US: Six arrested after protesting ‘prison-themed’ Pride party
At least six people were arrested in San Francisco on Saturday, after protesting outside a ‘prison-themed’ Pride party.
The group were part of a protest organised by self-described queer activist group Gay Shame San Francisco, who objected to the theme of the Kink.com party.
However, police made several real arrests at the event at the Armory, on 14th and Mission Streets.
The group had previously written: “While trans women and gender nonconforming people of color are kidnapped, tortured, brutalized and murdered by the prison industrial complex, KINK.COM and SF PRIDE have once again turned these genocidal practices into a cash-making joke.
“They mockingly invite people to ‘get arrested’ and enjoy ‘Solitary confinement, showers, jailbreak, love and lust, freedom and confinement’ at their ‘Prison of Love’ Pride 2014 party.”
Gay Shame representative Mary Lou Ratchet said: “This is a travesty – on the anniversary of the famed Stonewall Rebellion, where trans and queer people rose up against police brutality, that six people would be arrested for protesting an SF Pride-sanctioned party that celebrated state violence and prison rape.”
Kink.com CEO Peter Acworth wrote previously: “I believe that if a group wants to organize a particular kind of party, they should be free to do so without shame.
“The purpose of this event is a celebration. It was certainly never intended to ‘trivialize incarceration’ nor ‘normalize oppression’, and I do not believe that a fantasy party could ever trivialize or normalize events in the larger world.
“Sexual fantasies may be catalyzed by real life events, but in no way do those fantasies represent or contain the same meaning as non-consensual, non-sexual real life power dynamics.”
