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Supplement II: The Enablers in Fandom Respond to “Safe Space as Rape Room” – castaliahouse.com

Supplement II: The Enablers in Fandom Respond to “Safe Space as Rape Room”

Tuesday , 29, December 2015 15 Comments

Full Series

As any reasonable reader would anticipate after learning that SF fandom has the serious, prevalent problem of harboring, enabling and encouraging pedophiles in its midst, fandom was quick to protect its own. They did this in the typical fashion: by attacking the message, feigning ignorance or by creating distractions.

As always File 770 has done excellent work in attracting some of the most staunch pedophile-friendly commenters in fandom to construct an alternate narrative. One of the most common questions normal people raise when this type of fan comes out on the side of pedophilia is “Why?”

  • Why do they create “safe spaces” that (intentionally or not) create space for pedophilic seduction?
  • Why do they defend the most obvious and egregious of criminals?
  • Why do they first ignore, then attack the victims and whistleblowers when they come forward?

The simplest answer is this: both their literary and cultural preference is a fantasy. This fantasy affords them a utopic alternative to the known world, but the unfortunate element of such a broad and inclusive dream is that it has no language to condemn and exclude the pedophile. This is why the Breendoggle went unresolved. This is why Kramer was so heartily and passionately defended. This is why – and how – Marion Zimmer Bradley was at first presumed ignorant, then an innocent bystander, even though everyone who knew her knew the truth – she was a trailblazer for pedophilia and child abuse.

In short, Fandom as it exists today is – in the words of Ursula LeGuin – Omelas, and these monsters are never going to be the Ones who walk away. They need that child to suffer so their fun can continue; and they need to make sure that no one ever talks about the child.

Thus, in response to the well-known facts of Science Fiction’s ongoing pedophilia problem, SF Fans have lined up to show exactly which side they are on:

Feigned ignorance:

“I’m not going to read any discussion of rape or pedophilia published by someone who appears to take joy in trollish behaviors. Now if some Filer recommended it, I might reconsider. Otherwise, I’m steering clear” – World Weary

“I really don’t want to look” – NelC

“Thank you Mike, but I decline to click on that link.” – Soon Lee

Lies:

“Beale is just writing stuff to fill his slate and then cackle both evilly and ineffectively.” – Chris S.

“RE: Castalia House’s new thing. It’s a reactionary tactic called Amplification, where they use the language of progressive politics to either accuse progressives of doing something horrible, or to claim that the horrible thing they do must be accepted by progressives or they’re being discriminatory.” – Lorcan Nagle

“I leave this to those possessing stronger constitutions and better web proxies.” – snowcrash

Who then nonetheless promptly reversed field:

“Against my better judgement, this fascinated me enough to take a look at the thing by using a webproxy and DoNotLink.

I haven’t stopped laughing at the weaksauce effort there yet. Even if I ignore the clearly incredibly out of context quotes as well as the utterly inaccurate paraphrasing of what people said, there’s still a great deal of it that seems to have come from an alternate universe.

Which brings us to the bigger laughable portion of it. The Mixon report on RH was not perfect – it certainly had some flaws. But it was done with a significant amount of rigor, with events, quotes, and other works cited, and where possible, links to the original material provided. This nonsense, has *none* of those.

Worse, the author is writing as though no one else has ever discussed or commented on things like Kramer, Breen, or MZB, even though s/he is happy to use without citation the work of others (i.e., Deirdre Saoirse Moen writings on Breen and MZB).

At the end of the day, it’s a crying shame. These are conversations that are happening, and need to happen. But this childish tantrum is not it. At some point, Day needs to grow up and let go of his obsession with Scalzi.” – snowcrash

“Oh, right. That explains the ‘By your own rules you must elevate women and minorities!’ etc. etc. drivel.

There seems to be a claim out there that there is a playbook somewhere with set down tenets that all the wrong people read and adhere to with mindless, robotic obedience.

People who claim this try to lay down what the rules are in order to play “Gotcha!” against the people they claim follow them.” – Peace is My Middle Name

Attack the Message:

“I hate to give Castalia House credit for anything, but their usage of Search Engine Optimization tactics ain’t bad. Using science fiction and the Clarke miniseries as a traffic driver, there may be new eyeballs that are exposed to his words.

Of course, there could also end up being lots of traffic driven to CH for the words “rape” and “pedophilia“. I’ll bet he thinks of that as a victory condition, too, right up to the point where the authorities start asking questions.

But the sad truth for him is that there will be much better links out there linking properly, and his site will, once again, find its own level of obscurity.” – Glenn Hauman

In response to Glenn, JJ doubled down:

“Nah, that’s amateur-level, ineffective SEO — especially with the SyFy series being a huge source of new articles right now. And their competition for the term “science fiction” is far too steep.

ETA: But then, given their repeatedly-posted aversion to the asterisks, the Puppy sites would probably rank pretty high for the search combination “science fiction” “assholes”” – JJ

Vampires hate mirrors for a very good reason – the truth is horrific.

“I’m not going to click over there because I don’t want to cause myself to have the urge to vomit and punch something simultaneously. But “Men’s Rights” types like VD routinely excuse, gloss over, and even encourage sexual assault and other assault against women, including underage women. So this blatant attempt to play “gotcha” with SF’s (admittedly shameful) history of dealing with sexual abuse committed within its own community is a particularly vile and disgusting example of hypocrisy.” – McJulie

“Do you think they’re baiting outrage to get people to leave comments for some doxxing campaign?” – The YoungPretender

Pedophilia defenders:

“It’s also mixed enough fact in with the fiction so that the character assassination runs on Chip Delany and Scalzi will look credible. Personally, I’m not surprised that this is listed as some “anonymous” blogger, likely overseas to boot. Clouding who has jurisdiction is wise, as these flirt with defamation pro se, as its strongly implying both men have committed felonies. Both the Delany and Scalzi sections look like they are constructed to provide easy hooks to a “public figure, so prove up actual malice” and “true statements” defenses to a defamation pro se or libel claim.

*Heck I realize there may be posts I’ve missed, not being into paranoid ramblings by Trump supporters and out-right fascists.” – The YoungPretender

Most shocking was the uncorrected defense of Samuel R. Delany, which really shouldn’t be a surprise considering that he is universally adored by the big names in SFF.

“There is a difference in kind between someone like Samuel Delany, who supports the idea of adult men having sex with 9 year old boys

That’s kind of wild misreading of what Delany said.” – Aaron

Misreading what Delany said? Which quote? Take your pick:

“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.

Or

Basically, in patriarchal society we never give children positive rightsonly negative ones. That is to say they are protected(by the state) and the administrator of those rights is always the parent. That was what Heinlein was arguing against, at whatever level of irony. Thats what Im arguing against in dead seriousness. (I also dont believe the police should be the legal enforcers childrens rights.)…And twenty years ago, it was what (in effect) NAMBLA was arguing for.

We all want the world to be better for everyone, kids and adults and every one at every level. But, yes, sometimesoftengood intentions go awry in terms of results.” Samuel R. Delany, July 1, 2014

Yet Aaron claims the long detailed interviews with the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, over decades, plus novels(!) about the subject are somehow taken out of context:

“A lot of Delany’s work, such as Triton, Dhalgran, and Stars in My Pocket, Like Grains of Sand, have sexual themes, but I don’t know of any of his fictional work that deals with underage sexuality. I know he talked about it once in an interview, but it was mostly about his own experience growing up as a gay black boy in the 1960s. The quotes you see purporting to claim he is advocating for pedophilia are sliced up excepts taken out of context from that interview.” – Aaron

Finally, after all the publicity of the Delany problem, at File 770, they merely attracted another acolyte:

“I tried to read Delany quite early in and just never finished – it was not what I was looking for as a young teenager. This discussion in the comments have me curious about the source material.

A couple of overviews/reviews have me interested in trying again. What is a good place to start, especially as it relates to the discussion of his views on underage sex ?” – Shambles

There were other, longer reactions from fans. Some of the more self-damning complaints against this series pointed out a few oversights on our part: Apparently, we didn’t make it clear enough that David Asimov’s child pornography studio was funded by Isaac Asimov money, or that the President of the SFWA who failed to expel known criminal pedophile Ed Kramer from the SFWA ranks would later be a primary player in the expulsion of another member for using twitter.

“The prose runs six times around Robin Hood’s barn, sticks its head up its own ass, then crawls through a keyhole to paint Scalzi’s strong support for conventions as safe places with anti-harassment policies, as his evil plan to make sure their anti-harassment policies specifically leave out child molestation, because without the specific language, of course that would remain okay.”–Adam Troy Castro

Castro goes on to describe fandom as a geek salad bar where you don’t have to be a pedophile if you don’t want to, and compares John Scalzi to a sneeze guard, who apparently keeps monsters safe from the germs of society’s judgment.

Every time you tell these people that they don’t care about pedophilia in their midst, they go out of their way to demonstrate that they do care about pedophilia in their midst, it is just that they like it there, and wouldn’t change a thing.

Of all 200+ comments in the threads at File770, not one fan raised the question of what should be done about the problem. If the “Safe Space as Rape Room” series hasn’t demonstrated that there is a code of silence regarding pedophilia in science fiction, the feral reaction of the fans to this “old news” certainly does.

Notably, of the above selections, three of the pedo-apologists comprise File 770’s Top 5 “most prolific” commenters of 2015:

  • JJ
  • Peace Is My Middle Name
  • Aaron

So if you had any doubts that these are the thoughts of core fans, those doubts should now be gone.

 

15 Comments
  • Blue SFF Reader says:

    File 770’s SEO is great on this as well: “We don’t care if we have child molesters among us, and we bid them ‘welcome’.”

    But they aren’t smart enough to see that.

    Carthago delenda est.

  • Kull says:

    Well. A few posts ago I was wondering out loud about fandom’s reaction. Now I know.

    Not much left to be said. The last line of Cato the Blue SFF Reader’s comment pretty much sums it up.

  • tweell says:

    Ah, TrueFen at their best.

  • Jill says:

    I feel like I should be concerned. I mean, those are serious charges that VD routinely encourages the sexual assault of underage girls. I’ve been reading his articles for years now–perhaps he write porn under a pseudonym?

  • nathan says:

    Science fiction, gaming, anime, and tech needs to jettison the convention crowd for the health and safety of fans and the hobbies.

    • Christopher says:

      Here here. Fans need to realize that shared interests aren’t enough any more. We are most emphatically NOT “all in this together.” We never were.

    • Headcannon says:

      Here here. Every time I hear about a pedophile being flushed out of the gaming and anime world it makes me sick knowing there are still more of them there. “Fandom” needs an enema.

  • Dave of Mars says:

    If you told these people that vox had a trip planned to Mars, they would tell you going there is impossible. And if you told them vox said going to Mars was impossible then they’d claim to be building the rocket to get there.

    These are childlike minds who can’t reason truth beyond someone’s identity.

    The fact that these people would rather shoot the messenger than listen to the message is a defense mechanism, and only the guilty would need one.

  • bob k. mando says:

    watch this interview with a psychopath, observe how he describes grooming the girl

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu17Wuq3nI8

    and also notice his friendly and sincere mien throughout almost the entire interview … almost as though he’s trying to curry favor with his questioner.

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