer Thursday night performance the drag queens took questions from the audience. A well-spoken child of maybe 5 or 6 who was with him mom & dad asked "How long does it take you to put make up on?" to the performers, one of whom was Bolivia. Children know this is dress-up. Children "get" the drag part. They are not confused. Any child in the audience for this or any public drag show or the story time the article is talking about is there because their parents took them there. No child is accidentally stumbling upon this on their own.