Love Always Wins? Does it? It’s a slogan North Country Pride flies on their flags, but later this week, when Emoji Nightmare comes to Lancaster, the opposite is true. It’s hate they are bringing in, dressed up, and pretending to be something else entirely.
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A drag performer from North Country Pride, Justin Marsh, known as Emoji Nightmare, will be reading to kids at Weeks Memorial Library.
The reason drag performers exist is to create highly sexualized and raunchy performances for adult entertainment (and that raises the question of why they should be role models for children), but this man’s “artistic” work goes way too far.
In 2022, the Chester, Vermont pubic library postponed, then declined the opportunity to showcase Marsh as Emoji Nightmare after a library trustee brought up his concerns about a cartoon character Marsh created called Cumsterella.
This cartoon depicts a bikini-clad woman with a trash receptacle head covered in the bodily fluids of hundreds of men.
Marsh promotes and sells images of Cumsterella on his social media pages.
In a news article about the canceled program, Marsh implied he was not concerned about the idea of a young child seeing his social media pages. This would include images of Cumsterella.
This is a dangerous attitude. It’s also known as grooming.
Parents would be wise not to bring their children to Marsh for the sake of educating them.
Instead, Marsh is the kind of person a concerned parent would keep their children away from.
If parents want positive images of gay people in American culture, they can take out a book about Sally Ride or Richard Grenell, to name just a few.
There is no way to appropriately describe the Cumsterella cartoon to a child. It’s not ok for any child to stumble upon this image.
Furthermore, you have to wonder what goes through a man’s head that makes him want to create such an image in the first place. Hatred and deep contempt for women come to mind as a reason.
It’s intentionally the most raunchy, disgusting, and dehumanizing image of a woman that anyone could dream up.
To call it gross is an understatement.
It’s not funny; it’s ignorant and offensive.
It’s misogyny in action.
Why would Marsh, who is the director of communications and development at The Pride Center VT, create such a hateful image?
Is his desire to objectify, ridicule, and humiliate women?
Is this what Pride Center VT stands for? And North Country Pride as well?
North Country Pride and The Pride Center VT should feel no pride in the “art” of Justin Marsh/Emoji Nightmare, and parents shouldn’t bring their children to meet such a hate-filled man with dangerous ideas about what children could be exposed to.
