Usually the authorities turn a blind eye to nudity during risque events like Pride parades and the Folsom Street Fair. But Will Walters (not pictured at right, but pictured here) found out that wasn’t the case when he got arrested by police for public nudity at San Diego Pride last year.
He filed the following complaint in federal court, according to Courthouse News Service:
“Will Walters is a Hispanic, gay man who owns the dubious distinction of being the only person in the history of the City of San Diego to be arrested and booked on a charge of public nudity…
“He was dressed in leather gear consisting of boots, a black leather gladiator kilt, black underwear, and a black leather harness with chrome rings. His outfit ostensibly passed muster with the Pride personnel manning the admission gates, as Pride personnel ushered him into the event. His underwear and kilt completely covered his genitals, pubic hair, buttocks, perineum, anus or anal region as required by San Diego Municipal Code Section S6.S3(c).”
Walters’ basic claim is that, if women can wear g-strings in public places like the beach, why can’t men? We agree, though we’re a bit confused: How could a thong “completely cover” his buttocks?
But no matter,. this is thong discrimination! It’s the next big civil-rights issue—we can feel it. And Sisqo is its Rosa Parks.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Photos via Chavelle Galindo, outcast104
Fitz
I am 100% not concerned about the civil liberties of people wearing fetish wear in public.
GAYJOCK 76
@Fitz: So you are not concerned about cops then?
doug105
Not that it matters but how short/long was that kilt ?
Larry
in my experience the issue here is not the article of clothing but the person wearing it
bailer
i hate that retarded thong song
Mark Nolan
The man’s clothing was entirely inappropriate. People like him who prance around in pieces of leather that barely cover their genitals should be given a good slap.
Callum
I looked at the picture of him wearing the costume. Perhaps skimpy, but not illegal! That costume would have passed muster in San Francisco’s ORIGINAL Gay Pride Parade!
Here is a link to his picture:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/03/14/article-0-12299CAF000005DC-194_468x564.jpg
Callum
Jeff
@Fitz @Larry @Mark Nolan
Your personal disgust does not constitute a legal argument for arresting a person. If it did, then according to millions of right wing christians you should be in jail right now. Way to go and use the same logic that’s been used against LGBT people for decades.
Christopher Banks
If women can breastfeed in public, then what’s wrong with wearing a harness?
Alex
This is where I have problems with the LGBT community. How are you going to say we are just like everyone else and deserve the same rights while wearing something like that on a rainbow float? I do think pride events help encourage pride in youth and our community and keep us strong. This is a civil rights movement. You never saw women do this and you never saw African Americans do this. Guess who has their rights and whose still fighting for them 40 years later?
uh oh
More self haters.
The point of the gay movement is for everyone to be free to be who they are. Stop hating yourself and your LBGT brothers and sisters.
Stop hating your own body. There is nothing wrong with what he was wearing, he’s right, people on a public beach wear far less.
Hyhybt
A thong by itself wouldn’t cover buttocks, but a kilt should do the job well enough.
Dave
Honestly what’s the big deal? I saw the pic and he’s wearing what looks like a loincloth so it’s not like he was totally naked. I’ve seen women wear WAY more revealing clothing on beaches or in public than that.
Mark Nolan
@Dave: Yes, but this isn’t a beach. And he’s a man.
Mrs.Bitch
Should he have been arrested- No.
Does he look a hot ass mess- Yes.
Do some women wear more revealing clothes. Sure they do, but only the trashy ones.
KyleW
In the queerty piece about the mother who was unwilling to allow her 6 year old to go to a friend’s house because the boy had two fathers, people jumped on her calling her a homophobe.
Then she watches TV and sees this man as a representative of gay pride.
I’m not proud to be represented by this man. I DO feel he has the right to wear it, and it was outrageous to arrest him, but claims that gay people are simply straight people who prefer their own gender, and it’s not all about sex are blown out of the water by parades like this.
Why does gay pride have to equate to “camp pride” “fetish pride” and “fucking weirdo pride”?
If this is the image heterosexuals have of us, it’s no wonder that they are reticent. I’m gay, and I am nauseated to think that this is the face of homosexuality that is portrayed. Parades like this guarantee that we will always be fighting an uphill battle for acceptance, and that parents will always equate homosexuality with perversion.
B
Point of order regarding Queerty’s comment, “Usually the authorities turn a blind eye to nudity during risque events like Pride parades and the Folsom Street Fair.”
Nudity is not illegal in San Francisco in general, so in that regard the Folsom Street Fair is not a special case. You’ll see a few naked guys, usually hanging out in the Castro. Most of them are examples of “why are the people you see with their clothes off never the people you want to see with their clothes off.” You can see them going around naked when everyone else is wearing multiple layers to keep warm.
While nudity in public is not illegal in San Francisco, sexual activity in public is. The only laws that seem to be suspended regarding the naked guys are the ones related to heat capacity and thermal conductivity – they should be freezing their butts off but instead look quite comfortable.
matt
@Alex: Wow how dumb can you be? Have you ever studied history at all? The gay rights movement is only 40 years old and we have made a massive amount of progress, more than any other civil rights movement in the history of this country has made in such a short period of time. Also, NO civil rights movement in the history of this country has won their rights by trying to suck up to the people that hate them, who the hell cares of straight people are bothered by what this guy wears? That’s not the point, the point is that what this guy is wearing, however you may feel about it, does not in any way reflect on gay people as a whole. Some random gay guy wearing a leather harness is not a valid reason to dislike gay people, and getting rid of terrible attitudes like that is more productive than trying to force all gay people to conform to a certain (your) standard of behavior.
KyleW
@matt: Don’t be ridiculous Matt. What this one guy wears may not reflect, but when people see hundeds; thousands of gay guys similarly adorned at a gay pride march, it starts to re-enforce a stereotype – a stereotype that is harmful whether we try to win hearts and minds, or force our message down people’s throats.
You may be right that going on the attack is the way forwards. You may be right that no other civil rights movement has accomplished so much so quickly (although gay persecution has been an issue far longer than the 236 year existence of your country, but I know this, if amongst the black campaigners, some of them had dressed as white-girl raping monsters, carried efigies of white citizens with nooses around their necks, it would have done immeasurable harm.
This is absolutely no different. Just google gay pride rally, and you see a massive percentage of vain, body obsessed men, many dressed in sexually provocative costumes. That’s not me being narrow minded. It’s a recognition of the fact that as long as these people are seen as stereotypical of homosexuals, then we are always going to face needless hostility.
bystander
I don’t see how this is illegal. More likely is that his did something else not illegal to piss off a cop, and they conveniently found a way to charge him with this.
ChristopherM
Kyle, that is a load of shit. People who hate gays for wearing some fuckery would hate you just as much in some khakis because you have sex with men.
Timmmeeeyyy
Gays are not the only ones who wear skimpy costumes during festivals.
Check out Mardi Gras, Carnival, Mermaid Parade, Fremont Solstice Parade, World Naked Bike Ride, Harvard Primal Scream, Nude Polar Bear Run, Hero Festival, Daytona Bike Week (and most bike rallies), Sydney Naked Art Ride, Santa Speedo Run, Spring Break everywhere, Boombamela Festival, Pawhuska Mayfit, Fast Forward Dance Parade, Bay to Breakers run, Burning Man, Party Cove, Bonnaroo, various Caribbean parades, Street Parade in Zurich, National Go Topless Protest Day, Naked Ski Day, Love Parade, Key West Fantasy Fest, Tufts Naked Quad Run, on and on.
Lighten up people. No harm has ever been done just by seeing too much human skin.
Observer
KyleW,
First of all, for some odd reason queerty chose to put a picture of someone else, dressed in something else, to decorate this article. Very strange journalism.
But assuming you’ve gone to the Daily Mail link and are just horrified by someone wearing a fairly large loincloth to a pride parade, please recognize that you don’t get to dictate other people’s legal behavior. Many Irish teetotalers might get upset by people drinking green beer at St. Patrick’s day parades. Too bad. Perhaps young black conservatives are horrified by blacks wearing dashikis and afros. Too bad.
As someone else pointed out above, the haters will hate you for being gay with or without seeing men in loincloths.
The gay rights movement started with drag queens angry at police harassment. In the start, it recognized that people had a right to whatever outrageous (but non-hurtful) behavior they desired to engage in. It is truly sad to see that “Will and Grace” and “Queer Eye” have brought us all acceptance, as long as we act just like everyone else except for our allegedly superior decorating ability. What’s even sadder is hearing from gay people who, after benefiting from the fight led by the outrageous, are ready to kick them out of the lifeboat.
jason
I think a lot of you are missing the point. The guy is making the point that women are allowed to get away with wearing skimpy clothing such as G-strings at the beach. He’s rightly claiming that there appears to be a double standard in how police treat it – ie if it’s female, it gets a pass, but, if it’s male, it’s considered illegal.
Can’t you see his point? Have years of inhaling chemical smoke in sleazy dance clubs deadened your sense of fairness? Has the amyl vapor constantly emanating from your open bottles destroyed the last vestiges of your credibility neurones that are supposed to reside in your brains?
Has shaking your child-bearing hips and speaking in high-pitched voices totally disoriented your sense of right and wrong?
KyleW
@jason: No Jason, the point is clear and well made, but utterly trivial compared to the greater issues. There are asshole police all over, and cases like this, but as long as it is not police policy, I’m going to shake my head at the injustice and move on.
KyleW
@Observer: Actually, it wasn’t the loincloth that I found counterproductive to the image that we might wish heterosexuals to receive of us as normal people who happen to be homosexual, it was the bondage upper wear.
Look, don’t get wrong, actually, I have ABSOLUTELY NO ISSUES about how people wish to behave in private between consenting adults, nor do I wish to tell people how they can behave with consenting partners – distasteful though I may personally find some behaviour. However, if every time gay people get together for a pride parade, 25% of them look as though they have just walked out of an S&M dungeon, I think it is completely detrimental to the claims we make of being normal people. That is not how normal people behave. The people at the occupy wall street, or G7 or even naked bike ride events are not dressed like that!
If, as people claim, homosexuality is NOT primarily about sexual behaviour, why is sexuality one of the primary facets on display at gay pride rallies?
KyleW
@ChristopherM: “People who hate gays for wearing some fuckery would hate you just as much in some khakis because you have sex with men.”
If you believe that, then you are not a very rational thinker. Of course homophobes will still be homophobes, but we throw petrol on the simmering embers of undecided people when look like we are all S&M freaks. Can you honestly not see that?
Tonic
@KyleW: ChristopherM is right. There are TONS of scantily clad women everywhere and dickhead straight guys galore. Do you think all women are sluts because of that, or that all straight guys are idiots? Should we judge all women by Jersey Shore? And if someone were to do so, who’s fault would that be?
I’m a firm believer in being oneself – and that goes for those who dress slutty or freaky or whatever. Gaining rights by presenting ourselves as cookie-cutter versions of acceptability is tragic and unnecessary. No one ever gained civil rights by behaving. It’s NEVER happened.
The point is the expansion of freedom, not limiting it.
SoCal Writah
@jason: Well said!
XTIAAN
deserved to be arrested
by the Fashion Police!
Drew
@XTIAAN: Bahahaha!
lohen
saw the pic.
i would have arrested him too…. and put him in a holding cell with our angriest rapist. that was not a quilt… it was barely a loincloth…
it was one of those things where any normal parent would have been like “i dont care what your friends are wearing any son of mine is not leaving the house looking like a dungeon bottom!”
there was nothing gladiatorial about that outfit(if you could call 3 straps and a poorly concealed jock strap an outfit)
he was mostly naked leaving little to the imagination, IF you get my point
The one who knows
It’s very simple. He had a serious attitude problem. He was not wearing underwear and the kilt was about 4 inches in both directions. He was asked to cover up. He refused. He was then offered once again to cover up or get a ticket. He refused. Then he refused o sign th ticket and went to jail on his own request. Nit the big civil rights story he wants it to be.
KyleW
@The one who knows: Interesting – I get really pissed off with people who deliberately orchestrate situations for themselves to become queer martyrs. They certainly don’t help the wider gay community.
mlbumiller
@The one who knows:
Who the hell are you that you are ” the one who knows ”
Shit i was at Pride on Sat eveinging, saw several women with bare breast!( nipples covered with lipstick) I am sure they didnt get a ticket.