Stephanie Hickerty

Let’s be clear: If I’m not going to sleep with you, I don’t need to know anything about your sexuality. And children—who are not going to sleep with anyone—certainly don’t. Your sexuality is not sacred. It’s not a personality, it’s not a protected class of performance art, and it’s not the center of anyone’s moral universe but your own. Unless we are in a relationship, I am not obligated to acknowledge, affirm, or be exposed to your private desires—especially not in public, and especially not in front of children. This used to be understood. Now it’s called hate. No, We Don’t Owe You an Audience Sexuality belongs in the private realm. It is intimate by definition. If you feel compelled to wear your kink on your sleeve—or on a float, or in a first-grade classroom—you are not inviting understanding, you are demanding submission. You are violating others’ right not to participate. Consent doesn’t vanish because your fetish is “progressive.” If anything, the burden is higher. No one consents to being flashed on the subway. No one consents to a stranger’s arousal. No one consents to a stranger telling their child about masturbation, kink, gender identity, or pornographic categories under the guise of “inclusive sex ed.” Yet all of this is happening now—in public parks, in classrooms, in televised programming. It is not tolerance. It is invasion. Children Are Not Here to Validate You Children are not queer. Children are not sexual. Children do not need to “see themselves represented” in a spectrum of adult desire. This idea—that identity is only valid if sexualized and mirrored—is narcissism, not pedagogy. There is no legitimate reason to initiate a child into the language of sexual preference, gender identity, or alternative lifestyles. The only people who benefit from that dynamic are those looking to normalize boundary violations. Let me state it plainly: Children who are not going to have sex do not need to be exposed to sexuality. Period. Any adult who insists otherwise is not confused. They are grooming. Public Fetishism Is Not Liberation There is a vast difference between being gay and demanding the right to simulate sex acts in front of children. Between being transgender and insisting on teaching kindergartners about breast removal. Between being proud of who you are and insisting the whole world observe your kink play in the street. This is not diversity. This is decay. Men in dog masks being walked on leashes by their lovers are not brave—they are forcing strangers into their psychodrama. This is exhibitionism, and when children are present, it becomes criminal exhibitionism. We used to know this. Peeping, flashing, voyeurism—these were considered red flags. Dangerous behaviors. Early signs of escalation. Now they’re filmed, hashtagged, and funded by public grants. Stop Calling It Love—It’s Entitlement This is not about who you love. It’s about how you demand to be seen. If you need the entire public to witness, applaud, and adapt to your sexuality, you’re not a pioneer—you’re an emotional colonizer. Love does not demand a captive audience. It does not parade past toddlers. It does not demand that schools teach four-year-olds about “preferred pronouns.” Love protects children. Love guards modesty. Love waits. And if you can’t wait—if you need to be seen, affirmed, and obeyed—you’re not talking about love. You’re talking about power. Consent Applies to Culture, Too We teach children that consent is sacred—so why are we failing to apply that lesson to public life? No child consents to drag queen story hour. No parent consents to leather harnesses on city floats. No woman consents to being exposed to male sexuality in the ladies’ room, or in the school library, or anywhere she cannot opt out. Consent is not just for sex. It’s for everything. Attention. Language. Presence. Ideology. Imagery. And we are done pretending we don’t notice when it’s violated. The boundary is back. And we are drawing it in bold.