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Conventional Wisdom What would you do?
Jun. 25th, 2015 10:03 amThere is a show on CNN entitled “What would you do?” which puts actors creating scenarios and they film the unknowing people around to see what they would do in that situation.
Recently a friend of mine was touched very inappropriately at a convention. She also told a photographer off for trying to get what he called “a sexy shot” and she called “soft core porn”. The only reason she knew what was going on was that another friend was looking at what the camera was doing and gave her the hand signal that things were not kosher. She and her three friends made the photographer delete the photos from his camera.
I have noticed that a lot of cos-players especially the women have been traveling in groups. Which I think is a wise decision but I am sad that they feel that this is the only way they can protect themselves.
I know what I would do if I came across this sort of thing because I have done so on more than one occasion. It probably helps that I am 5’ 10” and have shoulders that a linebacker would be proud of. I can be intimidating if I need to be. I have gotten use to have slurs shouted at me as I walk away including that classic ‘f-n dyke’ which never gets old.
Most people just walk by. I have seen people just walk by when you can tell by looking at the people that this situation is not comfortable for someone. I have gone in and checking it with the person(s) to make sure they are fine. I also tend to give security a heads up so they can go take a look at the situation. Security can be your best friend in these situations for the most part.
I will say that I am very happy to see a change in attitude at conventions from the people running them. It went from ‘boys will be boys’ and ‘well he does that a lot but he is all talk and harmless’ to ‘that’s not right’.
Oh and ‘I paid for her time’ is NOT a good reason to take photos that have not been agreed on or coerce the model into doing something they are not comfortable with.
I am not even going to touch the morass that is ‘she is just cos-playing X but she really doesn't care about the original material’. This fake-geek chic thing has got to go.
Basic Respect can go a long way to solving all the issues but a number of people have forgotten it or been desensitized to empathy.
So let’s be polite to each other and respect boundaries.
I will still be there stepping in where I think I am needed.
I am grateful for all the people at conventions who already followed the now extremely long list of rules before there was an extremely long list of rules.
Recently a friend of mine was touched very inappropriately at a convention. She also told a photographer off for trying to get what he called “a sexy shot” and she called “soft core porn”. The only reason she knew what was going on was that another friend was looking at what the camera was doing and gave her the hand signal that things were not kosher. She and her three friends made the photographer delete the photos from his camera.
I have noticed that a lot of cos-players especially the women have been traveling in groups. Which I think is a wise decision but I am sad that they feel that this is the only way they can protect themselves.
I know what I would do if I came across this sort of thing because I have done so on more than one occasion. It probably helps that I am 5’ 10” and have shoulders that a linebacker would be proud of. I can be intimidating if I need to be. I have gotten use to have slurs shouted at me as I walk away including that classic ‘f-n dyke’ which never gets old.
Most people just walk by. I have seen people just walk by when you can tell by looking at the people that this situation is not comfortable for someone. I have gone in and checking it with the person(s) to make sure they are fine. I also tend to give security a heads up so they can go take a look at the situation. Security can be your best friend in these situations for the most part.
I will say that I am very happy to see a change in attitude at conventions from the people running them. It went from ‘boys will be boys’ and ‘well he does that a lot but he is all talk and harmless’ to ‘that’s not right’.
Oh and ‘I paid for her time’ is NOT a good reason to take photos that have not been agreed on or coerce the model into doing something they are not comfortable with.
I am not even going to touch the morass that is ‘she is just cos-playing X but she really doesn't care about the original material’. This fake-geek chic thing has got to go.
Basic Respect can go a long way to solving all the issues but a number of people have forgotten it or been desensitized to empathy.
So let’s be polite to each other and respect boundaries.
I will still be there stepping in where I think I am needed.
I am grateful for all the people at conventions who already followed the now extremely long list of rules before there was an extremely long list of rules.
