flip flops
Bullied at school for his love of Madonna and Kylie, Stuart Edmonds has shaken off the shame he was made to feel and is now celebrating his joy through the podcast, Unflopped
PHOTOGRAPHY MARKUS BIDAUX // AS TOLD TO TIM HEAP
Growing up as an effeminate boy in Dundee in the 1980s was pretty tough. My home life was comfortably middle class but school was a different story. Scotland has a kind of macho culture when it comes to boys, and I just didn’t do any of the things that people expected little boys to do, such as play football. The things I liked were not considered acceptable by many people — and one of those was pop music.
From the end of primary school and right through secondary school, I faced a lot of name-calling and bullying. It was for lots of things but the one that stands out is being vilified for my taste in music. I have this memory of being in class, in my first or second year of secondary school, and at the time I really loved the Madonna song, Cherish. I had no idea it would be something I would be judged on. It was just a song that I liked and I thought, “It’s music, what’s there to be ashamed of?” But a girl decided to tell everyone and it became one more thing that I was bullied for.