In a Sunday feature, the New York Times explored the world of preteen “drag stars” with no reference to the obvious sexualization and exploitation of youth by adults.
The Media Research Center blog Newsbusters commented that in its “eagerness to ingratiate itself to the LGBT left,” the Times “didn’t spot any sexual content in the ‘drag kid’ movement.”
Reporter Alice Hines acknowledged that “as recently as the 1970s, when dressing as another gender could lead to arrest on charges of vagrancy or ‘perversion’ in many jurisdictions, drag was an adults-only affair, relegated to underground spaces and rich in sexual innuendo.”
But now, she said, with the growing mainstream acceptance of gay culture, public libraries are hosting “Drag Queen Story Hour” and its defenders insist it isn’t inherently sexual.
However, Newsbusters pointed out the Times skipped over Desmond Is Amazing’s performance in a Brooklyn gay bar in which he mimicked a stripper routine to adult approval.
The Daily Wire reported that at age 11, the boy danced in a sexual manner on a stage at the 3 Dollar Bill dressed “as a Gwen Stefani-lookalike — full drag make up, a blonde wig, and crop top included — as he bounced around onstage to No Doubt’s ‘Just a Girl’ and collected dollar bills from male adults viewing the number.”
Newsbusters noted the New York Times was far more moralistic in its coverage of the murder of 6-year-old “beauty queen” JonBenet Ramsey. The paper condemned the children’s pageant circuit in which the girl spent her short life.
“Since JonBenet died, and endless photographs of her carefully made-up face and coquettish pageant dance routines became mawkish fodder for tabloids, the children’s beauty pageant circuit has watched the number of contests plummet,” the Times said in the late 1990s. “After her death, JonBenet became for many Americans a poignant symbol of parental manipulation and child exploitation.”
WND reported in May the Converse shoe company faced a backlash for partnering with Desmond is Amazing and five other individuals “connected to the LGBTQ+ community who show the power of expressing one’s true self.”
Last December, the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh offered a thought experiment regarding the boy’s dancing at a gay bar.
“Imagine that Desmond was a girl. Not a boy in girl clothes, but an actual girl, Imagine it was an 11-year-old girl dancing sexually at a bar while a bunch of adult men hooted and hollered and tossed dollar bills in her direction,” he wrote.
“Do you think such a sight would be applauded by anyone aside from the pedophiles in attendance? So you think the Today Show would gush, as they did for Desmond, ‘Meet the 10-year-old ‘burlesque kid’ taking over social media.'”
