Pride and proud

[baratron]

Got stuff to say, and some of it's really important - so I'll do my usual thing of starting with the most trivial. What I should really do is start with the most important and work backwards, so it doesn't matter when I run out of energy and give up, but the most important stuff requires a brain that has already been tamed into submission. Hrm.

...uh, I've run out of energy already.

Had strange dreams on Thursday night, went to the pub with the drunkbisexuals on Friday night, and to Brighton Pride on Saturday. I am not in this photo. We had lunch at the place that does The Best Vegetarian Sausages In The World (imo), so I was pleased about that. I came back from Pride with a strange woman's bra in my bag. [*]

It was much less hot in Brighton, so merely very warm and sunny rather than ohmygodi'mgonnadie, and there was a reasonable breeze for most of the day. However, the trains were packed in both directions, and the one going down had no air conditioning and only tiny windows. We were packed in like a cattle truck, and the humidity in the carriage was unbearable. A lovely homophobe got on and started berating the three guys who were trying to stop him getting on, because there just wasn't enough room. He ranted at them all the way to Preston Park, and I thought "You've really picked the wrong seaside town to go to if you hate queers" - seeing as Brighton is the sort of place where same-sex couples can hold hands on the street even not on Pride day! And also the fact that over 50% of the people in the carriage were going to Pride. Idiot.

Going to Pride is something quite important to me. As a bisexual and especially as a bisexual in a long-term opposite-sex relationship, it's important for me to go along and get counted as Someone Who Likes The Same Sex Too. I don't like London Pride - apart from the fact that when I hear "London Pride" I think of the beer rather than the event, it's too damn commercial. It's very centred towards gay men on the scene, to the extent that the one year I went, I felt quite excluded for being a woman, let alone a woman with a boyfriend. And the fact you have to pay to get into the festival afterwards just sucks. Brighton Pride on the other hand is free and welcoming to everyone - including straight supporters and families. So it's a much better place to be.

Anyway, so I've seen some of my friends that I hardly ever get to see, and feel all affirmed. But I can't think of a good closing sentence.

[*] It did however belong to the strange woman that I had gone to Pride with. Ah well.

Comments

[johnckirk.livejournal.com]

It's not helped by the conflation of bisexuality and polyamory

Yes, that's something that struck me as odd in one of the early Bujold novels ("Barrayar", I think). There's a quote from Cordelia about Aral: "He used to be bisexual. Now he's monogamous."

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

John,

Yup - pretty sure it was Barrayar. At the ball, to Vordarian. *shudder*

H-L,

Hi honey. Lovely to *see* you again. Bet you don't know who this is eh???

Hugs,

Andy (no, not my *real* name!)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I have no idea. I have a guess based on the low number of females associated with icsf, but the one I'm thinking of I didn't think was the same age as me. So... care to give me a clue? Email's fine.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

I'm an old friend of Stuarts?
The opposite union...
You've also met a couple of my friends from work!

And, yes we were in the same year!

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Indeed! That struck me too.

It's been pointed out to me that my rant sounds like a rant at release82 rather than a rant in support of her... so I just thought I'd comment to say that.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

It's the easiest way for her to make the point to Vordarian; and she's implying that he now has _no_ interest in anyone else (and hence is attracted only to women by virtue of being attracted only to her.)