netmouse | Ending Sexual Harrasment at cons

Ending Sexual Harrasment at cons

Jer has made a pretty darn decent post on sexual harassment at cons and since it occurs to me that people who might ought to read it probably won't click through (not that I know if any of them read this blog), I thought I would post this quote and ask everyone to read it please:

Let me say this in no uncertain terms: there is no manner of dress or flirtatious activity that gives you the right to initiate unwanted contact with another member of the convention! This is behavior that is unacceptable, period. Full stop. End of sentence. No mitigating factors needed or even allowed. I don't care if you have watched a young lady kiss every single person in the lobby on her way to you, when she gets to you, you do NOT have implied permission to initiate contact. You don't get permission to touch, hover over, leer at, or otherwise harass her. I don't care if a guy has been talking suggestively with you for the last hour, you don't get to grab him without explicit permission.

And that, really, is what it comes down to… explicit permission. There is no such thing as implicit permission at the local conventions. No clothing choice or activity implies that you have any permissions that have not been explicitly stated. Silence in no way implies consent, silence is dissent. Silence means NO!

These events are billed as a safe place for a normally ostracized group to be able to “be themselves” and “feel safe” in their geeky, crazy, often socially unacceptable interests… and it is high time to make that true for all of its members.

I want to emphasize that whole list of what you should not do without explicit permission: touch, hover over, leer at, or otherwise harass someone. I believe we should have a community culture where, if you see someone doing this to someone else, if that person complains or asks for help, you should take them seriously, and respond with support. Even if someone is not complaining but looks distressed, it is all right to check with that person to make sure they are ok. And someone who persists in harassing behavior or is snide or disparaging about having it pointed out (as opposed to apologetic) should face anything from a stern talking to to removal of their membership by convention ops. But also, as Jer points out, possibly a more significant thing they should face is vocal intolerance of such behavior by the community. In other words, we should all work on speaking up when someone does or says something inappropriate.

A friend of mine recently recounted to me a situation that happened to her within the past year that involved a sudden, uninvited come-on from someone leaning into her in such a space that she was trapped. There was no doubt she felt assaulted. At "How to flirt" panels at cons we specifically counsel against "trapping" someone you're interested in as well as getting close into someone's personal space without invitation, but thinking back on it I think we've tended to emphasize the "this is not a way to make friends or flirt with people" aspect of it, not the fact that once you are physically trapping or intimidating someone, if you touch them in a way that they have not given you permission to, you are over the line from "stalking" to "assault" and you might cross the line into harassment earlier than that depending on what you are saying to them.

It will be interesting to see where this project goes in terms of defining behavioral boundaries. It's interesting for me to think about, for myself. Often comfort with one sort of behavior depends on the situation. For instance, I have a number of people I enjoy giving a quick kiss hello or goodbye - it's something my family does, among ourselves and with some extended family, and some of fandom is my extended family. Yet, if someone gives me a hug, and holds me in that hug, without relaxing so I could easily step back out of it if I wanted to, and when I look up at them, goes to kiss me, it's not ok. Because I'm trapped. Sure, I could get out of that hold. a) it's not particularly tight, just firm, and b) I know martial arts. But it's taken me some contemplating to figure out exactly what bothers me about this sort of situation. Kissing the friend doesn't bother me. Feeling trapped (physically and socially) does. The psyche is an interesting thing. (When I was in junior high I wouldn't let any but the closest trusted friends put an arm around my shoulders, because that was too close to having an arm around my neck. I've come a long way since then, though anyone who knows me well might note that I still pretty much avoid clothes and jewelry that come tight or close around my neck. People might have buttons you don't even know you could push by touching them in certain ways. So check.)

I believe full contemplation of eliminating harassment at cons should include harassment on the basis of race, religion, sexual or gender identity, size, age, and disability. But that doesn't mean effort on any one of those fronts is not worth doing in and of itself. Please participate.

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Hey, were you at the con? We didn't see you! Maybe you weren't awake by the time we went home, around dinnertime, I know when I saw R as we were getting ready to leave she had just gotten up.

A asked if I saw this, in an amused way, and I told her about when you and L introduced yourselves to me... what was it, Windycon? Of course, L immediately took the bait and tried kissing with a mouthful of scotch whiskey, and you didn't... but I wonder, was I harassing the two beautiful blondes I had my arms around for that hour, or were you two harassing me?

My first thought was that I know a bunch of pros were well-known for really rude sexually harassing behaviour... hell, at the second con I was ever at in Baton Rouge, the GoH groped my girlfriend. One pro I was guest liaison for basically put my girlfriend at the time in a position where she was cornered and she was afraid he wasn't going to stop if I hadn't come back into my hotel room at the right time. Asimov was well known for going after young girls and trying to kiss them, or worse. The Ellison incident doesn't show Ellison was bad, it just goes to show how a lot of pros wouldn't even think twice about grabbing a woman's breast. How many times have pro GoHs gotten away with rape, basically because they got drunk away from their wives in a hotel full of young girls who were afraid to say anything?

We certainly have fans who grope girls while giving backrubs... and fannish girls must be more willing to forgive that kind of crap, or they expect it, because none of my fannish girlfriends mentioned it, but I heard about it after I brought a mundane date to a Stilyagi party. Lecherous fans are usually smarmy and annoying, sometimes more to the boyfriend of the object of their lechery than the object... at least one or two attractive exes of mine actually thrived on the attention.

But what are you supposed to do when you're a young kid and someone you idolize does something like that? To me, that's the responsibility of the con, could the con get sued over the actions of a GoH? I think the pros go a lot further, and do a lot worse stuff, than the fans. You can talk a big story about what you'll do to fans, but do you kick the GoH out of the con, take his badge and hotel room away, and take away his plane ticket home, for groping a girl? (you probably should, at least some of those things, for some offenses) What about when he corners a girl in his hotel room and coerces her into having sex? Who on the concom has the responsibility to call the police and have the GoH taken away?

Fans should not, in my opinion, be ostracized for being idiots with no social skills. Hell, that's why we're in fandom. Most of us didn't learn this stuff in HS, so fandom is a safe place to learn. The whole point is to be accepting and to help teach them some social skills. A lot of fandom is probably borderline autistic. I can think at least one instance when a girl licked the sweat off my chest at a dance and a male fan stuck out his tongue and had to find out what my chest tasted like too. "whoa. what on earth where you thinking?" I don't think he was taking it as permission, or sexually harassing me, I think he simply didn't have a clue. Fans are kind of like toddlers, sometimes, they haven't quite figured out how the world works, yet.

No, the Ellison incident DID show his behavior as bad. Bluntly, the only reason fans got their knickers in a twist was because it happened to a fellow well-known pro rather than just a con attendee.

It may have been a fortunate thing that I was not sitting in the Big Fannish Chair at that Worldcon because I would have been the one on the phone to the cops. Pro be damned -- that's still assault.

Furthermore, I am sick to HERE of rude fannish behavior being handwaved away due to lack of social skills. That is precisely the attitude that allows for the sort of unwarranted behavior we're discussing: "Oh, Fanboi doesn't mean any harm by hugging women from behind. He just doesn't have the social skills to know any better."

My social skills work just fine, thanks, and I've been in fandom for about 25 years now.

The whole point is to be accepting and to help teach them some social skills.

This jumped out at me because it really, really should not be the responsibility of female fans (or anyone who has been harassed) to be teachers and be accepting of people who act in unacceptable ways.

Lordy, this.

When I voiced my complaint about being treated like some sort of circus sideshow freak at a con, I got the response "Maybe you should do a panel on disabilities in fandom"

First, the people who would need that panel most *won't be there* because they see nothing wrong in their behavior. Sorta like the Fannish Etiquette panels -- the worst offenders don't see their behavior as offensive.

Second, so my entire function in fandom is to be a Teachable Moment? Not, oh say, be a panelist, hang out with friends and go to parties?

What WAS I thinking??

I got the response "Maybe you should do a panel on disabilities in fandom"

Oh, ew. That's fucked-up.

Thanks for your comments. I suspect the response to your complaint came from a place of well-meaning cluelessness, and I appreciate your sharing the cluebat with the rest of us.

The base idea, of "It would be good for cons to include discussion/panels/education of some kind/policies to encourage respect for disabilities in fandom," is a good one, but should of course not translate into "people with disabilities [or insert any other Difference or Sub-Population here] should have to teach everyone else how to treat them better."

I am publishing a series on accessibility in MidFanzine (http://www.midfan.org/smofzine.html) right now, and am hopeful that awareness of a variety of harrassment issues is on the rise among smofs/conrunners. Whether we manage to come up with an effective response is yet to be seen.

I *have* actually seen people who really needed a clue attend fannish ettiquette panels and be open to input, but of course others who are also in need of clues will not.

Fans should not, in my opinion, be ostracized for being idiots with no social skills.

I refuse to believe that having an interest in common with someone obligates me to allow them to grope me, harass me, kiss me, rub my back, or anything else of that nature.

Hell, that's why we're in fandom.

I'm in fandom because I enjoy reading/watching science fiction and fantasy. My level of social skills has nothing to do with it.

Most of us didn't learn this stuff in HS, so fandom is a safe place to learn.

NO. I'm sorry, but emphatically, NO. That may well be true, when you're talking about some of the finer points of human interaction, but are you really trying to say that most fans graduated from HS with no idea that it's not okay to (to use your example) lick sweat off the chest of a stranger or near-stranger? My four-year-old niece knows better than that, and her social skills are not above average for her age.

The whole point is to be accepting and to help teach them some social skills.

What I hear you saying is that as a fan (and particularly as a female fan, as females do get a disproportionate amount of the harassment) with an understanding of boundaries and personal space, I'm not allowed to just get together with like-minded people and enjoy my hobby. Instead, I must also accept the responsibility to educate grown people in the basics of social interaction, and to not make them feel ostracized because they can't follow basic rules like "don't grab anyone's body unless you have explicit permission."

And if that's what you're saying, then my response is, "Hell no; that's not my job."

A lot of fandom is probably borderline autistic.

That doesn't mean that other fans have to accept behavior that frightens them, upsets them, or makes them uncomfortable.

Fans are kind of like toddlers, sometimes, they haven't quite figured out how the world works, yet.

Fans are not toddlers, though; they're (primarily) adults. What is a normal part of the development of a two-year-old is unacceptable behavior on the part of a thirty-two year old.

Besides, even my toddler nephew knows that if he pinches his sisters, they won't play with him. If he wants to play, he has to behave appropriately; if he can't (and he's a toddler, so sometimes he has trouble doing that), then he's going to be excluded from the fun. Is it really too much to expect that adults understand the same thing?

Can I just say that after my last con experience, I am getting ribbons made: "Not Your Fannish Teachable Moment."

I just saw your comment above, and I can *definitely* see why. Ugh.

A lot of fandom is probably borderline autistic.

asdlfkajsdlfkajdfklAAAARGH.

Okay, first off, disclaimer: this is not directed at you specifically. This is an example of a general trend I have been noticing a lot when the subject of fans acting inappropriately (or men acting inappropriately - I've seen this come up regarding street harassment) comes up and which really pisses me off.

But.

Can we please have a moratorium on NT people (at least I assume they are given how they talk about autism) diagnosing other people as autistic through the internet on the basis of stereotypes and reported actions and then using those hypothetically autistic people to support their arguments?

For instance, the example of "but we have to keep fandom SAFE for the poor autistic people who don't know it's wrong to touch people without permission or otherwise harass them!" Some points:

- I'm autistic (the scream of rage may have given it away). One of the effects of this is that I'm hypersensitive to certain kinds of touch (hypersensitivity of various sorts is really common in autistic spectrum disorders, touch included), and one of the effects of *that* is that, well, you do not touch the Aspie without permission because it is very very unpleasant and often painful for her. At a con, where I'm already going to be suffering from the stress of unfamiliar environment + noise + crowds, getting groped or touched unexpectedly could probably send me into meltdown ( = avoid if at all possible). If there's a problem with unwanted touching at a con I will not be able to attend that con. So from my perspective, going "but the poor autistic people!" as a protest against harsher measures against unwanted touching is kind of... ironic.

- I, and I suspect I'm by no means alone with this, would much rather be told when I am being horribly socially inappropriate. So that I *know* and can stop it happening again. There is very little as humiliating as realising I've gone around making an absolute fool of myself and no one around me told me. If I'd gone around /hurting people/ and no one told me out of some misguided sense of "but she's autistic! she can't help it!" the results would not be pretty. As a result, I *fully support* efforts to clearly tell fans who are behaving in a hurtful socially inappropriate way that this is Not Okay and that if they continue there will be consequences. Such as, you know, the above post.

- Getting onto thinner ice here, but still: I think not groping people without permission is, on the whole, a pretty damn straightforward social rule and not that hard to learn. Similarly the other "do not harass" (leering might be a bit more complicated, but still.) Considering there are far complicated social things ($*%&$#* holding doors open ><) which we are expected to perform where no one will grant us any leeway if we mess up (plus other autistic stuff which is generally Unacceptable such as stimming in public), going "but they can't be expected to *know* that they shouldn't do X" where X is something as easy to learn as DO NOT GROPE PEOPLE seems a bit... odd.

- the end effect of this kind of argument means that the people advocating "you know, harrassment is not cool" start to take extreme positions a la "there is no excuse for lack of social skills! They're not hard to learn" which, NO, and that if I later come along and go "hi, I'm autistic and-" I will not get a lot of acceptance because everyone connects the word "autistic" with these kinds of arguments.

- Why is it that I basically only ever hear people worrying about OMG the autistic people when it comes to this kind of shit? I mean, if you wanted to accommodate *this* autistic person at a con, the way to go would be quiet rooms, some form of getting in between con rooms while avoiding the crowds (or avoiding having to walk through the crowds), no background noise during presentations, subtitles on all forms of video or recorded audio- if you really want to go the "accommodate things that would otherwise be considered socially inappropriate", I'd appreciate doing so for stimming since suppressing that when I'm not feeling well is really unpleasant.

Oh yeah, and making sure people know touching with permission = not done. That would help.

- the end effect of this kind of argument means that the people advocating "you know, harrassment is not cool" start to take extreme positions a la "there is no excuse for lack of social skills! They're not hard to learn" which, NO,

I want to apologize if my above comment came across that way, btw. I do know that many social skills are hard to learn (heck, I'm NT, and *I* think they can be hard to learn!), and intended to be specifically referring to those "social skills" such as "don't lick strangers" and "DO NOT GROPE PEOPLE," not something with any degree of subtle nuance to it.

In addition, my comment about avoiding people who are frightening you or making you uncomfortable, in retrospect, seems awfully insensitive; I should have been more clear in specifying that I meant situations in which you're afraid for your safety, or "uncomfortable" in the sense of "I don't think this person is going to *assault* me, but there is definite harassment going on."

I should have reread my comment more carefully before posting, and I apologize for any irritation or hurt it may have caused.

Don't worry! I was a bit worried about the "not accepting behaviours that frighten you or make you uncomfortable" - there is some nasty stuff hidden in there with respect to autism and other forms of neuroatypicality such as mental illness, but this is not the discussion in which to talk about it - so I appreciate the clarification. :) Apart from that, your comment was fine and something I can quite get behind. I mean, saying that adult people are essentially toddlers and that you have to teach them? You're completely right that that's not okay. Even, no, especially if you think said people are autistic.

I'm a bit embarrassed tbh because my comment was really aimed more at the general trend and less at the specific situation - the reactions this time have been pretty much unoffensive so my response feels kind of disproportionate on that point, but I've seen some rather unpleasant things being said in the wake of this line of argument before so I wanted to point out this is another reason it's problematic (and stop it from happening this time if at all possible...)

I'm definitely aware of the nasty stuff that can be hidden in there, and wish I'd reread more carefully so that I could have rephrased it. I honestly did mean "uncomfortable" in the sense of "Not exactly afraid for my safety (yet), but still, there is something Not Right going on here" as opposed to "this person is acting in a way that I find weird but not threatening in any way," and again, I'm sorry if my careless wording made you feel uncomfortable.

I actually found your comment to be a very interesting one, and I'm very glad that you made it. (Even because--or perhaps additionally because--it made me wish I'd taken the time to reread my own words carefully. :) )

Thank you *very* much for this very cogent comment. A number of the things you said will go in my round-up of important points that came up in this discussion.

Um, no.

I know a lot of clueless geek boys (and geek girls). Lumping "clueless" and "borderline autistic" together is inaccurate, offensive, and unhelpful for either group.

Second, no. I say again, no. My tits are not a learning experience.

I am sorry you had an unpleasant experience with your chest as well.

Third, no. People can be sexually affectionate at cons -- it is a space where geeks are generally celebrated, and yeah, that's a new and rare thing for a lot of young geeks of all genders and any sexual orientations that include wanting that sort of thing. It doesn't obligate anyone to even start to explain why someone has just become Schrodinger's Rapist (http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/).

Huh. That's an interesting essay, but so far as I can tell the author intends men to understand that they start out as "Schrodinger's Rapist" from the very beginning, not from doing anything. A number of the generalizations in that essay don't look useful to me, since for instance I don't believe statistics find Churches or other places where you associate with known people to have any fewer rapists in them than any other place, but it makes for an interesting read.

I believe Chad's point was that we as a community should try to educate the less clueful members of the community, not that any one person or their body parts are obligated to be part of that learning. Preferably, I should think, we should aim to educate folks before anyone's body parts are unwillingly brought into the process.

Hey Chad, yes I was at the con. Saw you from afar but didn't get the chance to say Hi.

I think the question of what to do if a GoH (or other big-time pro) acts inappropriately is a significant one, and that speaks also to the need to have people on the concom/in ops trained and prepared to deal with people in a respectful but firm manner about what behavior is and isn't appropriate. Probably a key to that interaction might be to have the discussion with the GoH in private and ask them to appologize to the wounded party. It's not necessary to make a public spectacle of someone in order to offer correction and ask them to respect convention policy and other convention members.

Similarly, I think there's a lot of space available between ostracizing fen for not having social skills and offering them correction and instruction so they can build their toolkit of those skills. Honestly, I have never met people more interested in hearing rational explanations and guidance for interpersonal interaction rules than the folks with Asperger's who are my friends. It's us Neurotypicals (NT) who are more likely to defend our "intuitive" behavior based on some primitive understanding of the socially permissive environment of the con.

Regarding the windycon when we met, L was of course single and I was not. I don't beleive any of us were harassing each other, but I certainly remember being on my guard the whole time, since it was clear that if you got any signals you thought were inviting, you would have moved past flirting quickly and I didn't want that.

I've never had a fan grope me during a backrub, but I have had one go to kiss me during a massage, without talking about it first. I was firm with him that I was uninterested, and he reacted appropriately, but he was distressed to find out later that another girl in a similar situation had felt unsafe and accosted. Given that we had been on a bed in a room by ourselves, and he had been on top of me, I can definitely see that someone else might have felt trapped and unsafe. Everyone's not going to react the same way, so the safe thing to do is negotiate boundaries verbally. We're geeks. We're supposed to be good with words, right?

I agree with other commenters who have stated that the comparison between socially inept fen and toddlers is inappropriate. For one thing, fen have adult hormones. :) And more seriously, it is appropriate for them to be trying to figure out how to proceed to turn into adults, including the various dances of intimacy. Teaching them how to ask "shall we dance?" and to have that conversation before initiating touch should not be taken as discouragement, and their other experimentation will include *more* lessons learned if the people around them make it *clear* which experimental approaches are failures and why than if they continue to blunder forward without clear feedback.

One of the reasons I don't go to cons is because of my variant neurology. Harassment and unwanted contact will send me into a depressive tailspin, because that's part of how my brain malfunctions.

You are saying that a variant neurology experienced mostly by men somehow trumps other variant neurologies, especially those experienced largely by women.

This makes me angry. There is a strong pressure within fandom for me to overcome my issues with anxiety, depression, and sensory overload so that I can accommodate behavior that is ascribed to the issues of people who have trouble grokking social cues and boundaries.

I do not think that it is a coincidence that the former is a majority-female set of issues and the latter is a majority-male set of issues.

To be blunt, what you have just said is "Suck it up, because the boys' issues are more important."

Sorry, that last sentence was misstated. What I should have said was:

To be blunt, the way I interpret what you have just said is "Suck it up, because the boys' issues are more important."

I was at NYCC last year. I approach a pro that I idolized. He's been around for a while, and is no stranger to attractive female fans throwing themselves at him. I was willing to have sex with him. I wanted to have sex with him. I was sending him every signal that I could.

He gave me his e-mail address. We became friends.

Six months later, he told me that he was perfectly aware of what I was offering but that it wouldn't have been right to "take a bite out of me."

It angers me to know (though it shouldn't surprise me) that there are pros perfectly willing to violate the trust between fan and creator, but it hurts me to know that fangirls probably don't say anything about it.

Chad, you don't know how sorry I am that I made you feel harassed when I met you. That is not at all acceptable, you didn't and don't deserve to have your boundaries pushed upon.

L

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Ending Sexual Harrasment at cons

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