Flaming Chords

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It's also got every tag I have -- this is because my current LJ style doesn't include a tag index. (At least half of my participation on LJ is on my Treo. I chose this style because it loads quickly and it's still readable on a small screen.)

I'd tell you more about myself, but that's what my profile -- and the rest of my journal -- are for.

Some republican senators want Al Franken to defend their opposition to the anti-rape amendment that he wrote.

Yeah. It's nice to want things. Me, I want to be in a threesome with Angelina Jolie and Ben Barnes. And my odds, remote as they are, are probably no worse.

(Link to news story shamelessly stolen from cuddlycthulhu.)

First, some fail. I'm sure you're all at least passingly familiar with Barbie, right? About a foot tall, with measurements on the unrealistic side that have inspired little girls into eating disorders for years? Well, guess what? Some idiot designer thinks she's too fat. She has cankles, don'tcha know?

Now, some funny. Ralph Lauren has this horribly photoshopped ad of a woman who looks even more skinny and undernourished than usual for fashion models. It got criticized in a few places, including Boing Boing and Photoshop Disasters... and then they got hit with frivolous DMCA claims. Boing Boing didn't cave. In fact, their response was wonderful.

Finally, some hot. The fashion industry considers these women (slightly NSFW) to be "plus size models." Personally, I consider each and every one of them not only stunningly beautiful, but a refreshing change from the industry's usual ideal female form, which looks suspiciously like an underfed fourteen-year-old boy.


(Nothing against skinny women, mind. Skinny women can be beautiful, too. I just object to the fashion industry's insistence that only skinny women can be beautiful.)

Roman Polanski is clearly a great director. There. I've said it.

Having gotten that token acknowledgment of his artistic merit out of the way, let's get down to brass tacks. He plied a thirteen-year-old girl with drugs and alcohol, and raped her. He admitted it, in court. Well, he admitted the statutory rape in court, mostly to avoid all the more serious charges he was facing.

I realize that many news services are saying he "had sex with her." Bull, fucking, and shit. He was in his forties, she was thirteen. The term sex should not even be used in the same sentence as Polanski's name, with respect to this incident. The correct terms are "rape," "child molestation," and "pedophilia." Harsh terms? Hell yes. He could have avoided having these terms applied to him by, I don't know, perhaps not being a dirty old man who drugged and raped a child?

I also realize that his victim wants to put this all behind her, to the extent of not wanting him to be further prosecuted, and all of Polanski's apologists are saying things like "let's respect her wishes and not lock him up." Let's ignore, for the moment, the likelihood that they probably wouldn't be so eager to "respect her wishes" if she wanted to castrate the sick fucker with rusty garden shears -- this isn't just about her anymore. Child molestation is one of the most reviled crimes there is. We, as a society, are rightly sickened by it. By encoding our disgust for child molestation into criminal law, we've taken on the obligation of dealing with people who perpetrate it. We aren't magically let off the hook because it happened thirty years ago¹, or because he's such a gifted artist, or because the victim has moved on.

Further, perpetrators don't just stop. Certain criminals, like pedophiles and other rapists, tend to keep doing it until they're forcibly stopped.

I hope he gets his ass nailed to a wall. And sadly, it appears I'm in the minority -- a wide variety of film industry movers and shakers, actors, actresses, and even political figures are defending him. What the fuck is wrong with all you people?

(By the way, I doubt that I really have to say this, but just in case? Please don't defend him here. Judging from prior controversies in my LJ, I feel safe in saying that you'll get torn to pieces for it -- and not only will I do nothing to stop it, I'll probably join in. If you absolutely must defend that scumbag, do it in your own LJ.)

---



1. A lot of people unfamiliar with the details of this case or US legal procedure might wonder about things like a statute of limitations. That doesn't apply here. It could conceivably apply if he'd managed to evade arrest and criminal charges for thirty years -- or not; I don't know what statute of limitations exists, if any, for this particular crime. He didn't evade justice, though. He pleaded guilty, clearly hoping for a token punishment, and ran like hell when it became clear he could actually get prison time.
   

I know I'm late to this party, but I'd like to say a few words about George Sodini. Well, actually, I'd like to say a lot of words about him, but I imagine that ten or so pages of "stupid fucking hateful fucking fucker who should have fucked himself fucking sideways with a giant fucking cactus fucking fucking fuck" would get really tedious to read in a hurry, so I'll try to keep that to a minimum.

I hate this stupid bastard so much I'm having to stare at my keyboard and struggle for words to describe it adequately. This scumbag is every loathsome aspect of all those "Nice Guys™" who think they're owed pussy by hot women (and only hot women) half their age, exaggerated to such a degree that if he hadn't just gunned down a bunch of women during their aerobics class, he'd actually be pretty damned funny, in a "hah hah, look at the clueless loser" sort of way. He's the perfect example of the creepy shitstain who couldn't get laid in a Nevada brothel even if he had a roll of hundred-dollar-bills wrapped around his dick. He's a small, pathetic, useless excuse for a human being, so much so that he decided that becoming a monster was a step up.

The more I read about him, and the more I read his diary, the more I hate him. I've been reading about how he was reading books by pick-up artist douchewhistles who clearly want to be Tom Leykis. How he felt personally affronted by the fact that there are 30 million desirable women, none of whom would have sex with him. (There are actually over 150 million females in this country, but I'm forced to assume he decided only 1 in 5 were worthy.) How he envied his neighbor for having an pretty young thing living with him, never mind the fact that said pretty young thing was his neighbor's daughter. How he hated black guys for getting all the white chicks and thereby making it even more impossible for him to get laid.

And most of all, I've been reading about all the sympathy he's been getting. I've been reading about how if he only knew the love of a good woman, or if he only learned some game, or if he could have gotten laid, all this could have been averted -- as if his involuntary celibacy is somehow an excuse for shooting up a bunch of strangers at a gym. I'm remembering that vile "suck a dick, save a life" meme that was making the rounds shortly after the Virginia Tech massacre, and wondering how long it will be until I see it again.

I hate this scumbag's attitude about there being a magic bullet for getting laid, whether it's a book like Date Young Women: For Men Over 35, or being black -- because all black men have big dicks, dontcha know? I have everything about him, and I hate all those faceless people on the internet who sympathize with him. He doesn't fucking deserve it. I'll save my sympathy for the real victims in this incident. You know, the ones who were minding their own business when some psychopath decided to start shooting at them.

The late George Tiller's clinic is closed, and Operation Rescue has expressed an interest in buying the building. I want to write about how angry I am about this, but at the moment, the only way I can do that is by typing the word "fuck" several hundred times in caps, with lots of exclamation points.

Let me be clear about this: I am not angry at Tiller's family or colleagues over this. It's easy to say things like "we will not negotiate with terrorists," especially if you're not the one who has to deal with them. Tiller was far braver than any doctor should ever have to be, and his family have lost far more than they should have had to.

The fact is, Wichita (and a rather large area around it) is now without abortion services. What I am angry about is that this sends a message to the aforementioned terrorists: abortion will go away if you harrass and shoot enough people.

And yet, abortion is still necessary. As long as rape, incest, and child molestation exist, there will be a need. As long as contraceptives have a failure rate, there will be a need. As long as teenagers have limited access to contraceptives and limited education about sex, there will be a need. As long as pregnancy comes with risks of health complications, there will be a need. As long as women are capable of getting pregnant before they consider themselves ready to become mothers, there will be a need.

And yet, do you see any of the pro-liar activists addressing any of these issues? Of course not. Yelling at women about how they're going to burn in Hell is more fun. Sure, some of them claim to care for feti, and some of them even have instruction manuals on how it's necessary to do things like feign compassion for pregnant women to be taken seriously, but it's all an act.

There is no common ground on the abortion debate. Either you believe that a woman's body belongs to her, or you don't. Either you believe that a living woman is of greater value than a clump of cells, or you don't. The closest thing that exists to common ground is the hope that abortion might be less needed if we do... well, we can't even agree on that.

If these assholes really cared about reducing abortions, they'd be supporting sex education in schools, and they'd be delighted that people are actually using birth control. As it is, they're trying to keep kids ignorant, based on the assumption that if kids don't know anything about sex, and are told not to do it until they get married, they won't do it -- and anyone who's ever known teenagers should know this doesn't work. They're going into pharmacy with the intent of making it harder to get birth control pills. They're working as nurses at clinics and yanking out women's IUDs.

They're not interested in the welfare of women, and their interest in the welfare of feti doesn't extend much past the day they're born. What they want is to see women punished for having sex. Go to a clinic sometime, and just watch the protesters. You won't see much concern for life of any sort there, just contempt for those evil whores who got pregnant. Perhaps there's some subtlety or nuance to "you had a choice: don't screw" that I'm missing...

...brought to you by pester.

Short version: in a thread on people's personal experiences with abortion, she posted her story about how she defied the odds and brought a child to term. Not the time or place, really. Of course, when the OP replied to her, saying "i am happy you have a daughter, and i hope your daughter is happy that you are her mother," she replied "[thank you for the well-wishes, too bad the child you fathered got aborted and can't say the same about you]."

Cue dog-pile. Including me, and I generally don't like joining dog-piles when I show up to one that late.

I want to post this in cf_hardcore, partly because the post includes some people baring their souls on their own abortion experiences... but partly because pester isn't well-liked there, and most of the the members would be delighted to watch her getting dog-piled. (Let's just say that her habit of following us around and running off to talk shit about us every time one of us says something stupid hasn't earned her many fans there.) I suspect that it would be viewed as causing wank, though -- which is the only reason I haven't done it.

I'm pretty sure I've blown a few years of learning how to deal with anger in the minutes it took me to reply to her. When I wake up tomorrow, I may think twice about this. For now, I'm thinking, "yeah, I did blow it... and it was worth it."

Recently, we lost one of three doctors in this country who perform late-term abortions¹. Well, no. We didn't "lose" him. That sounds like something trivial, like misplacing our fucking house keys. What really happened is some subhuman piece-of-shit fetus-hugger shot him down in cold blood in his own church.

A few pro-liar² activists are showing their true colors on this. Randall Terry is openly cheering Tiller's death³, and claims that Tiller reaped what he sowed. Jill Stanek is all but saying "one down, two to go." Most prominent pro-liars at least have to good sense to make half-hearted speeches about how appalled they are, leaving the "he had it coming" message in the undertones.

I have fucking had it with the pro-liar movement. I hope Scott Roeder fries. I hope he gets branded as a terrorist. And I hope that Operation Rescue is tied to it. Shouldn't be hard -- the internet preserves everything.

I wish I could say more, but I am too angry to think coherently. No doubt it's affected the quality of my writing, but I'm posting it anyway. It needs to be fucking said, even if countless people have already voiced it better than I have.

---

1. I'm guessing that most of the people reading my LJ already know this, but I'm going to say it anyway: late-term abortions are never done lightly. The pro-liar image of that stupid whore who casually aborts at eight months so that she can fit into her prom dress is a complete fabrication. Late-term abortions are performed either because the fetus is non-viable, or because it endangers the mother. Period. If you believe anything different... I am sorry. You've been lied to. Hardly surprising, though: the anti-abortion activists are interested in stopping abortion, and they are not above telling a shitload of lies in service to their cause.
   
   
2. Yes, I'm using the term "pro-liar." When the other side learns what the "pro-life" label actually means, I'll consider letting them have it back.
   
   
3. I know, I know. I cheered when Jerry Falwell died, and I cheered when Jesse Helms died. Shame on me. Ya know what? As much as I cheered when they died, none of my actions actually contributed to either of their deaths. And as much as I hate Pat Robertson and plan to cheer when he dies, none of my actions will contribute to his death, either. My side doesn't do that. My side is too busy pretending that the other side will view us as human beings if we try to engage them civilly.

Dear Bush,

Normally, I don't believe in that pro-liar myth that claims that loose women deliberately get knocked up and then have abortions just because they like killing teh por defesnless unformed babby, but if I were a woman, I'd make a point of having sex without condoms in November, just so that I could have an abortion on January 18th. And not just one January 18th -- every January 18th. And I'd do it just for you, scumbag -- I'd even name the soon-to-be-removed clump of tissue after you.

Fuck you, and fuck your rhetoric. If you truly gave a shit about human life, you wouldn't have started a war on trumped-up evidence for personal reasons -- you don't get to claim to respect the "Sanctity of Human Life" after pulling that kind of bullshit.

Sincerely,
flamingchords

---

Dear Sylvia Olona,

It's people like you that make me hope that a certain so-called "conscience clause" gets shoved very far up the rectal openings of the people who wrote it, especially when people like you think that claiming that it's your right to have a conscience should let you get away with "accidentally" removing several women's IUDs and then lecturing them on their birth control methods. I hope you get your ass sued off, I hope you get sacked, and I hope you never work in medicine again. Hell, I hope you never even find work as an elementary school nurse.

Sincerely,
flamingchords

(First news link stolen from tomecatti. The second was stolen from ms_daisy_cutter, but has also appeared twice in cf_hardcore.)

Have you seen all those ads for Viagra? Have you noticed that all the couples in those ads involve men in their fifties, with wives in their twenties or possibly thirties?

I can't be the only one who wants to see this convention turned on its ear. Maybe an ad for some sensual product for women, starring someone like Lynda Carter, or Ellen Burstyn, or Sally Kellerman -- a lady to whom the years have been kind, but there have obviously been plenty of them. (Lynda Carter is the youngest of the three, at 57.) Then it shows her starting to get frisky with a guy in his twenties, before the voiceover starts telling you what health issues you shouldn't have if you plan to take this drug.

Seriously, wouldn't that be an awesome ad? Wouldn't that kind of gender equality in media be great?

I'm totally not bringing this up because "cute younger man with hot older woman" is one of my kinks or anything...

Oh, look! McCain's campaign just accused Obama of being a sexist for using the phrase "lipstick on a pig" in reference to Palin!

Isn't McCain the same guy who used that same expression to refer to Hillary Clinton? Why, yes, he is! (See the last paragraph.) Isn't he also the same guy who called his wife a cunt in front of a room full of reporters? Why, yes, he is! Is it somehow less sexist when McCain does it? I think not.

Pot, Kettle, racial epithets.

A while back, I went to a science fiction convention, and had a lot of fun. In addition to having a lot of fun, though, I noticed that a distinct mood. Men were on their best behavior, with respect to avoiding not only harassment, but the appearance of harassment. Women, in general, seemed to feel safer... or if not safer, at least more able to voice complaints if the need came up.

Granted, I didn't believe that this was a renaissance or anything. This convention was a bit over a month after the Open Source Boob Project exploded all over the internet, and the fireworks were still fresh in our minds. I'm sure that some of the guys were not so much enlightened, but more conscious of the risk of being the next barbequed Ferrett.

Well, it seems that barbequed Ferrett has a very short shelf-life, because the whole damned subject is raising its ugly head again.

Way to go, douche-funnels.

Stories like these make me wish I believed in God, so that I could hate Him. As it is, I'm stuck being angry at some of the stupid, semi-literate, inbred pigfuckers who claim to serve him.

Some back ex-principal's treatment of lesbian

(Short version: A lesbian student went to a school principal because she was being bullied. The principal outed her to her parents, and used his power not only to continue bullying her, but to bully students who supported her. The ACLU fought on the girl's behalf, and won. Unfortunately, the principal still has a job, and a lot of people in that state still think he did the right thing. Apparently, they feel that if a principal is ordering female students to lift their shirts, it's okay... as long as he's just doing it to make sure that they haven't written things like "gay pride" on themselves.)

Pharmacy students will let faith guide their decisions

(Short version: Three new pharmacy schools, created for the express purpose of churning out Christian pharmacists who think it's okay to shove their own beliefs down the throats of their patients. Plan B? You won't get it -- it serves you right if you get pregnant. Birth control pills? You won't get them -- God wants to punish you for having sex, and contraception would cheat God of his due. HPV vaccines? You won't get them -- God wants to punish you for having sex, and taking preemptive measures against STDs would cheat GOd of his due.)

Yet more progress being made by Christian nutcases, in their ongoing quest to drag society back into the fucking Dark Ages. You know why so many civilized people think that Christians are total whackjobs? It's because of people like this, and the sane Christians need to do more to fight it.

You know how, every now and then, I get angry about so-called women's issues? Part of the reason for that is that I feel that men need to call each other out on the shit being spewed from our own ranks. The same damned thing applies here.

The last time the Department of Health and Human Services tried to take a bit bite out of the availability to birth control and/or abortion, I wrote a long angry screed against them.

They're at it again -- currently under review, a proposal by the Bush Administration to deny federal funding to any organization that "discriminates" against people who use that "conscience clause." If this goes through, we'll no doubt see pro-lifers trying to get jobs at Planned Parenthood, because doing so will make it harder to obtain abortions, and denying them a job will be tantamount to discrimination.

I'm not going to write a long, pissed-off argument. You guys all know where I stand on this issue already. Besides, I have to leave in a few minutes.

For now, I'll settle for calling the current administration a few names. Like "pigfuckers," for instance.

PIGFUCKERS!

(Icon borrowed from ms_daisy_cutter specifically for this post.)

This is the sort of post I write on abortion when I'm not extremely pissed off. This is the sort of post I write on abortion when I am.

I try to assume some measure of good will on the part of the people who disagree with me. As far as my friends are concerned, I manage it. As far as the people in power are concerned, I'm finding it harder and harder -- not only are their desired policies at odds with their stated motives, but they've been fighting dirtier and dirtier, by working to give individual doctors, pharmacists, and ambulance drivers veto power over whether a woman gets an abortion, or even contraception; and by encouraging pro-lifers to get jobs and training in these fields for the express purpose of being in a position to use that veto power.

Meanwhile, the people in power on the pro-choice side continue to make compromises that we shouldn't make.

So, yes. I'm angry. And yesterday was one of my off-days at the gym, so I didn't have my usual outlet. Today is an on-day, so I'll probably deal with the anger by using more plates than usual.

That said, I don't have it in me to remove or edit that post. Part of me is tempted to clarify a few points, massage a few strained phrases, and tone down a few harsh statements, but I can't do it. The people in power who fight abortion deserve every bitter word I've used, and more.

For those of you here who oppose abortion? I still disagree with you, but I know your reasons, and I will continue to assume good will.

Let's say someone needs a kidney, or they will die. Let's also say that I'm the only person on the planet who matches this poor, possibly-doomed soul enough that a transplant is possible.

From this point of view, I have two choices. The first is keep my my kidney, knowing that this other person will die. The second choice is to give up my kidney, which comes with a number of risks of its own; not only will having the kidney taken out be an invasive procedure, but it may have long-term effects on my own health¹.

So, do I give up my kidney? This choice, ideally, is one I'd discuss with my doctor, who will hopefully be acting in my interests, not the interests of the hopeful recipient. But the choice belongs to me, and to me alone. It's my kidney -- a part of my body. As heartless as it may seem to some people that I have a choice in the matter, it's my body. No one can force me to give a part of it up, even so that another person may live.

The right to make choices like this should be no different, just because the organ in question is sometimes a uterus instead of a kidney. And yet...

We, as pro-choice people, need to stop making compromises with respect to abortion. The people in power who vocally oppose abortion are not doing it to save babies -- they're doing it because they have barbaric views with respect to women. Each compromise we allow throws another handful of desperate pregnant women to the butchery that existed pre-Roe-v-Wade. And this compromise in particular is a nasty one that reveals their motives -- they want to see women punished for daring to have sex.

If we allow the pro-liars to whittle down abortion rights until they only apply to rape and incest victims, do not believe for a moment that they will stop there. A lot of these fetus-huggers will happily refuse to make exceptions even for rape victims -- after all, they could have avoided getting raped, it's their fault that they were dressed provocatively, and so on. As for incest... yes, some of them will blame a little girl who's been molested by dad, or an older brother, or what have you, so why should she get an abortion?

A handful of pro-life people are genuinely concerned about the welfare of the unborn... but none of these people with good intentions are the ones in power. The ones in power see women as incubators, not as human beings in their own right, and in their view, the lives of these women are of far less importance than a clump of cells, which is in turn of far less importance than their backward belief that women belong barefoot and pregnant, and let's put them all in the kitchen while we're at it?

This shit needs to stop. If we support abortion at all, we need to fight for unconditional rights to it. No guilt-trips in clinics disguised as "counseling," no permission slips from parents, no denying abortion because mental distress doesn't count², and no "state's right" bullshit that somehow makes it okay to deny abortion to large numbers of women just because they are unfortunate enough to live in less civilized parts of the country. No exceptions. Period.

Not even for those nonexistent harlots who fuck entire football teams without protection and routinely abort at eight months, because if we allow that exception to be made, others will surely follow.

(Sorry, guys. I figure you all know where I stand already on this issue already, but I saw a few friends' posts on this new HHS proposal, and I was suddenly really pissed off.)

---



1. (It's been a little over three years since I've touched meth, but I used to use it pretty regularly, which probably means I've almost certainly damaged my kidneys some. The next time I get a checkup, I intend to ask about this.
   
   
2. I am not happy about Obama's stand on this. I still intend to vote against McCain, which means that I'll probably be stuck punching a hole next to Obama's name.
   

As most of you guys know, I hate fast food, and I consider it immoral to prepare it, or to serve it to human beings -- hell, I consider it immoral to feed it to your cat. Ergo, I do not work in fast food. Further, if I did, I would be fired for refusing to serve it to customers and encouraging them to eat real food. This is a fact of life.

Also, as most of you know, I consider it immoral to put a television in a small child's bedroom. If one of my customers wants to but a giant screen TV to put in his new nursery, I have a choice: I can either do my job and sell him the TV, or I can get sacked. This is also a fact of life.

Unfortunately, I don't have a god I can blame for all my moral beliefs -- one of the weaknesses of being an atheist is that I -- and ONLY I -- am responsible for my own actions. If I did, I could be a muslim taxi driver and refuse service to women if they have any skin showing. I could refuse to give out marriage licenses entirely, because if I give them out any more, I'd have to give them to those filthy queer folk, too, and that's immoral. Or, if I were opposed to basic women's health care, I could be a doctor and refuse to provide it. Or I could become an anesthesiologist and refuse to take part in surgery I consider immoral, effectively vetoing the doctor's decision. Or I could become a pharmacist, and refuse medications that I consider immoral. Or I could become an EMT, and prevent a woman from even seeing a doctor, because after all, abortion is immoral!

(Sadly, all of these have happened. And incidents like these are becoming more common.)

And then I could scream "OPPRESSION!" whenever someone has the gall to insist that I do my fucking job, never mind the fact that more and more often, I went into that line of work with the very intent of forcing my morality on other people.

As it is, I can't. As an atheist, I'm responsible to myself, and for myself. As a result, I'm stuck in the position of never applying for certain jobs in the first place. Oh, if only that applied to everyone else!

If you are one of these people, you need to be sacked, and your name needs to be plastered all over the internet, so that any medical establishment that considers hiring you knows that you used your position to inflict your beliefs on other people. If you run one of these medical establishments that makes a point of pretending that only whores ask for abortions, or that God's Will leaves no room for any sort of family planning beyond dozens and dozens of babies that the parents can't afford to feed, you need to be closed down. I don't care if you have money, or even the Catholic Church, standing behind your decisions.

If you believe strongly in something, you should be prepared to make sacrifices for it. You should NOT be able to force other people to make sacrifices to suit you.

Do your fucking job, or get the hell out of the way.

(Stolen from fandom wank, here.)

There's apparently an MMORPG based on Conan the Barbarian, and as with other forms of crack MMORPGs, you can customize the appearance of your in-game persona. Of course, this leads to no small number of guys picking female avatars and dragging the boob slider all the way to the right, so that they can... stare at their character in amazement. Or something. Especially the "or something."

Well, they seem to have accidentally disabled the boob slider lately, and a lot of players found their avatars with lots more modest bosoms overnight. Some of them reacted poorly. And when I say poorly, I mean it's funny for the rest of us. Poor, poor Dusk.

Personally, I think Funcom doesn't go far enough. First, I think they should reactivate the boob slider, and have it go all the way to H or HH, so that those mentally teenage boys like Dusk can see all the T&A they want, er, have their avatars be truer to their vision. Yeah, that's it.

Then, a matching shoe needs to be put on the other foot. I want to be able to create an avatar that looks like how Patrick Fillion or Tom of Finland might draw a barbarian -- blatant eye-candy for gay men, with equipment that would make a horse feel inadequate. (Googles a little bit, and then grins evilly.) Oh, look, one of them has! (NSFW!) Then, I want to be able to upload music to the Funcom server, so that as people walk next to my avatar, they can hear something appropriate. (Also NSFW.)

Then, I want to go up to people like Dusk in-game, and have my (emphatically male) avatar and his (emphatically female) avatar fuck like rabbits. Ideally, some self-awareness on his part would creep in just as our avatars got finished.

Actually, it would never get that far. The very idea of male eye-candy in an MMORPG would terrify these people. After all, they're not gay!!!111, and it's not like women ever play these games. (Gee, with charmers like Dusk playing, I wonder why that might be?)

Ah, well. The real world is more fun anyway.

A while back, the internet was set on fire by a spectacular bit of ass-haberdashery known as the Open Source Boob Project. Since this originally happened at a con, I guess it's no surprise that the impact is being felt at subsequent cons.

I attended a panel on Fanboy Etiquette, mostly to see if someone would bring theferrett up. Sure enough, someone did. Well, almost. Someone brought up this incident they read about on the internet, and didn't get a chance to describe it in any more detail than that -- and in a room of about twenty-five people, at least fifteen groaned all at once. The moderator dealt with this issue as quickly as possible, told us that asking to touch some random girl's boobs is a bad idea, and then changed the subject. It wasn't that she felt the subject deserved no attention -- she gave it attention -- but this was a panel on Fanboy Etiquette, not a Weasel Roast.

After this panel, I ran into a friend. I mentioned that I'd just been in that panel, and I went mostly to see if a certain incident would be mentioned. The next bit of the conversation went something like this:

caprine: "The ferrett?"
'chords: "The ferrett."
caprine: "Boobs?"
'chords: "Boobs."
caprine: "Yeah."
'chords: "Uh huh."

(Both of us are fully capable of complete sentences, but you'll notice that neither of us needed them; each of us just knew.)

I also saw quite a few women with shirts that said things like "they're not going to talk to you," "my eyes are up there," and "these aren't the boobs you're looking for." I commented that I liked these shirts, and at least half of them thanked me, grinned, and mentioned "that guy online."

As far as I can tell, the guys at this convention behaved themselves. I choose to believe that all it took was a really bad example to educate a lot of people. It's possible, though, that for some, the motivation was fear of being the next dumbass to be barbecued.

(Admittedly, a few women did not. On a handful of occasions, I was slightly annoyed at the time, and permitted myself a sly grin once either I, or the lady in question with the wandering hands, walked away. But this is how I choose to react. It no way diminishes the rights of women to react to being manhandled differently from how I react. Nor the rights of other men -- one guy on my list (who shall remain anonymous, unless you're on his list, or he chooses to name himself here) was less than pleased by people groping him, and made a point of saying so.)

One of my friends just lost her job. The reason: she had the temerity to complain about sexual harassment in her workplace being committed by clients. The clients got wind of it, started harassing her online, and then started war-dialing her workplace, until her boss decided to throw her under a bus, in the hope of making the harassing calls stop. (There are more details, but this is her story to tell, not mine, so I've being deliberately vague. Sorry.)

If her boss cared to give these clients something to cry about, he'd have plenty of ammo. There's an excellent case to be made here including harassment, stalking, and sexual assault¹. But no, he just sacked her, and in doing so, sent his other employees a very clear signal that he'll continue to look the other way if these clients continue harassing them. Apparently, providing a safe workplace for his employees is too much godsdamned motherfucking work.

I'm afraid the next person who tells me that sexual harassment in the workplace isn't a real problem will be in danger of swallowing some fragments of his own teeth. Yes, I'm that pissed.

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1. Yes, groping counts as sexual assault -- any physical contact of a sexual nature without consent, freely given. Just because there's no rape doesn't mean there's no assault.