Fandom, community and consequences.

[bunny_m]

There's been a lot of discussion lately, online and in person, about how accepting Perth/Swancon fandom has been over the years, and how's that not always a good thing. Traditionally we have sometimes been too accepting, and let people get away with behaviour that ranged from skirting the line to blatantly and utterly unacceptable

Comments

[transcendancing]

This is very well said

[staxxy]

This happens in every community, everywhere. People are afraid of rocking the boat, causing drama, and making a scene. Sometimes people are afraid of retribution

[moonvoice]

This is a really well written post and stands fine on its own two legs without references to any others.

It is all these voices coming out to say 'heeeeeey, guess what, we're actually not really happy with what happened,' that makes me think that Swancon might be okay to attend. Before that - I had intended on going (maybe not this year, but certainly one day) until I found out about the situation that's been happening.

As a previous rape survivor, the idea of a person coming up to me and physically violating my boundaries without my consent - even if it's in a public forum - is deplorable. I wouldn't have gone for that reason alone.

The only problem now, is that this choosing to stand up and not take it anymore, will really weed out the toxic people who will not stand up. And those people can fight back, and fight nasty, to preserve their idea of a 'safe' world that still includes blatantly unsafe people. But if anything, that just makes a community more honest, and stops these things going on behind closed doors, where an