JF has largely returned to being the safe haven where people who say dumb shit (or pull the "I don't see how it's a problem!" whine) are mocked mercilessly, and I couldn't be more thankful.

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I'm spending more and more time over here; it's the first site I check in the morning after my e-mail. Rationally, there's no reason for me to find LJ less interesting than I did just because I'm not posting there- even though I think their customer service sucks, people have not stopped having insightful and thoughtful discussions on their journals- but I like the attitude I encounter here more. The attitude in the corners of LJ I'm familiar with often seems to be "always assume the best of what a person says unless he's a known troublemaker, and don't dare contradict someone who's popular unless you want a dogpile." The "fair-game" attitude of JF can be overstated and annoying at points, but it holds back some of the stupider arguments.

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AHHHHHHHHHHRG.

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That is much more eloquent of my feelings at the moment than what I actually wrote.

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I'm not very coherent on this matter, but it's one of the very few times where I don't feel I need to be. (for more AHHHHHHHHHRGH-inducing commentary see Scalzi's post.)

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I looked at that briefly yesterday. And backed right out.

Get a goddamn clue, SF fandom.

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YES.

Up until I saw that, Carnival was actually very high up on my to-read list (right after "Always Coming Home", "Black Ships" and a "Civil Campaign" re-read) but now not so much.

I can see where she was in the intitial comment, if what she saw at the con really didn't match what she was reading online. But there are enough people trying ot say what the actual problem is and she was not *getting* it.

(Also was it just me, or was there a "Do you know who I *am*?" undertone to some of that discussion?)

...I seem to have vague memories of matociquala getting wanky online bofore, though. I wish I could remember whence.

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I actually think Carnival is one of her worse novels. But then, I have Dissatisfaction with the way she portrays lesbian characters, as she tried to do in that book (and Dust confirmed my dissatisfaction).

I really resented the implication that no one should make a big fuss, a "Giant Internet Kerfuffle," about it, because she didn't see the problem. Once again, it's the experiences of the people who were there- but didn't write about it- being put against the experience of someone who was there and did and came across in a very, very skeevy fashion. Dude, if all I have are reported experiences and the non-skeevy ones weren't reported at all until people started criticizing the guy who acted like a bastard, why should I judge that yours is the truer?

(Also was it just me, or was there a "Do you know who I *am*?" undertone to some of that discussion?)

I'm not certain, but I can see how some could be taken that way.

...I seem to have vague memories of [info]matociquala getting wanky online bofore, though. I wish I could remember whence.

There was the "I do not want my books called slash" thing, and there was also a thread in the cultural appropriation debate of DOOM two summers back where she said that she always tried to sit with the black students in her school but kept having them move away, so no one could blame her for having white privilege.

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Well, and not only that, but if this really *was* a group of mostly women and a few of their SOs doing something sex-positive and limited to the small group, that's one thing. But what theferrett's post proves is that regardless of the original intent, at least one participant came out of it having learned only that he should be allowed to fondle all the boobs he wants. And therefore something went badly wrong.

I think Bear is one of those people who should not be allowed to interact with fans.

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For me, the part that really broke it in the original post was "group approaches woman in costume who's 'obviously displaying her assets.'" That puts paid to the notion that they stayed in their original group to ask about groping.

She seems to approve of fanfic, but there is sometimes a "Slash fans/people on this side of the argument/etc. are wrong by definition" vibe.

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Actually, buried deep in a couple of the comment threads is a statement by somebody believably claiming to have been there that the original scantily clad woman in the hall was actually a friend of the person who asked her. (I have read *way* more of this than is good for me.)

Take it with a grain of salt, obvs. And it doesn't change that fact that the_ferrett didn't *know* that they knew her, and still thought it was okay, since she was half-naked.

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And I fail at HTML.

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Public groping is a way to unwilling co-opt strangers as participants in someone else's kink. Why this should be objectionable? A no brainer. Why anyone supports it? Absolutely, absolutely mystifying.

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I think there are some "feminists"- not necessarily saying that Bear's one- who think anything a man says about feminism/women is automatically more important and interesting than anything a woman does. It reminds me of the way males are revered in some fandoms. "Oooh, a MAN! We must show him that he's welcome!"

No, we fucking don't have to. Male supremacy is the problem; men are not being oppressed just because a woman would rather talk to and listen to women.

Bear's problem here seems to be, "I saw nothing wrong with it, therefore it is not wrong."

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