sundries, now with extra nutrients

How "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" contributes to sexual assault.

The journalism (and journalists) behind the Rekkers revelation.

A Day in Gay America.

Hey, can we get the Dragon*Con roll call? It seems likely that Patty will not be coming along this year as she'll be taking her comps, and it's probably better if I'm out of her hair for that. So who all do I have to hang out with?

Willow killed a deer!

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For those of you not following along at home, it's emerged that a series of events happened at a con wherein some con attendees were hit on in a predatory way, invited up to a room under false pretenses and effectively walked in on an orgy and/or a sex show and then had some degree of trouble leaving the room because the doorway was blocked by a naked woman.

When the people who were made uncomfortable by this spoke to the ConCom, they decided to ban the folks responsible for the situation from the con in the future. This was all done discretely and no one except those involved ever would have known about it until the responsible parties tried to register for the con again, were told no, and then the issue got taken public, both by the folks banned from the con, and by people who experienced the original problem. Some of this happened on an anonymeme. I hope that's a reasonably accurate summary; considering it's a lot to read and not my fandom (SPN), I'm working from a deficit here. All the links that eventually get you a picture of events are can be found on unfunnybusiness.

Subsequent to all of this tumbling out in the last 24-hours or so, a whole lot of pretty fucked-up conversations have sprung up off this thing, that are relevant no matter what spaces you play in, or how you play.

1. There's been a sea of frigging victim-blaming, asserting that the people who wound up at the sex-show/orgy were at fault for going up to someone's room and/or being freaked out and/or not just getting over it. ( That's not okay. )

2. The sea of victim-blaming has, of course, been followed by a swathe of people accusing those who were uncomfortable with what transpired of sex-negativity. There's also been slut-shaming. Neither are acceptable. ( Sexual expression as a test of whether someone is one of the 'cool kids' or not isn't cool. )

3. An anonymeme was involved and that makes a whole lot of people say this isn't worth taking seriously. ( I may hate anonymemes, but this situation demonstrates exactly why they can serve a valuable purpose. )

Going to a ConCom with an issue is hard. ( Let me tell you about the time I did, and the time I didn't -- both sucked. )

All of the above brings us to our next point: large swathes of fandom (yes, even the parts of fandom that are mostly female, and, in this case, especially the parts of fandom that are mostly female), hate women. bookshop says it all exceptionally.

But I need to do more than just link to this. I need to add my voice to it. Because it sucks. I am in a fandom with an entire genre of stories labeled "Gwen-bashing" because some people hate the main female character on Torchwood just that much. ( This isn't about Torchwood. This is about Sei Shonagon. )