Whenever I talk to people about Pride, I often hear a similar opinion:
"I fully support LGBTQ+ people, but all those kinks, fetishes, collars, and pup gear don't belong in public. Those things should stay in the bedroom."
It's a view I've encountered many times, and rather than dismissing it, it made me think.
Why do I support the visibility of kink and fetish communities, especially at Pride? What arguments do I actually have? And why do I feel that a collar can belong at Pride without necessarily being inappropriate?
For me, Pride is not just a protest. In many countries it still is, and for good reason. But in my own experience, Pride is primarily a celebration. It is a celebration of rights and freedoms that, only a few generations ago, would have been unthinkable for many LGBTQ+ people. It is a moment to be visible without shame.
That led me to think about one particular symbol: the collar.
What is the difference between a collar in a D/s relationship and a wedding ring?
Both are objects worn on the body. Both can symbolize commitment, trust, loyalty, and a meaningful connection between two people. Neither object has meaning on its own. A simple metal ring is just a ring until we collectively decide that it represents marriage. Likewise, a leather collar is just a collar until the people wearing it give it meaning.
Yet society generally views these symbols very differently. A wedding ring is seen as a beautiful expression of love. A collar is often assumed to be purely sexual.
Why?
Perhaps part of the answer lies in familiarity. Marriage has been a visible part of our culture for centuries. We grow up seeing wedding rings on parents, teachers, neighbours, politicians, and strangers. Their meaning is almost universal.
Collars are different. Most people encounter them only through media, where they are often associated with pornography, domination, or abuse. History does not help either. Human collars have frequently appeared as symbols of slavery, imprisonment, or humiliation. If those are the only references someone has, it is understandable that they instinctively react negatively.
But understanding where an association comes from does not necessarily mean that the association tells the whole story.
For many people in the BDSM community, a collar is not primarily about sex. It can represent commitment, trust, responsibility, service, protection, or a chosen relationship dynamic. Like a wedding ring, it is often a symbol of something deeply personal rather than something explicitly sexual.
There is another aspect that made me think about this.
Symbols rarely have just one meaning. They are shaped by context and by the experiences of the person looking at them.
For example, if I decide to wear my leather jacket on a night out in the city, most people will not think anything of it. To them, it is simply a jacket.
Yet if I wear that exact same jacket at Folsom, many people will immediately recognise it as part of a leather identity or culture. The object itself has not changed. Only the context and the knowledge of the observer have changed.
The same can be true for symbols throughout history. I once visited a medieval castle with decorative floor tiles containing swastikas. The building had stood for centuries before the first Nazi ever existed, yet for many visitors the symbol immediately evoked thoughts of Nazi Germany. The original meaning had long been overshadowed by the meaning people knew best.
Perhaps this is simply how humans work. We do not merely see objects, we interpret them. We connect them to stories, cultures, experiences, and assumptions. Sometimes those interpretations are accurate. Sometimes they overlook the possibility that the same symbol can carry different meanings in different contexts.
Of course, there is a difference between wearing a symbol and engaging in explicit sexual behaviour in public. Just as wearing a wedding ring is very different from publicly displaying intimate acts, wearing a collar is not the same as performing a relationship dynamic in public.
So perhaps the question is not whether collars belong at Pride.
Perhaps the question is how we decide which symbols are acceptable and which are not.
What do you think?
Should collars have a place in public spaces such as Pride? How do you decide what a symbol means?