I am a damned infidel. However, besides a note on my Facebook page, I keep pretty quiet about it. Besides trashing the religious right on this page, that is. The vast majority of my relatives are still Christians. Most of my friends have a "spiritual" life of some sort or another. They keep their metaphysics out of my life, and I don't remind them that there's no evidence and the whole concept breaks down when you take a good, hard, look at it.
It also means I don't go to conferences or get involved in the now numerous skeptic/secularist/atheist groups literally sprouting up all over the place. I live in a place with every religion under the sun as well as non-believers who deconverted from all these religions, so everyone is just mixed up with each other and kind of tries to stay out of each other's hair (and bedroom).
So I don't really have to get involved with the recent scandals of sexual harassment going on at the non-believing conferences and conventions around the country. I don't want to get involved either, mostly because just saying that this behavior is unacceptable makes the harassers' defenders issue numerous threats, including threats of rape and death. Which seems stupid coming from people who keep saying the non-believing community doesn't have a misogyny problem. When Rebecca Watson revealed her 4am elevator experience, the community didn't have her back, but did stab her there. First of all, when someone invites you to their hotel room at 4am after you've left a bar, it's never for coffee and conversation. Never. I don't care what this guy said after about how harmless his proposition was. It was for sex. We're not all as naive as Paula Jones; when a man invites you to his hotel room, we already know it's for sex. And it's creepy to do when the woman is alone, in a closed, confined space no one can exit until the desired floor is reached. Watson didn't do anything wrong in her Don't-be-that-guy PSA. And she was right to name him. Other women need to know who the creeps are.
The fact is that all of ElevatorGate's defenders have insisted that women have the obligation to be treated as sex objects as conferences and conventions. And not just at non-believers' gatherings. It seems that every event that is supposed to draw people away from home to enjoy their interests with other like-minded people actually has a huge "COME FOR THE EASY SEX WITH THE CHICKS WE DUPED INTO SHOWING UP" sign that only men can see.
Fortunately, the blogosphere and Wired.com have been doing some great work. Bloggers of both sexes have been naming names, even when it could get them in legal trouble. And Wired has been exploring the issue in a little depth, publishing reports on the problem and its sociological origins, and advice to avoid being that guy. Kudos to Wired for telling guys how to avoid harassing, instead of making it a woman's problem to avoid. But even they have been getting backlash. Look at the comments. Most people who have witnessed harassment, or in some cases, assaults are told they should have called the police. At a conference. Where the criminal can just melt into the crowd and disappear in the 20 minutes it takes the cops or even security to show up. Most of the status quo's defenders don't know what they're talking about, and think that because they have blinders on, there's nothing to see.
Wired is on the right track. The online magazine has treated it as a serious problem, looked at the sociological reasons it could be prevalent, and placed the burden on harassers to learn self-control. Harassment is not a burden anyone should have to bear at a conference they've come to for professional or personal enrichment. Women (and the occasional man, not denying the stage five clinger) should not have to stay home and miss out on enjoying their lives or advancing their careers in public. And we will not. The burden needs to be on the would-be and already-done-it harassers to maintain self-control or deal with the loss of public respect once exposed. Policies need to come from the women who have been harassed and enforced not just by security, which almost never works anyway, but by passers-by (I'm thinking of you, Bri). Judgement from one's immediate peers, the ones he's come here to impress, would go a long way. But it seems, instead, all the judgement is reserved for those who want men to learn self-control.
So I'll say it. Guys, learn some fucking self-control. It's your obligation to us and the civilized society you get to live and work in. Learn self-control on your own, 'cause you won't like how I teach you.
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