No Piercing at the Parade Please

[mondo joe]

Seattle's Fremont neiighborhood Solstice Parade is one of the most anything-goes events. There are nude bicyclists, belly dancers, LOTS of political protest (last year you got to throw garbage at Bush and Cheney), and the occassional giant genitals.

Last year a float included actual body piercing - but not this year.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/228422_piercings14.html

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Apparently not everything goes at the Fremont Solstice Parade.

Organizers of the annual parade with nude bicyclists, and last year a giant inflatable penis, have decided that people pulling a float with a chain hooked to their piercings goes too far.

They've banned a group that marched last year from making a reappearance in Saturday's parade -- this time dressed up as pirates with two people suspended on a pirate ship float from hooks in their skin.

The debate over the group, People Undergoing Real Experiences, has pitted those concerned about limiting the freedom of expression in a neighborhood that so values its uniqueness it has a giant statue of Lenin against those worried about freaking people out.

...

Jen Morgensen said she was going to be one of two people suspended from a gallows on the pirate ship float. "My suspension was going to be like Superman," Morgensen said. "I was going to have two hooks in my upper back, two hooks in my lower back and two in the back of my calves, and two in the back of my thighs, and one in my arm.

Like many practitioners of "suspension," Morgensen said it is a way to take control of her life. She suffers from a heart and neurological condition that causes strokelike symptoms and sends her to the hospital about twice a year. "I've been doing it for over a year and I've been suspended many times, and it's still incredibly daunting, something that I'm actually afraid of. And I can say I can do this."

...

Joshua Okrent, the board director of the Fremont Arts Council, said about three weeks ago, a woman who lives in the Fremont neighborhood wrote a letter to the arts council. The woman described herself as "very liberal," but called PURE "extreme." She wrote about the difficulty of explaining to her children what the group was doing, Okrent said. "The letter set off a torrent of sentiment" within the council, Okrent said.

The debate was a difficult one for Jessica Randolph, who creates public art and voted to bar the group. From the depth of the calls she received against the group, she thought the roots lay in people's own stories of abuse. "We don't know what happened to people as adults or as children, but I think those are the people who probably have the most sensitivity to self-mutilation or how people push their bodies."

...

Although the arts council does not sanction the people who bicycle nude in the parade every year, board member Brian Kooser said the board hasn't tried to get rid of them, either.

Trying to explain the distinction between nude bicyclists and people suspended by piercings, he said: "I think for many years, people had this innocent parade. They had some nudity. This seemed to some people a lot more serious than that."
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I know what I think, but what say you?

[tavalon]

1. I live in Fremont

Just down the hill from the troll. There are my credentials.

And I'm really on the fence about this. I can see both sides. If it were my parade, solely for my benefit, then, bring on the pirates. I've helped with suspensions myself. I don't have a problem with it. Triggering PTSD, on the other hand, strikes me as a callous thing to do. OTOH, (how many hands do I have at this point?) this is a slippery slope. As well, nobody is forcing people to watch the parade or even all of the floats in the parade. People are welcome and even encouraged to exercise their right to turn away from anything in the parade that offends.

I guess after all of that, I'm leaning towards the peircers and away from the arts council.

[mondo joe]

3. I say no piercing. I was one of the dads of little kids very upset by

this - to say nothing of the adults upset by it. My then 6 and 8 year old daughters were treated to a woman shoving a long needle through her cheeks on a float pulled by ropes attached to hooks in the baacks of the men pulling it.

But like you I have some issues with limiting free expression.

Here's where I finally came down on it: the piercing display is simply not in keeping with the spirit of this particular parade.

There are rules for participation in the parade:

# No Printed Words Any printed communications, written words, recognizable logos, signage, leaf-letting, or advertising in any form are prohibited on the parade route. Participants must stretch to express their ideas visually, groups flow together in one juxtaposed whole, and we're all happily free of logos for the day.
# No Motor Vehicles People take back the streets! Creations are moved with human-power (motorized wheelchairs are always welcome); we're happily free of cars for the day.
# No Live Animals Dogs, cats and hamsters are happier and logistics are easier without poopers or pooper scoopers (aid dogs welcome).
# No Guns or Weapons Joy and love rule the streets. We are safe and free of guns and weapons for the day.
# Clothing and costumes are always encouraged.

It's a bit of a stretch but I'd say the hooks and needles fall into to the WEAPONS category - and definitely not into the category of "Joy and love".

And that's what this parade is about: joy annd love. Not pain or suffering.

If the Council opted to permit this it would be within their discretion. But I'd have to seriously reconsider attending.

[Dora]

2. It's porn.

Displays of the kind that PURE is providing are pornographic IMHO. Not pornographic in the tits-and-ass sense, but pornographic in the sense that these people are taking an intensely intimate experience (extreme pain) and performing it for others.

I don't have anything against pornography. I do, however, appreciate that there are laws designed to protect children and unwilling adults from exposure to porn. Despite it's many wonderful attributes, porn just isn't everyone's cup of tea.

And PURE's acronym is offensive to me, and I have a piercing myself. Are they implying that those of us who choose not to suspend themselves by their body piercings are somehow not Undergoing Real Experience? Is their physical experience somehow more valid because it's made public? What a crock. These people don't need a parade, they need a skull-washing.

[undergroundpanther]

4. Christianity

Triggers MY PSTD and nobody is banning them from parading around dooming everyone