For parents who fear little Bobby might start rummaging through mommy’s closet and finding girly things to put on, RCDA’s Academy Of Martial Arts in Key Biscayne, Florida has a brilliant idea: toughen him up by teaching him how to be a bad ass.
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Robbie
I took karate for seven years. Still pretty gay.
Nickadoo
While it’s easy to interpret this to mean “Get your kid to man up and stop being a sissy girly boy,” one could also say the ad is suggesting that your kid might get a lot of crap for being effeminate, so give him the skills to fight back.
Ad’s still pointless though. No one fights as rough as a drag queen.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Actually a brilliant idea…….One of my friends in high school was Kyle. He was about 5’5″ and the queeniest most adorable little guy you ever saw. We are talking everytime he opened his mouth a ranibow poured out with unicorns riding it…….He was waaaaay out and damm proud of it. We used to say he was eight before he was seven (do the math :p) He was always a target of those who loved to show how damm tough they were and loved to pound on the Gay kids……’Cept in Kyles case that pretty much only happened once per bully…..because Kyle was a 4th degree black belt in karate……
EdWoody
I still remember Flotilla and her stilletto.
Darren
I will say few things about this…
One: I started Judo and Jujitsu when I was eight, I am now thirty, I have been a part time instructer since my late teens. I also had my first same sex experience when I was thirteen… in the dojo no less…I have been in a number of fights over the years as I believe in standing up for yourself… I am still pretty gay…:-)
Two: Doesn’t anyone remember the mixed martial arts champions that went out for a stag party dressed as women…? Some guys started on them and then the MMA guys beat the crap out of them… check it out on youtube…
Three: As a young gay kid learning martial arts was great, I got fit… made friends… met my first boyfriend… and learned to handle myself so that bullies never wanted to have a go at me again… I think this is something that all kids should do, straight or gay.
DR
I looked this place up (or tried to, anyway, the organization’s website seems to have disappeared, go figure).
Find a good school which doesn’t advertise like this but rather has a good and competitive kids’ program with real-time drilling which involves some level of contact (Judo is a good example, so is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu). Most schools like this one tend to be glorified babysitting…
“Knowing karate” and “knowing how to fight”, while not always mutually exclusive, are *not* the same thing. Especially in this day of MMA, which we all know is better than karate 😛
Rob
Karate lessons for six years. If not for schedule conflicts, I would have stayed. And still, I simply explode with The Gay.
Dollie
As harmless as such ads/suggestions/ideas seem….
http://www.queerty.com/17-month-old-male-toddler-was-acting-all-fem-and-now-hes-dead-20100803/
Queer Supremacist
That’s the best way to make your son ungay. Put him in a class with more boys his own age where there’ll be physical contact.
IraeNicole
Eleven years of martial arts and I am still self practicing. And am a trans woman. But I am a lesbian too so maybe that masculinity just got a little mixed up. XD
Storm
Forty years in the martial arts, advanced black belt rankings in judo, two styles of karate, Japanese ju-jitsu, and yoshinkan aikido. I’ve owned my own dojo, taught at other dojos, instructed for a major midwestern university P.E. department, for YMCAs, and provided training courses for law enforcement personnel.
And I’m definitely gay.
shanelle
Mr. Storm: In our Dojo they teach us not to brag. Your dojo must be teaching you how to to brag. Big difference.
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Martial arts help many young women and men feel more self confident by teaching them to protect themselves.
PopSnap
I don’t understand why people always assume being gay means you are also a wimp. I’ve met some gays who could probably take on five straight football players and come out on top. The same goes for girls- one of my (straight) girlfriends kicked her 6’1″ ex boyfriend’s ass in the hallway at school, giving him a bloody nose, several bruises, and a black eye in the process.
Anyone remember that clip a while back of the drag queen that whooped two white frat boys’ asses into the pavement? That was funny as hell.
Hilarious
There’s no correlation between a little boy playing with his mother’s things and being gay. It’s something all little boys do gay or straight.
Zack
@shanelle: The wasn’t “bragging”; rather, he was listing his experience with martial arts. His extensive track record coupled with his identity as a gay man simply shows stupidity of this type of advertising.
skzip888
If people are under the impression that drag queens somehow don’t know how to whoop ass, they are GRAVELY mistaken.
Syl
It’s not bad because it’s telling parents their kids should learn karate, it’s bad because of the implicit demonization of cross-dressing, homosexuality, effeminacy, and transsexuality.
D Smith
funny… i have 2 brown belts and a black belt in different martial arts… still trans… logic fail
Jody
It’s a shame that they used those ads in that context. They coulda said “Hey, he’ll be able to defend himself from assholes”.
Dawson
@Queer Supremacist: No, the best way is to send him to gender segegrated military school with a bunch of horny teenage boys that haven’t seen girls in months.
Queer Supremacist
@Dawson: Touché!
Shaded Spriter
saw on the daily what this image – glad it is getting bad press outside of LGBT circles.
Someone in the comments found the “Miami-based ad agency Zubi” site.
http://www.zubiad.com/
“Philosophy
Erase Stereotypes.”
yeah I see absolutely no stereotyping here. none at all.
John
Is it just me, or does the logo look like a ballet dancer?
Skye
This is ridiculous. I hate this sort of thing, it’s promoting the ideas my father had – the ideas that fueled verbal and minor physical abuse. You know why he justifies it, still to this day? He was protecting me from being myself. I’m a transwoman and have known it since I was five years old, all his “toughening me up” did by sending me to football and junk just made me depressed. Hockey was fun though, especially when I got to beat the shit out the kids who called me fag xD.
Jeffree
I studied martial arts for six years. We were taught to defend ourselves verbally, and, well if that doesn’t work out, physically. That gave me some self-confidence I wouldnt have had otherwise. Those skills have been useful many times.
If I can find classes near me that aren’t too expensive, I hope to re-enroll in the fall. I’m a little rusty.
swarm
So many things wrong with this thread AND the “ad campaign”. It took me a minute to even find the genesis of it (apparently a legit ad campaign for the school)…but the blogger Queerty found it on is a moron so go figure.
All LGBT people should take up marksmanship and any form of self defense. (quote Romeo, who was 100% correct).
Meanwhile, like I said in a gay marriage post, you guys keep taking the bait as if all “mainstream” media making gay the punchline is perfectly acceptable and “normal”. GET WITH IT PEOPLE. Instead of making up alternate realities like “Obama is really in favor of gay marriage” and whining about Republicans why not actually DO SOMETHING grass roots with promotion of “gay as a punchline” media including Kimmel, Ferguson, Leno, radio djs, etc. Institutional homophobia is so pervasive ya’ll just focus on politicians cuz it’s the EASY thing to do. I highly doubt any of Queerty’s illustrious posters ever ACT in a single way against all these collective insults. If thousands of people contacted and bitched out the ad agency they might think twice before their next insulting creative idea. (and you’d have the opportunity to hear their bs excuse for how this ad is really pro gay – eyerolll)
swarm
..alternatively, here’s a weapon of a different sort:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_FkOdKMfU39I/TGiuavithUI/AAAAAAAAAFs/4-p4Dq4gxVg/s640/bouncingpeen.png