October 4, 2007
West Village Parents Take on the S & M Fest
Residents of the West Village are calling for the removal of Community Board 2 Chairperson Brad Hoylman and CB2 District Manager Bob Gormley because of two little letters: S and M. The two approved the permit for the S&M Street Festival, which is set to take place this Sunday on Weehawken Street.
Parents in the area are voicing concern and flyering around Greenwich Village public schools P.S. 3 and P.S. 41 and at Bleeker Playground. An email we received from them stated when they called to complain they were told by District Manager Bob Gormley that their complaint will do no good, however the CB2 Board Members will be in attendance at the fest to monitor it. Maybe they should team up with PETA, surely there will be a lot of leather on parade!
What exactly are ma and pa shielding their kids eyes from? Women will be going topless, and the men are only required to wear a two-inch strip of leather to cover their backsides...but to see the flogging and rope-bondage demonstrations, you're gonna have to pay up. Seriously, it's $5 -- but don't fret parents, they're carding for that one.
While the families question the fest, this is New York, and it's just a celebration of the diversity of the neighborhood -- maybe they could take their kids to a movie while it's going on.
Photo via ricoeurian's Flickr.
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isn't that dress code legal in ny anyway?
They can always move to Jersey. I bet when these people were single/not married, they would be the first people to show up at these festivals.
This festival was there before any of these children were even born. If you don't like it, find a cozy suburb.
what time on Sunday?
Children are ususally not fazed by these kinds of things. The people bitching are those that are too lazy to explain things. As long as there's not gratuitous nudity or graphic sex on the streets, who cares? I mean, what do they tell their kids when they walk by sex stores?
These sick freaks need to be locked up. There is no place for this kind of depravity in civilized society.
the complainers are probably the kind of parent who wouldn't think twice about changing poopy diapers on the train or in a restaurant dining room
it's a three day weekend kids.
take a trip if it bothers you that much. isn't that what the racists do during the PR parade?
Women don't need permission to be topless in NYC. It's not against the law.
If you can't tolerate that shit, you shouldn't live in the West Village.
Are you f*c!n% kidding me?! Move the hell out of the West Village if this is a problem for you. Have fun on Staten Island. Morons.
"These sick freaks need to be locked up. There is no place for this kind of depravity in civilized society."
I agree 100%. These concerned parents should be thrown into the slammer.
Ah, the sweet stink of gentrification. I remember the good old days in that neighbohood. This festival is NOTHING compared to what used to go on there, before Giuliani and before the money class found a renewed interest in living in New York City.
it's unbelievable that this is happening in NYC and worst yet in the West Village...if people did something like that for the PR parade or the Irish parade they'd be laughed out of town...
what a load of crock!
# 10 was right...move the hell out!
yes they have a right to do it, blah blah blah...
gentrification, blah blah blah...
but those fuckin fags are miserable disgusting germ magnets, and should stay in the goddamn closet.
#14I agree, i cant believe this bothers anybody that lives in the west village let alone nyc...
as a miserable disgusting germ magnot, i agree that i can barely move through this city without becoming covered in salmonella, influenza, the bird flu and SARS.
although i have found that rubber and leather clothing does stop a lot of this.....
oh, and #15... while the closet may (NOT) stop the germs, apparently it also turns you into an old fat pasty republican senator.....
The people against this parade are HOMOPHOBES and should get out of town. New York is about tolerance - Shame on these "parents".
This city has become a bunch of entitled yuppies.
Isn't this the kind of activity that happens on Weehawken street on any given sunday. Uptight parents and Ahmadinejad have something in common - neither believe in gays
will there be food? when they say street festival, does that mean vendors selling leather goods/sox like all the other street festivals?
there's a street festival for everything in NY. what a great city.
Viva non-family-friendly NY!!!! VIVA!!!!
They were there way before the yuppie transplants and made the place desirable in the first place.
"Oooh, the Meatpacking District, with it's perfectly portioned minute packets of seedines. Please."
ANd I am a GV-living Yuppie myself. But have lived there befor ethe latest influx and still prefer the old time resident's quirkiness to the new, homogenized, high-rent paying ones.
wow. gothamist comments are stunningly predictable.
LAME.
to leather and uptight parents.
This city was built by respectable citizens in a tradition based on the values of Western Civilization. It is unfortunate that for a few decades, technological disruption allowed an unsavory element to permeate our find city - but these cretins are simply parasites.
They can never create anything close to the grandness and beauty of New York City. These people claim "rights" built upon the vision, blood, and sweat of the good people who came before them in generations past. These people who built this city never would have imagined such behavior would be socially acceptable.
Like bugs feasting upon a dead corpse in an abandoned building, the rightful owners of this city are returning home and now they flee because of the bright light of civility.
We value the freedom of our children to be raised without the corrupting influence of the decadent and depraved. We value our state of mind, which wretches in revulsion at these abominations. We imagine a world with human sexuality is an expression of positive values and not vice.
The light is only getting brighter, and the tiny minority of our population that exults this kind of sick behavior is becoming more and more unpopular with every passing day. Go quietly, for you lack the fortitude and unity to ever mount a meaningful resistance.
I propose we relocate every sick, anti-family freak to a small city someplace else in the area. We'll see how long they last and what they can do. As their creed will die with them as they will have children to pass on their beliefs, it will take but one generation to die out. In 100 years, these S&M types will be all but forgotten, a strange aberation from an era when people incorrectly believed one has the freedom to do whatever one wants.
whhaaaaa!
all that hate! yeah that is soooo civilized!
Let's burn people! that will keep "barbarians" away!
There's a Weehawken Street in the West Village? Who knew? Shouldn't be too tough to avoid (for me and the impressionable young children) considering I'd never heard of it until this post.
i know! i know! is it mousselini?
As a parent and NYC resident (UES, pls don't flog me) I've got no problem with this. By no problem I mean let them have their party/event/festival, I hope they have a ball! Although my explanation, should my daughter see some pictures or video, would leave out the best details (she is 7).
My wife and I live here and raise our kids here for a few reasons. Diversity is near the top of the list because it makes us better on every level.
I offer this anecdote as one of my proudest moments and justification for our choice:
Watching TV with my oldest kid: Fresh Direct ad comes on with Ed Koch getting a delivery from a black delivery guy. I laugh (I love Koch). My little girl says "what's funny". I say, "oh nothing really, I just like that guy, he was the mayor when I was a kid." She replies, "which one?"
So far so good, now if I could just get her to brush her teeth.
Wait, is New York the abandoned house or the rotting corpse?
you make me laugh and kind of sad #26. Someone tell me he's joking right?? lol
to all the uptight parents, please don't turn us into Park Slope!!! you moved here knowing that christopher street is a daily "freak" show, how can this festival be any worse? free up yourselves (and your children)!
-a straight vanilla, non S&M, but civil liberty loving West Village resident
I am in!!! I will polish up the latex and get the flogger ready. This should be a blast to say the least!! Time to have some fun and redden some butts. Anyone else here with me? Or do I stand alone?
Hey, #26, actually, New York has been considered a town of vice and depravity since the Dutch were here, and that's just the way we like it.
Don't even get me started on your misunderstanding of "the values of Western Civilization" [sic].
I see that I'm in the minority here, but when did the city become a tacky sexual theme park? I'm gay and no puritan, but I find this event completely gross.
Can someone please explain why it HAS TO be held in public?
This is like when rich people buy a nice house in the country and then complain that the farmer next to them wakes them up every morning w/his tractor.
It's just another case of "But what about the children?!?"
I get so angry every time someone hides behind their offspring to justify prejudice or censorship.
what kind of an idiot moves to west village and then complains about s&m?
freaks don't party in yur fucking suburb,
so why would you want to raise your fucking children in their hood?
"
I see that I'm in the minority here, but when did the city become a tacky sexual theme park? I'm gay and no puritan, but I find this event completely gross.
Can someone please explain why it HAS TO be held in public?"
Alas, a voice of reason.
freaks like to expose themselves that is why
Hey number 40. 'Tacky' is very subjective. Just like someone can be subjective about your own prolaclivities. That's what makes us the US, and especially what's made the liberal village, the village.
Leave these nice people alone. They work all week long on Wall Street and they need to vent their passions.
Without these people there would be no pastry shops, opera, ballet, on and off Broadway theater, leather resale shops, etc.
Bob and Brad are the best thing that ever happened to this community board.
I see that I'm in the minority here, but when did the city become a tacky sexual theme park?
Uh... like 1975, dude.
Sorry, I nodded off there #26.
"Will somebody please think of the children!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Um - I assume sex is what got those impressionable imps here in the first place, righ?
Move.
My guess is that most that have posted in favor of this Fetish Street Fair and who are saying "Move!" to the people who object are:
1). Born elsewhere...raised in a nice sterile suburb somewhere. Can any of you say you were born and rasied in NYC? (I didn't think so.)
2). Now reside in Brooklyn or Queens, not in Greenwich Village
3). Moved here to attend NYU (who tears down all our historic buildings so the rich kids from elsewhere can populate our once historic neighborhoods...that now all look like ugly suburban strip malls, i.e. lower 3rd Avenue.)
4). Are about 20-25 years old and work as bartenders/waitresses somewhere.
5). Are not parents
6). All of the above
I'm a 4th Generation Greenwich Villager, and I come from a family of artists, not wall streeters. You all who think you are so cool and edgy and "New Yawk"...just wait 'till you grow up and have kids. And you will probably move back to your sterile suburban hometown when you do.
#48
1) Wrong! Brooklyn, till 21, then the village for 40 years.
2) Wrong!
3) Wrong!
4) Wrong!
5) Thankfully, abortion is legal! Too bad your folks didn't have that option.
6) Wrong!
You live here four generations? How parochial is that?
In Arkansas they call your kind hillbillies.
Women are legally allowed to go topless in NY State anyway.
I love how every time a debate comes up involving "protecting" kids, the "you don't have children" card gets played. As if having a kid is something so mind-altering and rare that those who have yet to spawn can't make the mental leap to consider the views of a parent and ultimately make a rational decision on the topic at hand.
Also, we all know parents are always rational and evenhanded in their thinking -- obviously, their thoughts on any matter should be sacrosanct.
No, I don't have kids, but I'm also a life-long New Yorker who would realize that, were I terrified of my kids being exposed to alternate lifestyles, maybe I shouldn't move to the West Village. And if you're worried about your kid seeing this particular festival, well then, as suggested, clear out for the afternoon. All told, stop trying to impose yourself on a culture that's been there long before you. Despite what you may think, you're not the center of the world, your neighborhood, or even your block.
Also, it's already been addressed, but I just have to add my amusement to post #26. Dude, you've never even looked in the direction a history book, have you?
I didn't 'move' to the West Village, I was BORN here.
"All told, stop trying to impose yourself on a culture that's been there long before you"
Uh, actually, I see it as the other way around. I never said they shouldn't or couldn't do what they enjoy...I just don't understand why it has to take place on a public street. Really, they are imposing their stuff on ME.
Idiots.
#52: So when you were born in the West Village there were no artists or sexual minorities: What decade was that exactly?
If the majority of the people on the block want this to happen then it should. I think this should be up for some sort of vote/referendum.
If you have to pay $5 and they check id to make sure you are old enough, then where is the harm to children? These "parents" are overreacting. I smell anti-gay sentiment here. And yes, I was born and still live in the village. Live and let live.
For the record, this Street Festival is part of the New York Leather Weekend. More information is specifically available at the NYLW Street Festival page.
And, yeah, it's not like this sort of thing is going to burn their virgin children's eyes or anything. Jeez.
-maymay
"Maybe they could take their kids to a movie while it's going on" ????!
The nerve! "Why don't you leave your own neighborhood to accommodate the fetish fair!"
Is that what they're really saying?
I l've lived in West Greenwich Village for 40 years; whatever it once was, is no more.
The demographics have changed, or hasn't anyone noticed?
This "Fetish fair " is not appropriate to be held on an open street. The residents of Weehawken Street and surrounding area, are already bombarded with prostitutes, drug dealers, and human waste. Weehawken Street is often called "Peehawken."
The residents of this block were not involved in the planning. The CB2 did not go through proper channels. Procedure was not followed.
There is already a parade that celebrates diversity.
To the residents who live here, a fetish fair does not represent our neighborhood or a celebration of diversity but one of perversity.
What consenting adults do in the privacy of their home, is no ones business, but what goes on in our streets, outside our door is.
Weehawken Street, is not a proper venue for such a fair.
The "parade" is a march for Gay and Lesbian Pride and it has been representing the neighborhood, or the newly realized freedom of the neighborhood since before the well the "demographics changed." Just because they (the new demographic group) can afford the huge rents and prices, doesn't mean they can change the character of the Village which has always been the home of diverse people 'yearning to breathe free.'