Goths in the Daily Mail...

[emmelinemay]

Goth who walks fiancee on a leash is banned by bus driver who told him: 'No dogs allowed'

The Daily Mail reports that, basically, goths are treated like weirdos because they dress weird.

This is one reason I don't miss dressing crazy on a day-today basis any more.

I have my grannie's voice in my head going 'she'll catch her death going out dressed like that in weather like this'

Oh, daily mail.

The comments are comedy gold.

What idiots! What do they do when they go to work? Dress the same? Or don't they work? They would never get past a first stage interview dressed like this.
- S, Leicester

He looks like a work-shy scrounger to me, get a job and pay your way.
- Harry Basset, Whitby

If he was a gentleman goth, he would loan her his coat.
- John, United Kingdom

Comments

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

Now, admittedly, the social rules on what is and isn't allowable in public are fairly arbitrary, but they apply to everyone within a given society; it wouldn't be acceptable for non-BDSMers to lead each other around on leashes in public either. But BDSMers can hold hands in public, just like everyone else.

I think this is where I disagree with you. I mean, outside a BDSM context there's a scale with varying degrees of social acceptability, which goes roughly from holding hands, via fairly chaste kissing, passionate snogging, fumbling, through to actual sex. It's not immediately obvious where being on a leash falls on that scale, but my instict would be somewhere between chaste kissing and passionate snogging, so maybe a bit naff, but not offensive in the same way that an actual scene would be.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I suspect it depends on whetehr one sees BDSM as purely sexual, or as something else as well; in the sexual sense, yes, you're probably right. On the other hand, I find my feminist hackles rising slightly at the whole concept of a man leading a woman around on a leash in public. I suspect I'd probably object somewhat no matter what the gender-pairing, come to that. In any case, to me, the sort of power-play that it represents makes it an uncomfortable thing to watch, as an outsider, because what the outsider sees is not the love and affection and respect,a nd the adherence to specific rules and safewords, adn the "topping from the bottom" possibilities,a nd so on; what the outsider sees is someone objectified and treated like an animal or a slave, in the name of sex.

Does that make sense?