Zaba ( 10 years ago )
I'm a newcomer here, and while I don't agree 100%, I do feel there are lots of valid pintos being raised. For some time I have worried about what seems to be cults of personality rising around various figures in skepticism, and I'm glad to see that being addressed.I think way too much was made (on both sides) of Elevatorgate, but I'm also saddened by those who feign to be shocked and scandalized that folks flirt with other folks at skeptical gatherings. I've attended all sorts of conventions (sci-fi, murder mystery, horror, even a professional conference for the non-profit organization I work for) and at each one there's folks coming on to other folks. At mystery conventions I had to defend my manly virtue from sprightly middle-aged ladies; at a professional convention I had both men and women coming on to me. I was once harassed by a woman at a sci-fi con, very long ago, and ended up having to report her, and it was not taken very seriously by the con management.In other words, in my view, it's a convention, and this sort of thing will happen. Short of strapping chastity belts on everyone over the age of puberty, it's not simply going to go away.So what if a swinging couple hands someone a card? Jeez, it's not like they groped her or grabbed her and kissed her (which that woman at the sci-fi con did to me). Most swingers are fine with a simple  Thanks but no thanks  and respect that. (Yes, I've known swingers.) To declare that one would blow up and hunt them down to return the card, if not beat them up for giving said card to one's wife, seems to me absurdly melodramatic and histrionic. Being a swinger isn't contagious; cards can easily be thrown away once their backs are turned. This isn't the Victorian stage; nobody's hissing the evil swingers except yourself.But I do worry a bit about what can appear as a creeping sex-negativity. The histrionics over being handed a card, and a seeming equation of that with sexual assault requiring one to swing one's sword and vow retribution seems only a part. A commenter on one of Greta Christina's blogs made a comment that (if I remember it correctly) complained about male speakers at skeptical conventions flirting with female attendees, referring to it as  power rape,  and equated it with employers sexually harassing employees. It was utterly risible and impossible to take seriously. Really, a speaker at a convention holds the same power over attendees as an employer has over employees? Really?But I also think women in skepticism are ill-served by what can be seen as a culture of victimhood.  Oh, those awful men! I can't go to TAM because of those awful men!  Greta Christina tweeted about how she's had death threats about going to TAM, so she's not going, and tried to make it out to be TAM's fault for supposedly not protecting everyone there. My feeling was, if she's getting death threats, to a) report them to the police, as that is a crime after all, and b) go to TAM anyway and defy them. I would cheer her on if she did that. By not attending because of the threats, she lets the bad guys win, and sets a terrible example for other women in skepticism who follow her and look up to her. We can't cave in to internet death threats! And so many nonskeptical women I know would tell the skeptics at TAM who are worried about being assaulted wherever about the value of a swift kick to the crotch.Of course, maybe there's more to all of this than I'm seeing. I don't know what's going on in all women's heads; I think it's presumptuous, as a man, to say that women don't want to go to TAM to be sweated on by nerdy men after all, some of the men aren't all that nerdy, some of the women are nerdy themselves, and I know some ladies that love nerdy men.Maybe we have a bunch of people who've never attended conventions and aren't aware of the flirt-and-hookup phenomenon that goes on. TAM is a CONVENTION after all and that stuff happens at conventions, period. Or else maybe they (unrealistically) hope TAM will be different. Or maybe they hope that it will only happen on their own terms. I don't know. Maybe they don't know.I don't want to damn all the women, or all the men. But I am sick of the drama and want to smack lots of people on all sides of this. It's absurd, and the choice of conducting this out in the open is making the skeptical movement look bad and sabotaging the good work we do. I think so much more could have been accomplished with some private conferences rather than calling each other out in blog comments, but now the cat's out of the bag and those of us on the sidelines are worried about being splattered by the mud.

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