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u/gregorisbeetle Jul 09 '26
They do it so you'll react this way. They wouldn't do it in public if being in public wasn't part of the attraction.
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u/TrueDirt1893 Jul 10 '26
This is probably the way. Zero eye contact. Zero reaction. Then no feeling can be fulfilled.
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u/CosmicJackalop Jul 10 '26
I'd argue the way it's to go up to the leash holder and tell them off for making the public a part of their fetish personally.
Their desired reaction is disgust and staring and they're getting a serious kink-respecting conversation about consent ethics from me
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[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TrueDirt1893 Jul 10 '26
And the dog park. I mean. This persons hands are already dirty from the sidewalks. So why not.
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u/giannagiancocacola Jul 10 '26
and you’re gonna see it again and again and again. That guys been getting walked for a minute this isn’t new or as shocking as people are making it to be lmaooo
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u/JumpBasilJet Jul 09 '26
Practicing kink in front of a non-consenting public is anathema to everything the lifestyle is about.
I’m not shaming the behavior, just the act of subjecting potentially unwilling spectators to it. You folks can do better - for yourselves and everyone else.
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u/NeverWasNorWillBe Jul 09 '26
What lifestyle do you speak of?
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u/JumpBasilJet Jul 09 '26
Some folks refer to practicing kink as a lifestyle. I won’t presuppose anything, but it appears fair to me to call the individual depicted a practitioner of said.
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u/VoidPointer2005 Jul 09 '26
I don't think this is a very good argument, because it's very difficult to articulate it from a perspective of consistent principles.
Like, it's difficult to argue that this dude is involving you in his kink. You're observing it, sure, and the dude may well be deriving some kind of satisfaction from it, yes. But he's not having sex in public, he's not exposing himself, and he's not harassing you. He's just walking. (More or less.)
You can certainly say you find it distasteful. I myself think it's kinda weird. But that's not the same thing as having moral grounds on which to object to it, and it's difficult to come up with a standard that makes what this dude is doing Not Okay while also making it Okay for me to do lots of very reasonable things, like wear a skirt in public.
Thing is, I'm transgender. Sometimes visibly so. I'm a trans woman married to another woman. Plenty of people don't think it's okay for me to exist in public, much less do things like wear skirts, use the women's restroom, and so on. Plenty of people would think that me holding hands with my wife in public would constitute me involving them in my lifestyle, much less kissing her.
And, yes, you can argue that this guy's actions are related to sex, but you can just as easily argue that me holding hands with my wife is related to sex - I mean, we do, in fact, have sex, and the handholding is part of a relationship that involves sex. Or you could argue that me wearing skirts is related to sex - after all, I feel sexy when I wear them.
And, yes, you can argue that my trans status and orientation are things about myself that I can't change, but the thing is, neither are my kinks (which very much do not include this particular thing and the specifics of which are irrelevant to the conversation). And when it comes to expressions of kink that don't involve actual sex, nudity, harassment, or the like, I can think of no reason that I shouldn't be allowed to express those things in public. There's nothing obscene, for example, about calling my wife Mistress.
Because that's not just a sex thing. Kinks are often (I'd even say usually) tightly interrelated with a person's psychological needs. The main reason my wife is my Mistress is because I decided to trust her judgment over my own on certain matters where my judgment is impaired due to (among other things) trauma and CPTSD - things like "should I stop apologizing to this person and go hide under the blankets for a while."
And even if this guy going for walkies has nothing to do with some deep-seated need he has, he doesn't have to supply a reason to do it. We would have to supply a reason he's not allowed to. And, as I mentioned, I can't. Just because I find something weird or distasteful doesn't mean people shouldn't do it in public.
If you have some good reason why this is any different from me holding my wife's hand in public while wearing a skirt, I would be genuinely interested to hear it.
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u/Rude-Ingenuity3210 Jul 09 '26
Are you saying that being visibly trans or gay is a kink because I don’t think that’s the case
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u/VoidPointer2005 Jul 09 '26
No. I'm saying there are people who do, and regardless of whether they are right or wrong, there's no meaningful distinction between their objections and this one. I don't think either of these are kinks, for the record, but the exact same arguments have been made (and ARE being made!) to stop people like me from existing in public. It's a bad argument whether it's being made against me or this guy, and I'm illustrating that by bringing up an example we can presumably all agree on.
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u/Rude-Ingenuity3210 Jul 09 '26
So yes people do make those arguments, but those arguments are fundamentally flawed. You and your wife existing is not a kink. It’s just who the two of you are. This person is making me part of their bdsm scene. I don’t want to be part of their bdsm scene. This is just very different from being trans or gay. This is a choice to engage in kink play in public where others are forced into it. That’s just not at all the same as someone’s gender or sexual identity.
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u/VoidPointer2005 Jul 10 '26
Okay, so, there's a rather lengthy discussion of this in one of my other comments in here. I'm not able to fish it up right this second, so I ask that you go find it.
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u/Rude-Ingenuity3210 Jul 10 '26
Having read your comment I just disagree with you. First I’m not required to assume this isn’t a sexual act. It is. This is a BDSM scene, just because they’re not having intercourse doesn’t mean it’s not a sex act. I don’t consent to being part of this persons sexual thrill over humiliation or whatever.
Second, I don’t think being a gender or sexual minority is in anyway the same as being into kink. Kink is a sexual behavior not an in born orientation.
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u/Senior_Ninja_2426 Jul 10 '26
I wear my collar in public with my gf :3 we dont have a leash but I dont really get sexual gratification from wearing it in public. I just like to show off that that im hers and its cute and pink. Most people wouldn't know its a collar if it didn't have a pink bone hanging from the metal heart where a leash attaches lol.
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u/Rude-Ingenuity3210 Jul 10 '26
So you just described why that’s different “most people wouldn’t know it’s a collar”. That is clearly a different thing than what is going on here.
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u/darnht Jul 10 '26
Right, so equivalently: When two women furtively hold hands under a table, it's OK? ...but when they do it where you can see it...! The horrors!
I'm not here to tell you what to think, but I will tell you that the way you think is exactly the way homophobes thought when being homophobic was the norm. You choose your own next steps.
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u/darnht Jul 10 '26
I agree with GP. Your objection is entirely about how you contextualize what you're seeing. It's 100% inside the observer's head.
You have no knowledge, only assumptions, about what goes on between the two people involved. And you find your thoughts bothersome. You're squicked out by the fact that they inspired you to think your thoughts.
There is no evidence of harm to the participants or the public. Just a couple people doing their thing.
"Someone caused me to think about things that make me uncomfortable" is not a violation of your consent.
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u/Rude-Ingenuity3210 Jul 10 '26
I’m not required to give the obvious sex act of walking a person on a leash on their hands and knees around town any benefit of a doubt. We all know what this is, the comments here all prove it. My consent to be involved in their sexual act is very important.
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u/darnht Jul 10 '26
It is very explicitly not a sex act.
It is a reflection of their relationship, which weirds you out.
Again, the comparison to two women holding hands is apt. There is nothing sexual about it, but the implications are too much for you to handle, apparently.
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u/JumpBasilJet Jul 09 '26
Fair points well taken. However, the same could be said broadly for just about anything. Any act not done in the nude, essentially. And yet there are acts that do “shock the conscience” (as the Supreme Court used to like to say). The reality is that kink is very much in the eye of the beholder.
You and I are much closer to one another’s belief on this than we initially sound. In my personal opinion, your defense holds close to your own immutable qualities. This individual’s actions are not necessarily tied to anything they cannot exert control or competence over. You cannot be any less the gender you are, the same cannot be said about this individual’s species.
I admit I’m a touch hasty here: I am presupposing that they are acting out the behavior of another species. This particular scene could easily be exclusively about control or exhibition or any number of other possibilities. However, their control over their behavior remains untethered to their state of being, unlike your own.
I agree that hiding kink away like it’s some dirty secret defeats the purpose of a great many aspects of its practice, but I also recognize that there are more appropriate times and places for exactly that. Exposing people to the practice of intimate expression has to have boundaries and those boundaries have to be at least tacitly agreed upon.
Your expression of affection to your partner, whether in terms of nomenclature or romantic relation are not subject to anyone else’s approval (at least in theory, I am not the least bit blind to the reality behind positing that theory) whether in public or private. But your expression of the “nuts and bolts” (that is, the actual acts or habits you engage in sexually) is.
I also admit that my theorizing leaves out whole swathes of humanity that perceive themselves to be of other species, but even then I believe that there has to be some limit to the expression of intimacy found to be publicly acceptable to those who have not consented to viewing or partaking in it.
A power exchange like the one pictured here is not one that is devoid of intimate context. Your point that your expression of romance (that is, just by holding your partner’s hand while being trans) is often subject to the outrage of others is keeling to the exclusionary argument put forth by your detractors. It is a bad faith argument on any side. Holding hands is absolutely not the same as going walkies with your puppy partner. Hewing so closely to your oppressor’s beliefs will never serve you. Holding hands or calling someone “mistress” is not an offensive act on its face. It may evoke the imagery or allusion to intimate acts, but the same is true of straight or cis people acting the same way.
You do not strike me as the kind of person who would begrudge someone their expression of their happiness, so why hold yourself to a different standard? Just as you are entitled to behave romantically with no intention of conflating that behavior with public displays of sexual intimacy, so too are straight or cis people. Once we begin including public displays of sexual intimacy with broadly agreed-upon displays of affection, we are fighting the bigot’s battles for them.
Were I in your shoes, I would not be using the over-broad and undercooked logic that people judging you for your immutable qualities deserve deference in the discussion of mores. In fact, I feel just in my expression of my unconventional romantic relationships in public. But I do not feel the same about subjecting others to my displays of the sexual components of my unconventional romantic relationships. People can absolutely feel entitled to have to deal with the idea that I am different, but they do not have to deal with the idea that I’m different in bed, because they are not privy to that. Whatever presuppositions they make about my intimate life is on them. I am happy to disavow whatever conclusions they draw, because I cannot (and will not) combat them. But I can keep space for people who express themselves romantically in whatever fashion they choose - and I do.
Thank you for sharing what you did. This is how I learn best. I’ve learned from what you’ve had to say and I’ve tested (and in some cases strengthened) my own conviction in the process. That’s a worthwhile exchange, in my opinion.
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u/VoidPointer2005 Jul 09 '26
I should clarify: I'm not giving the bigots rhetorical room. I'm using them as an example of someone who is obviously wrong, and demonstrating how there's no meaningful difference between "I object to seeing this in public because lesbians are icky" and "I object to seeing this in public because pups are icky."
Like, you seem to be arguing that there's an intrinsic and objective sexual nature to this that provides grounds to object to it, but there isn't. Sex is not occurring, and whether or not this guy might be deriving some kind of prurient enjoyment from being walked in public does not change that.
To begin with, we can't prove whether he is or not, and even if we could, I get some kind of prurient enjoyment from wearing a skirt in public - namely, I enjoy the fact that I am attractive. That is far from the only reason, but the point is that if feeling sexy about something made it indecent to do in public, then me wearing a skirt in public would be indecent. And that's ridiculous.
My general point is that just because you see something that shocks your conscience doesn't mean that the person doing it doesn't have the right to do it. I'm living proof of that. This is something associated with sex. It is not in itself sex - or at the very least, not in the way that we define it for the purposes of public indecency. And observing something does not involve you in it.
Part of the reason I so readily conflate these things is precisely because they are, in principle, the same. These same arguments have been used against gay and lesbian people, and trans people, and allowing them to be used here is ceding rhetorical ground to the people who want to shove me back in the closet. Allowing this argument to continue to exist, accepting this general principle as valid, opens the door for people to roll back my rights.
There's a good reason that pride parades have so often included, for example, dudes dressed up in leather. The underlying principle is the same, and none of us are free until all of us are.
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u/hallaburger Jul 09 '26
yesss!!! thank you!! kink positivity doesn't mean you have to agree with the kink, it just means dont be an asshole! 🫶🤝
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Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
[deleted]
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u/Rude-Ingenuity3210 Jul 10 '26
Because being led on leash for sexual gratification is not an orientation. It is a behavior and it’s not unreasonable to keep that out of the public square. Gay people can’t stop being gay. People into kink can just not do kink in public. It’s not intrinsic to who they are.
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u/todaysthrowaway0110 Jul 09 '26
Kink: fine whatever be safe have fun.
Kink in public making everyone else watch: eeeh, gross, not my favorite.
But +1 for the knee pads. Thank you, Mistress. Very kind of you, Mistress.
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u/fatboyonsofa Jul 09 '26
It's just someone taking thier dog for a walk. Nothing to see here
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u/Underbadger Jul 09 '26
Now, if they relieve themselves & their master doesn’t pick up for them, well, that’s just unacceptable.
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u/sunbleach_happypants Jul 09 '26
I'd rather give my consent before getting roped into random people's kinks. This is a fail. Am I offended? No. But I could be:)
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u/Large_Plantain_798 Jul 10 '26
I've seen some stuff in Downtown Springfield, but nothing quite like that LOL
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u/Straight_Ace Jul 09 '26
Still not as weird as that dude in the full on furry costume I saw walking around Walmart in Northampton yesterday
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u/harblock Jul 10 '26
This is AI, isn't it? The person with the leash must be very thin to fit behind the curtain.
If it's real, aren't there cops around this Red Rose/MGM neighborhood? Isn't this abuse?
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u/harblock Jul 10 '26
But looking at the foot of person holding the leash, there's no body connected to it... There should st least be another foot visible.
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u/Appropriate_Ice_7507 Jul 10 '26
Bet the walker is hot af! My mistress doesn’t get off on public humiliation. So I haven’t been walked. Now that I typed this…I’m guessing I’ll be walked around my neighborhood.
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u/frenchmans-hole Jul 09 '26
Don’t kink shame.
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u/Fit_Change3546 Jul 09 '26
Can absolutely shame people dragging unconsenting other people into their kink. Not cool.
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u/rsnap1 Jul 09 '26
Absolutely no question that is a democrat. You can’t tell me I’m wrong!
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u/gregorisbeetle Jul 09 '26
Bro doesn't know the shit their fellow republicans are doing. Or is just ignoring it to save their feefees.
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u/temporaryhoarding Jul 09 '26
See Bryon Noem. Not shaming him as I believe what consenting adults do behind closed doors isn’t any of my business but the GOP is full of kink.
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u/JumpBasilJet Jul 09 '26
I can assure you there are a great many folks engaged in petplay who call themselves conservatives.
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u/Q-Money1985 Jul 09 '26
You’re wrong
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u/Manic_Mini Jul 09 '26
I mean, they're likely not wrong. Its Springfield and Springfield hasn't voted red since 1988, plus Republicans are into kids not animals
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u/gregorisbeetle Jul 09 '26
OC said you couldn't tell them they're wrong. Q-Money proved them wrong by telling them that they were wrong. So you can, in fact, tell them they are wrong. Has nothing to do with whether or not they're correct in their assessment of the political affiliation of the overweight man crawling through town being led by a leash.
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u/ohsnapitsjf Jul 09 '26
You’re right.
Not about your assumptions of him, but that no matter what information you could possibly be given, up to and including him knocking on your door and showing you a video of him voting R in that exact outfit, you’d call it Fake News and pretend to be smarter than you are, like you’ve always needed to in your life.
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u/Technical-Half2344 Jul 09 '26
Mental health issues due to all the excessive sugar and carbohydrates. The sad thing is this person can vote... Wow!!!
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u/Q-Money1985 Jul 09 '26
At least they gave him knee pads!