What will it take to get progressives to say something bad about a drag show?
This video made the rounds on conservative social media last week:
…and I mean, on the one hand, this is unsurprising. Drag shows are increasingly places where parents expose their children to highly sexualized content as part of some weird, incomprehensible mission to appear progressive and enlightened. It only makes sense that at one point the children would go from the objects of sexualization to the subjects of it. That was both predictable and predicted.
It’s still horrifying though. And acknowledging that should be a bipartisan affair. It shouldn’t only be conservative watchdogs blowing the whistle on this stuff. When a little girl gyrates her hips while collecting fistfuls of cash from hooting, cheering adults—and when footage of it makes the rounds on the Internet—there should be a pretty solid and united societal response against that sort of thing.
Which really makes you wonder: Is there nothing that can happen at a drag show to make progressives say something bad about drag shows? Is there anything that can occur at these things that will make the average liberal say, “Hey, I think we’re taking this whole thing a little too far?” I’m honestly unsure. It seems like drag shows have become the litmus test for what the Left will tolerate in order to sufficiently distinguish itself from conservatism; I think progressives cannot deign to criticize anything about a drag show for fear of appearing sympathetic to, or giving any sort of credence to, conservatism.
Part of that is probably due to the influence of social media, which continues to incentivize polarization to the point that one side can’t even bring itself to speak poorly about objective child sexualization. But I think it also speaks in no small part to the increasingly uncompromisingly ruthlessness of modern progressive ideology, at least in the U.S. It seems as if the strictures of progressivism are growing so unbending to the point that they must tolerate rank child objectification, at least so long as the current left-wing political zeitgeist of the moment—in this case, drag shows—are upheld and preserved.
This is weird and not normal. The fanaticism of progressive ideology is careening into some genuinely dark and dangerous places. If we’ve made it to this point then there’s no reason not to think it will go a great deal further. I’m not quite sure how to stop it before it gets even worse. Maybe we can’t; maybe at some point this depressing, unsettling clip of a victimized little girl will seem positively tame by comparison. I don’t think it will take long to get there.
That last paragraph-- exactly. I wrote similar in an entry this week celebrating international
Women’s day, because I can’t find a menstruating or pregnancy app that uses the word ‘woman’ or ‘mother’ in the day-to-day language with users. Only pregnant person, person with vulva, and parent. The total removal of ‘woman’ and ‘mother’ is not harmless and inclusive-- it’s dark and dangerous. Thank you for your writing, your perspective and your conviction. Peta
Progz are terrified of the potential domino effect that might result from condemning even one eminently condemnable thing. Whatever rationale is used to censure that thing could easily--and, in fact, quite obviously--be used against the whole host of progressive sexual mores. Transgenderism? Infanticide? Gay marriage? Indeed, homosexuality itself? And, worst of all, it would invite prior restraint on their ultimate profligate endgame: unfettered and unlimited sex with kids. That's their goal and it always has been.
So, no, in their minds there can be no retreat. Everything must be tolerated save for intolerance itself. To do otherwise would imperil the entire mission.