Some months back “Jessica” Yaniv was Twitter-promoting a municipal pool party for teenagers and making it creepily obvious he was being creepy and pervy about it, and then he got suspended from Twitter for awhile and was preoccupied with losing his suit against the women who didn’t want to pull the hairs out of his scrotum. But now! It’s all happening all over again.
THANK YOU to the @CityofSurrey for putting on an All Bodies Youth Swim Pool Party for #LGBTQ youth ages 13-18. Taking place at the Newton Recreation Centre on Nov 10th! All my LGBTQ2 allies please call (604) 501-5540 to show your support! So happy! https://surrey.ca/culture-recreation/30270.aspx #Surrey
So I follow the link, and: he’s not making it up.
All bodies! Like for instance this hairless slender white female one right here. But anyway…
All Genders | All Sexualities | No Judgement
Youth ages 13-18 are invited for a fun, free evening swim. LGBTQ2S+ & allies are welcome. The All-Bodies Swim will include the water slide, waves, hot tub and much more.
Kids of 13 are being invited to an all sexualities pool party? Along with much older kids? Is that really such a brilliant idea, even without Yaniv lurking?
Dress Code
Wear what works for you – but remember clothes must be clean and fresh, not the ones you wear to the event and please no denim or shoes in pool.Please consider the comfort levels of others.
Important Details
For the safety and privacy of youth attending the event, note that parents, guardians and other adults are not permitted. Parents or guardians can drop youth at the front entrance and Youth Engagement staff will safely welcome them into the facility to participate in the All-Bodies Swim event.
Wtf?
Am I wrong in thinking this is a very bizarre thing for a municipal body to be doing? For older teenagers, go ahead, knock yourselves out, but this?
I wonder if they’ll be teaching the kids how to do “breath play”…
Comments
17 responses to “Adults are not permitted”
So woke points are more important than child safety. Got it. I wonder how keen the City of Surrey would be to sponsor such an evert if it were to be proposed by a straight, white dude with a history of IRL perviness and online stalking? SURPRISE! It’s being proposed by a straight, white dude with a history of IRL perviness and online stalking, (who claims to be a woman).
And at the end…
“No in and out access – once you’ve left the event you may not re-enter.”
I… I think I just threw up in my mouth a little, and can’t even coherently explain why. I mean, I use almost that same line with my students during exams. But in this context… WTF indeed.
Christ, who drops their 13-year-old child off at an “all sexualities” pool party? That sounds like the same kind of euphemism as “gay sauna and health club”
Out of interest… Does that no adults rule also apply to life guards?
^ Better still, does it apply to Yaniv?
@Holms
It ought to
Looking at the replies to Yaniv’s tweet it seems that he has nothing to do with this event, and there is a lot of suspicion that he is not so much promoting the event but rather trying to sabotage it. Because his own ‘clothing optional’ event was scuppered, and because he’s a spiteful shit, according to many of the replies he is not stating that he has no involvement with the event in order to let people make the assumption that it is the pool party he was planning to host and attend. He wants to create outrage and cause a flood of complaints to the organisers and the Surrey council, hoping to get the party cancelled. He can’t have his pervy party and so he has no intention of letting what appears to be a properly organised and supervised, if possibly ill-advised event go ahead.
Looking at the official advertising, the planned event sounds no different from any other under-18s event such as youth clubs or under-18s nights at nightclubs, etc., except that it will take place in a swimming pool. It isn’t billed as a specifically LGBTetc event; but as an ‘all are welcome’ party that stresses the inclusion of LGBTetc.
As I mentioned above, it sounds like the party will be properly supervised by youth engagement staff, who I assume will be people who regularly work with the young and have undergone the neccessary vetting processes (in the UK at least, anybody who is to supervise or work with minors in any capacity, even as volunteers, must pass police background checks: I would hope that Canadian law would have similar safeguards), and from the wording it’s clear that clothing is not optional, but that attendees must wear suitable clothing/swimwear that considers the comfort levels of others.
The no re-access rule is one that I’m familiar with from supervising under-18 nights at nightclubs. There, it was intended to prevent people from bringing in small amounts of prohibited substances such as alcohol and drugs, distributing them and going out for more, so I can see the sense in that.
If Yaniv’s intention was to cause outrage by dishonestly and implicitly linking himself to the event, it does seem to have worked.
Yes, I thought the post was clear enough that Yaniv’s role was just cheering / sneering from the sidelines.
There are such events? Nightclub evenings for kids of 13 through 18? And do such events make a point of firmly banning all adults? Along with making a point of “All Sexualities”? Not all kids of 13 really have a “sexuality” yet; the onset of puberty comes way before sexual maturity, unfortunately.
You could be right. It’s a little ambiguous. All those aspects together though make it sound creepy, in my view.
When I was a parent of a teenager, I would have found a “no parents allowed” rule suspicious, unless it was something like a slumber party where they were banning parents from being part of the games, but there was parental supervision.
The no parents may be intended benignly to prevent helicopter parents from showing up and ruining it for everyone, but coupled with everything, at the very best it is badly designed; at worst, it is a serious problem.
Yeah, I’m not troubled by the “all sexualities” line. Perhaps it’s not the best choice of words; I assume what they mean is “all genders and sexual orientations.” But I don’t think it carries any implication that the event itself is “sexual.”
The “all sexualities” line by itself, no, maybe not – although I think it’s ambiguous rather than clearly not…er, hinky, for an event for 13s to 18s. But the line coupled with the no parents or guardians and the time (evening)…it just doesn’t sound like your ordinary bog-standard municipal pool fun event.
I suppose the “no adults” policy is to prevent attendees from being outed, intentionally or inadvertently, by other kids’ parents.
This would require the assumption that there is something that is going to mark people by their sexuality. If all sexualities are welcome, then there is no reason to assume that a child attending is LGBTQ+, trans-otter, pizza, or anything else. Unless they are wearing badges to say “Hi, I’m Gayl, and I’m lesbian”. That would be bad.
iknklast,
It’s true it wouldn’t be 100% proof, but it’s highly suggestive.
For example, you don’t have to be LGBTQ to be a member of a high school “Gay-Straight Alliance Club” (straight is right there in the name), but a majority are — one umbrella organization for such groups estimates that 28% of its members are heterosexual.
There have been attempts by school officials and boards to discriminate against GSAs by either banning them outright or requiring parental permission to join one — the latter step being clearly an attempt to intimidate prospective members from joining — which U.S. courts have struck down.
Or consider how many parents would fly into a range if they “caught” their child with birth control pills or condoms, neither of which is proof that the child is actually having sex. Anyway, I know you don’t need me to lecture you on how bible-thumping reactionaries will seize on any excuse to break out the torches and pitchforks.
Getting back to this example — at a minimum the student could be outed as being supportive of LGBTQ rights and be subjected to a rather uncomfortable and potentially abusive questioning from hostile parents. I can understand having a rule that says no parents. They probably could have done a better job of clarifying that there will be appropriate adult supervision.
But of course, what we keep coming back to is the fact that Yaniv’s promotion of the event really tarnishes it. That’s not the organizers’ fault, of course — they can’t control who comments on Twitter about their event.
Poorly edited me:
Obviously “rage.” Though it is an amusing visual.
Ophelia, #8:
Yes, but in context it’s not as bad as it sounds.
There is a dearth of safe, supervised venues for the young, particularly outside of major cities, and most nightclubs, again outside of the cities, tend to operate only at the weekends. By running a weekly ‘teens’ night’ the club owners create extra business and the teens have a place to go. There is obviously no alcohol on sale, soft drinks only, and the clubs are open until 9.30-10pm at the latest. There is zero tolerance for alcohol, drugs, and weapons, and strictly no hanky-panky (there is always a staff member stationed by the toilets and, in the clubs I’ve worked at, constantly monitered CCTV covers all exits and dark corners, and so on).
The only people aged 18 or over in the clubs on teen nights are staff, including a full complement of venue security, males and females, and all licensed by the district council which also regularly run checks to ensure everything is being done properly. The kids don’t really see security staff as acting as supervisors, they’re just there in case of trouble, so as far as they’re concerned there are no adults watching and spoiling their fun. They can just be themselves, kick loose (do people still say that?) and make a lot of noise without some grump shouting at or complaining about them. On the other hand, their parents know that the kids are being properly supervised and are only socialising with their own age group.
Ah I see, that does sound benign.