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Safe Space as Rape Room: Science Fiction Culture and Childhood’s End (Part 2 of 5) – castaliahouse.com

Safe Space as Rape Room: Science Fiction Culture and Childhood’s End (Part 2 of 5)

Thursday , 10, December 2015 7 Comments

In Part 1, it was established that the science fiction community has a serious, half-century long problem with pedophilia that ranges from its outlying fans to its inner circle. Even two of the “Big Three” have major scandals associated with their names.

Because it is estimated that 60% of child sexual abuse offenders are acquaintances, 29% of child sexual abuse offenders are relatives and only 11% are strangers, and because science fiction provides an environment for like-minded youth and adults to interact over shared interests, leaders in science fiction publishing and fandom must be particularly vigilant.

Problem: they aren’t.

In fact, a survey of some of the biggest names in the industry uncovers a shocking number of pedophilia-enablers, people who, with the power of a few words, could provide a hedge against the known problem of predators using science fiction to target children. Instead, they’ve built a palace to protect the predators.

The Enablers

The famous dragon-fantasist, Anne McCaffrey leveraged her clout and long-standing relationship with Ed Kramer’s Dragon*Con to personally vouch for him and damn the system that would eventually bring the offender to justice.

Anne McCafferey – Long after the rumors of Ed Kramer’s unsettling relationships with young boys were circulating, and well after Nancy A. Collins had begun to raise questions and evidence against Kramer in sufficient amount to persuade caution, McCaffrey came out in “violent” defense of Kramer.

“My response is violent, as I have often been a guest and GoH at Dragon*Con. I have written such people as I know who might spread the word and try to get Ed his trial. Four effing years? And this is before the current Bush administration. Something must be done for him.

….I never had much use for the State of Georgia anyhow but there are limits past which any right-thinking person must take action. As a euro-citizen, I would be happy to take it to the Hague. (I’ll find out how.)

But thank you for laying out the sordid facts and reminding us all that some basic human rights can be at risk”

Notably, McCaffrey is also the entire reason why the old “Science Fiction-only” SFWA expanded to include the Fantasy genre. Thus, a pedophilia-apologist also happened to be a powerful force for change in the SFWA.

Apparently, some sordid facts are more sordid than others.

Harlan Ellison – Multiple Hugo, Nebula and Edgar-winning author, gadfly and defender of pedophiles.

Harlan Ellison – A large number of science fiction big names have gone on record to staunchly defend the rights of pedophiles, while the number of opponents of such a culture are not only small, but not prominent. One of the more popular voices in science fiction is Ellison, and he used his weight to lend support to the “Free Ed” movement, with no concern for the actual victims:

“It’s primordial. Gwinnett County behaves as if it’s the 14th century, and it’s the Spanish inquisition. They’re treating Ed Kramer as if he’s the Marquis De Sade for Chrissakes.”

Ellison’s comparison was high and to the left: Kramer’s crimes were more horrific than de Sade’s.

Darrell Schweitzer

“The material about Ed Kramer makes it abundantly clear what we who grew up in the `60s learned in the days of the Freedom Riders. The human-rights record of the South lags somewhat behind that of the United States.

Darrell Schweitzer – Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror writer, critic, SFWA member and staunch defender of Ed Kramer, pedophile.

What can we do to help our friend Ed Kramer? If money is needed, we should organize a benefit campaign. It is probably time to go to the media. It should be played up as flagrant anti- Semitism, which it clearly is. Ed needs to sue and seek criminal prosecutions of his torturers. And, quite frankly, of his accusers. As far as I can tell, he has suffered this ordeal merely because of a malicious lie. This sort of thing has happened before, not necessarily in the South. In Salem, Massachusetts, for example.Certainly, SFWA, if it is good for anything, should not leave Ed Kramer to rot. In the past it has been hard to get information, and there’s always been this sense of “we shouldn’t discuss the case before the trial.”

— Darrell Schweitzer, World Fantasy Award winner and nominee, author, poet, essayist, publisher and co-editor of the legendary Weird Tales.

John Scalzi, President of the SFWA during the late Kramer period. Silent on no topic, save his own industry’s problem with pedophilia.

John Scalzi -The SFWA (an author organization probably best known for its Nebula Award for science fiction) was called upon to assist in the Kramer affair. One may reasonably mistake the organization’s public silence for condemnation. However, then-president (2010-2013) of the SFWA John Scalzi had every opportunity to expel Kramer from its membership (following the second arrest in 2011, imprisonment in 2012, and sentencing in 2013) roles for his egregious violation of the public trust that science fiction conventions and other events are assumed to have.

Kramer was kept as a member in good standing following his sentencing.

“[T]here’s a part of me…who can understand why those men could rationalize a) not immediately acting in the interests of a child being raped, b) not immediately going to the police, c) doing only the minimum legal requirements, d) acting to keep from exposing their organization to a scandal. But here’s the thing: that part of me? That part of me is a coward.” – John Scalzi

Scalzi’s cowardice may be his reason for fostering a pro-pedophilia environment, but it certainly is not an excuse. Possibly he realizes that his stance on abuse is already compromised, as, in addition to his now-famous admission to being a rapist, he has also confessed to writing inappropriate and disturbing rape fiction:

“I thought it would be an interesting character note…for the serial killer to basically rape and torture the wife — at which point Pamela immediately went from interested to disgusted, threw up her hands, and had them make motions that I immediately interpreted as oh God Oh God this horrible idea of yours get it off me right now.” — John Scalzi, recounting how Pamela Wallace, Hollywood screenwriter and romance novelist, was repulsed by his forays into rape.

But it wasn’t just silence on the SFWA’s part in 2013. That was also the year that they elevated an advocate of pedophilia to their highest honor.

Samuel R. Delany – Named Damon Knight Lifetime Grandmaster in 2013, Samuel “Chip” Delany had been extolling the virtues of sex with children for decades.

“I read the NAMBLA [Bulletin] fairly regularly and I think it is one of the most intelligent discussions of sexuality I’ve ever found. I think before you start judging what NAMBLA is about, expose yourself to it and see what it is really about. What the issues they are really talking about, and deal with what’s really there rather than this demonized notion of guys running about trying to screw little boys. I would have been so much happier as an adolescent if NAMBLA had been around when I was 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.” — Samuel R. Delany, June 25, 1994.

Samuel R. “Chip” Delany, awarded SF Grandmaster and advocate for consented child sex.

“Since I spent eighteen years of my life as a child, and nine years of that life as a pretty sexually active gay child, my complaint against the current attitudes is that they work mightily to silence the voices of children first and secondarily ignore what adults have to say who have been through these situations. One size fits all is never the way to handle any situation with a human dimension. Many, many children—and I was one of them—are desperate to establish some sort of sexual relation with an older and even adult figure.

Today, all such relationships are so completely demonized as to destroy souls and psyches on both sides of the purely arbitrary 18-year-old divide.” – Delany, June 30, 2014.

Elisabeth Waters (l) with Marion Zimmer Bradley

Elizabeth Waters – Marion Zimmer Bradley’s long-time lover, who was told of Walter Breen’s sexual abuse of the couple’s son, Patrick, by the victim himself. In a deposition, she spoke to the familial and social culture of denial:

Q: Is there any particular reason why you did not relate what Patrick had told you, to Marion Zimmer Bradley?
A. At the time, we were all so traumatized that I didn’t want to add to anybody’s trauma anymore than they were already traumatized, and Patrick was an adult at that point, and whatever Marion may have done to him in the past was clearly over.”

Robert A. Heinlein – The one “Big” of the Big 3 who hasn’t come up yet.  He had these encouraging words for Marion Zimmer Bradley following the Breendoggle:

“The fan nuisance we were subjected to was nothing like as nasty as the horrible things that were done to you two but it was bad enough that we could get nothing else done during the weeks it went on and utterly spoiled what should have been a pleasant, happy winter. But it resulted in a decision which has made our life much pleasanter already…We have cut off all contact with organized fandom.”

In other words, in the rare instance when fandom actually reacts negatively to your child molestation, the best thing to do is to reject fandom.

Full Series

7 Comments
  • Ostar says:

    When this series is finished, it needs to be nomimated for a Hugo – Best Related Work.

  • VFM#0083 says:

    ^^ I emphatically second this notion. ^^

  • tweell says:

    The recidivism rate for pedophiles is the highest of any felon, and the children they abuse often go on to become abusers themselves. This is darkest evil, it makes crimes like murder seem almost clean by comparison. Pedophiles cannot be placed with the general prison population, the regular felons will abuse and kill them. Murderers and thieves have standards too, and pedophiles don’t meet the grade. It’s sad that so many authors have lower standards than the average felon in prison.

  • AussieTom says:

    I did not know that about Robert Heinlein.

    I am dismayed and disappointed.

    Thankyou for this series. It is eye opening.

  • Wayne Earl says:

    I just read this part of the series.

    Very briefly, I became active in the SF fandom mileau, but was repulsed by it rather quickly, for reasons I couldn’t articulate. I live locally and know socially friends and relatives of the MZB clan of friends, family, and hangers on. Some of them are good people, some of them reflect a “wrongness” – we may be human, but something in the scent of the sick and immoral is repulsive to those first encountering it.

    It wasn’t until reading this series that my repulsion finally started making sense to me. I am so very greatful that this has kept me far and away from that mileau.

    Reading RAH’s part here broke my heart, but I’d rather experience the world for what it is then to purposely put on Saul’s blinders lying in the road. The Truth is The Truth, and doesn’t require faith in order to exist

    Science Fictions original promise was to give vision to a future world beyond poverty, beyond pain – the hope for a better tomorrow. If we are to stay true to this ideal, we must take steps, right now, to rid our houses and halls of this filth. If we are all in this together, as the leftists are so fond of preaching, then we must eradicate those who prey on our young, or we shall cannibalize ourselves, leaving nothing but nightmares and empty stories.

  • TomD says:

    “Robert A. Heinlein – The one “Big” of the Big 3 who hasn’t come up yet.”

    Look at this text in the Wikipedia article for Heinlein’s The Door into Summer

    The early Heinlein biographer and critic Alexei Panshin, in his 1968 biography Heinlein in Dimension, took note of a controversial theme: “The romantic situation in this story is a very interesting, very odd one: it is nothing less than a mutual sexual interest between an engineer of thirty and a girl of twelve (‘adorable’ is Heinlein’s word for her), that culminates in marriage after some hop-scotching around in time to adjust their ages a bit.” The novel “worried and bothered” John W. Campbell, who said “Bob can write a better story, with one hand tied behind him, than most people in the field can do with both hands. But Jesus, I wish that son of a gun would take that other hand out of his pocket.”

  • […] worse, StoryBundle featured extremist Samuel Delaney, who is known for his comments that appear to advocate for pedophilia, in particular the pedophile-advocate group NAMBLA (National […]

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