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Okay, I'm going to talk a bit about body positivity now.
When Shobhit and I were in Sydney, Australia in early 2020, we went to a gay shop where he found a leather harness, and with the pandemic truly hitting right after we returned, and all public events canceled for quite some time, it was a good two years before he had any occasion to wear it. He clearly loves it, though, and after having just one or two other occasions to wear it earlier over the past couple of months, he wore it both days of Pride Weekend this year.
From the waist below, he wore something different on Saturday versus Sunday, but both times they were effectively just boxer briefs. On Saturday, right after he got home from work and we barely had an hour before the PrideFest Capitol Hill events were to close at 8 p.m., he immediately went to change his clothes, and he picked his leather briefs he's had for some time.
The problem is, when he showed them to me to let me know what he was thinking of wearing, I gave a truly involuntary look of . . . I hesitate to say
revulsion, although that's certainly how he interpreted it. From inside my own head, let's say,
distaste. Neither response was good, though. If I believed in regret, I would say I regret responding in that way. I had no good reason to, and it quite understandably put him off immediately. He got very pissy about it, and changed into a pair of tight jeans instead.
I felt legitimately bad about my initial reaction, and had an almost immediate change of heart about this. Not long ago I never would expect to go out of my way to convince my husband to go out in public in hardly more than what amounts to leather underwear, but things change, I guess. I had to tell him twice he should go ahead and change back into the leather shorts, which are sort of like leather hot pants. I did finally convince him, and we did indeed go out together, him wearing only the leather briefs, a leather harness, and high leather boots that laced about halfway up his shins.
Did he look good in this outfit? The answer to that is entirely subjective. The way I see it, the far more relevant question is: did he
feel good in that outfit. This, really, is what Pride is all about. I think he may have even felt sexy in it—again, a big part of what Pride has always been about, although in recent decades that element has, while not eliminated, has been largely sanitized from what it once was.
After all, it's not like this was any other weekend of the year. This is highly context-depended. I would never particularly advocate for him going out in public like that any other time. But Pride is all about self-acceptance. It's literally in the word,
Pride. And there's no getting around the fact that any discouragement of his wearing this outfit for pride comes solely from a place of fat-shaming. And there's been a lot of discussion and advancement in recent years about the dangers of fat shaming, and how all bodies should be accepted and embraced regardless of their size or shape.
And don't get me wrong, Pride still has a strong element of fit young gay men either shirtless or wearing nothing but their shoes and briefs—sometimes literally just underwear—at Pride. But, there's an increasing level of body diversity as well; I mean, "bears" have been a thing for ages. And in fact, part of how I convinced Shobhit to go ahead and wear what he wanted was to show him
this phot, of a guy I had seen when at PrideFest Capitol Hill with Alexia earlier in the day. The guy was hardly thinner than Shobhit, and I found his outfit, just as revealing as what Shobhit wanted to wear, delightful.
Now, Shobhit complained that the guy in my photo's big belly was "hard" in a way that his wasn't, which clearly still made him self-conscious. That's clearly not exactly true, though; the other guy's big belly is easy just as soft—it's just a different shape. Nevertheless, I convinced Shobhit to go out in the outfit he wanted to.
I do think these fetish-inspired outfits are a bit less common at Pride events, at least among spectators, than they used to be, but they're not nonexistent either. Shobhit probably stood out a bit, because of multiple factors (his body shape, his skin color, and the type of outfit he wore), but so what? He went out feeling good in that outfit. At Pride especially, that's what matters.
And by the way, I think Shobhit would just walk around naked all the time if he could. He's kind of a nudist at heart. He
loves going to the nude beach at Howell Park on Lake Washington, and does it frequently every summer now. Occasionally I even join him.
You'll never see me in an outfit that revealing at Pride, however. I'm not crazy about my own body either, plus I feel like I'm too old to be flaunting my body in that way, even if I
were thinner—even though literally no one else is saying any such thing to me; these are all self-imposed (self-inflicted) sentiments. I'm still struggling to get my own weight even under 160 lbs again. Consider
this outfit I wore to the beach in San Diego when Shobhit and I went there on Valentine's Day in 2016. I loved that outfit and loved how I looked in it. That shirt, which was relatively tight, fit me well then; I wanted to wear it yesterday but my belly pressed far too far out into my shirt for comfort. It just made me wish I could successfully lose more weight again. I wore my Cyndi Lauper concert shirt from 1999, which was a better choice in color to match those shorts anyway, and better as a mostly white T-shirt (which blue lettering) to wear on a rather hot day—it got to 87° yesterday.
I wore those same shorts yesterday. I actually like them largely because of how short they are, and I also like the color and design. Those still fit me, at least, albeit kind of barely. Saturday, though, I wore my pretty standard red shorts that come down to mid-thigh, with a blue T-shirt. A lot like
this outfit, just with a T-shirt instead of a polo. I went out like that alongside Shobhit with his boots, leather briefs and leather harness. While we were at PrideFest Capitol Hill, we found a booth called TomboyX clothes, where he found a pair of
rainbow boxer briefs he really liked, and he wound up buying them. He wore those to the Pride Parade yesterday—but, again with the leather harness. No boots this time, though, because he knew we'd be doing a lot of walking. He chose comfortable walking shoes instead.
He only took the harness off once we left the parade and went to PrideFest at Seattle Center, where he always wants to go so he can get wet under the waters of the International Fountain. I didn't get very many shots of Shobhit over the weekend, but I did get a few;
here's one of him at the International Fountain, chatting up another guy whose own Andrew Christian briefs he was admiring. (Side note, somewhat ironically considering my boneheaded issues around all this, those rainbow briefs, like all clothes by TomboyX, are "
for all bodies and needs, of all sizes and across the gender spectrum." They were literally made for Shobhit, as much as they were made for anyone else. Which is, I must say, objectively awesome.)
As I already stated, it was quite hot yesterday, and even I got into the fountain water for a bit—something I do not usually do. I even took my shirt off, and went in wearing just my own swim trunks, which are not briefs but are still fairly short in their own right—the idea that I might get in the water was partly why I wore the swim trunks, as I'd rather to that then get wet with regular shorts on that don't dry as quickly in the summer heat. And you know what? I wasn't particularly self-conscious about it either. It was hot, and thus a total normal thing to do, no matter what my body looks like. There's no reason I can't think that way about my presence at any outdoor Pride event, really.
In short, none of this is really about Shobhit's issues regarding body image. It's entirely about mine.
I keep thinking about lesbians. Generally speaking, they don't preoccupy themselves with conventional standards of beauty at all—not like many straight women do, and not like a lot of gay men do. They often just let a whole lot hang out, particularly at Pride and often specifically among the Dykes on Bikes contingent in Pride Parades, regardless of body type, because lesbians generally don't seem to care all that much about body type. I could really learn from them. How so many of them can break away from the same kinds of cultural conditioning and it seems to be a lasting challenge for me, I'm really not sure.
I really wish I had gotten a selfie with Shobhit yesterday. I'm kind of bummed now that I never did; it's pretty standard at any place we go or any Pride event. I did pull out my phone to get one when I thought it would make a cool photo when a passing float's bubble machine had bubbles wafting right over to us, but when I pulled my phone out Shobhit was turned around and looking at something else, and then the bubbles quickly passed. Dammit! You can, however, see him of to the left in
this video waving at a smaller, passing contingent of Dykes on Bikes on Broadway Saturday evening, which I actually find legitimately endearing and cute.
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— पांच हजार दो सौ तीस —
Normally I might have included at least one or two shots of Shobhit in the email photo digest I sent out, from which I adapted a nearly identical
blog post dated last night—but, his outfit this year kind of precluded that. That has to do with the distribution list, though, not his appearance as opposed to anyone else's. I mean, I still have the requisite "
Random Hot Guys" photo album ongoing for this year, the first I've been able to create since 2020, that year including only guys from Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras because Seattle Pride's parade was canceled, and thus the first "Random Hot Guys" album of
Seattle guys since 2019. I didn't share any of those photos in the email either. Too risqué. I need the photos to be tame enough for people to look at, at least potentially, on work computers. Although some years ago I switched nearly everyone's work address over to personal email addresses for those emails, a few brokers are still using their brokerage emails.
In just a sliver of my own defense, my "Random Hot Guys" photo albums are including some older men and some slightly more varied body types than they used to, years ago. Not by a wide margin, honestly, but it's progress! Granted, I still take tons of photos of hot guys I see at Pride and I sometimes think I've become this old person perving on partially nude hot young studs, but whatever. Most of them are there to be seen and admired, right? Right??
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Now I suppose I'll talk about Gabriel a little bit. Nothing bad! I don't know, wistful maybe? He clearly wished he could have joined us for Pride this year, but it just wasn’t in the cards. He's pretty strict about covid precautions still and I think he would be regardless of this issue, but his circumstances are compounded by the fact that his "bubble" continues to include both his mother and his
very elderly (like, mid-nineties) grandmother. He's not taking any chances when it comes to possibly exposing his grandma in particular, and I don't blame him. Covid risks may have changed a great deal for most of us, but they really haven't for the elderly—even vaccinated ones.
He did call me Saturday afternoon, asking if I knew of any outdoor patio of some kind we could watch the Pride Parade from that would not be crowded. If any such place existed—which I doubt—I was certainly unaware of it. It sounded like he actually might have been open to a scenario he might have been more strict about in the past: "Standing-room only is one thing," he said, suggesting a place with just outdoor seating (where he would, no doubt, wear a mask—which is fine!) might be okay. I actually did see some outdoor seating behind fencing at the restaurant behind where Shobhit and I sat on the sidewalk, but the table seating was limited; I don't know if the place allowed people to sit there through the entire four-hour parade; and it was still right next tightly packed crowds constantly walking by—I don't think Gabriel would have been comfortable with it.
I honestly didn't think Gabriel would try to come to Pride this year under any circumstances. Had I known there might be a scenario where he would, I might have tried to do some research on possible options in advance, although I likely still would not have found anything ideal. There's a fair chance there were places that may have fit his criteria, but probably only reserved in advance at exorbitant prices. By Saturday afternoon, I was already so busy with Pride stuff I had neither nothing in mind off the top of my head nor the time to do that kind of searching online. Gabriel wasn't expecting that of me anyway; he made it clear he knew this was a long shot.
Instead, he and Gabriel dressed in Pride regalia and took Lady on a walk in Federal Way. They even texted us a photo and a short video.
I do wonder what the risk metrics of Pride will be next year. I have to say, the vast majority of Pride goers this year behaved as though there were no risk metrics at all—including Shobhit, who didn’t bother to wear a mask inside Starbucks or even inside the bus we luckily caught on Olive right outside Starbucks on our way downtown yesterday morning (I did, but public transit was really the only place I did—the bus going down, then the Monorail and Light Rail coming back from Seattle Center).
I noted in my email last night that the last Seattle Pride Parade, which happened in 2019, happened with the biggest group of friends and family I'd ever had with me in all my years of Pride: Shobhit, plus my cousin Jennifer, her boyfriend Matthew, her daughter Hope and Hope's friend Josiah, all of which had come up from Shelton and stayed the night the night before; Gabriel and Lea and Gabriel's daughter Tess; and even Danielle and her oldest, Morgan.
Ten people came to watch the Pride Parade with me that year! Not all of them were with us the entire time, but most of them were for most of it. So this year, being the next local Pride Parade to happen, was a pretty dramatic downturn from that, what with only Shobhit joining me. There had been some talk of Sachin and another friend of his joining us, but then Sachin bailed at the last minute. Oh well.
That said, Independence Day is
next weekend, and Danielle is set to spend that with us for the third year running. With the Seattle fireworks over Lake Union canceled last year and the year before, both those years Shobhit and I went down to hang out with her at her house in Renton. This time, the fireworks are back and so I am pretty much insisting on going back to Lake Union Park again—and Danielle accepted my invite for her to come join us, possibly with Morgan and/or Jordan as well. Unfortunately, it looks like Seafair will have a presence in the park again, even though they hadn't in 2019 and thus we were able to
sit quite close to the water, making me hope we could do the same again this year—but alas we cannot, and that area is now to be
cordoned for reserved seating. Drat! Oh well; maybe we can find a place to spread our blanket tote in the greenery closer to the water off to the southwest side of the lake, on the other side of the footbridge, which appears not to be reserved. We just need to get down there early enough to secure a good spot in the grass—Danielle likely won't make it until about 7:00 at least, as she gets off work at 5:30 and plans to head to Tukwila Station to ride Light Rail into town. Whatever the case and however it gets done, it will be fun to have her with us again for Independence Day. Danielle and I have a spotty but
long history of spending Independence Days together. If we manage to make it work this year, it will be the 9th one we've spent together since 1997.
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[posted 12:33 pm]
