In which I finally have two brain cells to rub together re: Readercon

[commodorified]

Much that is of value having been already said and done elsewhere, this will be downright telegraphic.

1) I am actually not displeased by the speed at which Readercon resolved this. Given that a) NO decision they could have made would have left any person at risk for harassment at Readercon for roughly another 10 months, and b) they REALLY needed to get this one absolutely right, I wasn't in any particular hurry. I understand and respect why many people were, I just wasn't one of them.

1a) OTOH, there are a number of OTHER con-coms, boards, and fannish organisations who need to be getting their shit together re: Rene Walling right now, and I hope they are. Make whatever decision you think best, and then be ready to defend it, but make a decision. His behaviour was not caused by the air in the ReaderCon hotel; if he's coming to your con, if he's on your con-com, if he's a guest at your con, you need to assume that your attendees are at some risk, and consider that.

2) "He's Canadian". "He's Francophone".

Oh FOR THE LOVE OF PETE. The ways of my people are not necessarily the ways of yours, my friends, but THAT weird, they are not. Those are my friends and neighbours you are insulting, there. Please stop it. Canada is a real place with actual laws against this stuff, Quebec is a fully-paid-up member of The Modern World and Montreal is not a cultural backwater full of survivals of a simpler time. It is, if anything, probably one of the most progressive cities in North America.

2b) He is, as nearly all Quebecois are, completely fluent in English. It wasn't that, either.

3) Yeah, I know Rene. It's fairly hard to fan in this neck of the woods and not know Rene.

Rene Walling is ... I won't say "A Nice Guy." He's a tolerably decent and mostly pleasant dude, capable of doing kind and generous things for people of all genders. (See Also: Leah Bobet: When the person doing the harassment is a person you like.)

I am not bringing this up to defend his actions. I am bringing this up because a lot of basically right-on folks, mostly, I'm afraid, guys who understandably wish to wipe the stank of his behaviour off of their own sleeves, have in recent weeks been recasting him as Everything But A Child Of God, and this is a very bad idea.

We got into this mess precisely because the Board of Readercon could not, when it came down to it, believe in a tolerably decent and mostly pleasant dude who was also a sexual predator.

That is what he is. That there is the problem we have to deal with, and insisting that all sexual predators are monsters clear through, in ways visible for 50 metres, is the royal road to lather, rinse, repeat.

4) I do not, actually, disagree with the people who are concerned, going forward, for Rene. I am one of them, even, in a mild sort of way. I recall him as much better than this.

I am in favour of him getting whatever support and assistance he requires so long as it is not at the expense of the safety of his targets or of other women.

That said, if you are deeply concerned about Rene and want to help him? He is ridiculously easy to locate. Just go do that, and stop writing long, plaintive, derailing comments and posts trying to persuade other people to do it for you.

4b) If you give a damn for Rene as a person, and mean to offer him support, PLEASE: accept that the facts of what he did, and that what he did was wrong, are not in question, including, to all appearances, by him. Don't try to persuade him that he didn't REALLY do anything wrong. That's not support. That's counselling him to damage more people, and to wreck his life.

5) I think it's unreasonably hard on Genevieve Valentine and Kate Kligman that for the next however long whenever their names are googled, this will be the majority of the first page.

So please: Tell me why I want to read Genevive's stuff. Sing to me of her awesomeness. (I'll be looking her up myself; this is for posterity, as it were.)

Kate Kligman I don't know of at all, aside from this. Please help me fix this, as well. As of now, I know that she is courageous, but little else.

Comments

[shadowspar]

Right on. Thanks for this.

[resolute]

Valentine's "Armless Maidens of the American West" is fanfuckingtastic.

http://apex-magazine.com/2012/08/07/armless-maidens-of-the-american-west/

It's a stunning technical feat while being an indictment and a forgiveness of human nature. Also, it's about secrets. Also, about common humanity.

[wordweaverlynn]

You have just given me an extraordinary gift. Linking EVERYWHERE.

[baggyeyes]

Valentine's "Armless Maidens of the American West" is fanfuckingtastic.

Absolutely! Also, Mechanique is awesome. I just loved that book so much I started reading it again.

[metaphortunate]

I think it is also about the ways in which one decent act can create another: it's stupid, but often it doesn't seem to occur to us as humans to behave decently until we see someone else do it. At which point, it can somehow spur us to take the actions which we kind of wondered if we should have been doing all along, but hadn't been.

[princessofgeeks]

Someone in my extended family went to prison for child molestation/statutory rape, and no one was more surprised than I was when the truth came out.

So I totally understand how a person can seem nice and do nice things, but also have This Critical Problem.

I appreciated the link to L's post, but I have to say that you can judge someone a Bad Person without hating them, and try to act calmly while knowing that you simply must distance yourself from them and warn others about them, even if they have Good Qualities and are Interesting Company.

I will never feel comfortable around this person again and hope to never have to encounter him, although he served his prison time and apparently got on with his life in a distant state, thank goodness.

But it's not part of my karma to help him. I hope the day doesn't come when it's my duty or my place to try to help a sexual predator, because while not feeling hate I certainly would not want to have that as part of my family duty!

If people can realize that the stereotype of the stranger attack is simply wrong in the vast majority of sexual assaults, maybe that is a good thing. Maybe the culture around these crimes will slowly shift.

Thanks for the discussion. I've mostly stayed out of it, but it's so important.

[commodorified]

I have to say that you can judge someone a Bad Person without hating them, and try to act calmly while knowing that you simply must distance yourself from them and warn others about them

Absolutely, and that was, even if I expressed it a bit fumblingly, part of my point: you can, and you are absolutely entitled to. Nobody should ever lean on you to do otherwise. If it's that damn important to them that it be done, and I don't say it isn't - thank God for people who work their asses off rehabilitating those sex offenders who are salvageable, even if I can't be one of them either - they need to go and do it themselves.

[princessofgeeks]

I was concerned that Leah seemed to be presenting it as, "If I judge this person to be Bad, then I Must Hate Them", and perhaps I'm oversimplifying her position.

But that was not my experience at all, and I don't think we are called to hate them, and that judging them for what they did is not the same thing as hating.

But again: I'm way out of my depth here and I acknowledge that.

[commodorified]

That's a good point; I think Leah was still very much thinking things through when she wrote that, and trying to think through that same issue.

I think both of your ways are fine and smart and good, not that either of you needs me to approve.

[princessofgeeks]

again, thanks for the discussion! :)

[staranise]

I'm just sitting here full of BOGGLE at how being Canadian/Quebecois could even remotely be an excuse here.

[recessional]

I've been boggling about that since it first came up.

[princessofgeeks]

me too

[staranise]

It pains me to admit, but as a people we are by and large indistinguishable from Americans in social situations, and our national stereotype is not as more-invasive-of-boundaries. So that excuse is really, really reaching.

[redbird]

IIRC, that was a combination of someone trying to come up with a justification for claiming that he didn't understand what she was saying, and Quebecois Aren't Really Canadians. (Don't ask me why: I'm sure it's not based on a detailed study of recent Canadian politics.)

[pantryslut]

Specifically, Quebecois are Almost French And We Have A Convenient Exculpatory Stereotype That Frenchmen Are Handsy.

[anne]

Because they so totally are, except for the part where oh wait, they're really not. (The only harrassment I've ever gotten in France was from foreign tourists who had Ideas about those loose French women.)

(insert Anne Is Not Impressed .gif here.)

[deakat]

I blame it on Pepé le Pew.

[commodorified]

Quebecois are Almost French

I have encountered this one before. It will never cease to make my jaw drop. Did Wolfe and Montcalm die in vain?

(Not that I think you are proposing it, I know you aren't.)

[medie]

I had not seen that. I am so VERY glad I have not seen that. According to the giant rage monster I just transformed into, it is SO GOOD I did not see that. The wank would have been nuclear by the time I was done.

[nenya_kanadka]

Pretty much my exact reaction, too, after I got over the SHEER BOGGLEMENT that being Canadian was somehow supposed to make one more into harrassing people. What.

[(Anonymous)]

That would be sort of the opposite of James Gordon's song "We're Canadians, And We're Sorry" (http://www.jamesgordon.ca/lyrics/tunecooties.html). I don't think I've ever encountered it before.

- Joel P.

[nenya_kanadka]

Someone noted above that it probably comes from "Frenchmen are handsy." Which, while stupid, is at least a traceable meme that's existed before...

[legionseagle]

So far as I can tell the whole "he's French-Canadian" was leapt on by two friends of Walling, one called Cathy Palmer-Lister here and another called cogitationitis here and it's just an attempt to adopt the "he's probably just socially awkward/on the autism spectrum" range of apologetics to fit the facts where the harasser is visibly highly socially adept and people are queuing up to say so.

[wordweaverlynn]

Yes, let us Googlebomb them with praise and links to their work.

[giglet]

Her pro blog is here:
http://www.genevievevalentine.com/

[deakat]

I read Genevieve Valentine's "The Nearest Thing" today, and it is now my second-favourite AI story (after Cat Valente's Silently and Very Fast.

As soon as I finish mowing through my current library hoard, I'll be searching out more GV.

[sara]

Once again, you are sensible, thank you.