Readercon and me

[pocketnaomi]

This is the full text of what I wrote to the Readercon concom today. It's a long story, and one which many people who know me closely have heard the vague outlines of, but which I have not told to anyone in detail. Even the person who figures largely in the second piece of the story, the friend who helped encourage me back into fandom in the late

Comments

[dandelion_diva]

I'm so sorry you experienced the assault and the reactions of the people around you.

This is a very well written letter, and I hope they take note of it. I know it was tough to write, but I'm so glad you did.

[pocketnaomi]

As with my recent domestic assault, the reactions of the people around me hurt more than the attack itself. But it's been a long time and I'm a tough cookie now. :) Thank you; I hope they take note of it, too. The hardest thing about writing it was being very aware that I had to write it well enough to get my point across. I'm finding bits I wish I could go back and edit, of course (I always do with my own writing) but I'm largely feeling pretty satisfied with the way it came out.

[mdlbear]

You should be -- it's good.

[virginia_fell]

HFS that is so scary. "You shouldn't have said no without a good reason." Holy fuck.

[pocketnaomi]

I didn't even think of the "I don't want to IS a good reason!" until hours afterward. I was just too much in shock. I did think it pretty mind-boggling that people didn't think there was anything wrong with a guy in his thirties pursuing a terrified teenager just barely over the age of consent, even leaving aside the fact that I was emphatically not consenting.

But that was New York fandom in the eighties. AIDS hadn't yet taught people ingrained caution, and they were trying their best to live a Heinlein novel. The people I knew were largely incapable of even comprehending the concept that sex was not always going to be welcome, by everyone, whenever and by whomever it was offered. I'm sure there were plenty of people in the environment who didn't think that way, but they weren't the ones I fell in with at the time.

[virginia_fell]

Well clearly if you were properly Heinlein-enlightened you wouldn't have boundaries of any kind, because those are obviously a sign of your lack of spiritual/sexual progress.

Oh Heinlein.

[pocketnaomi]

Yeah, exactly. Although Heinlein was pretty fond of writing women whose reaction to attempted rape was successful murder. I think they were forgetting that part.

[madfilkentist]

Very sorry to hear you had such an experience. After 60 years of living, I still find human behavior impossible to comprehend a lot of the time. By that I mean the "You shouldn't have said 'no' without a good reason" even more than the assault itself.

[pocketnaomi]

The assault scared and upset me, but it was the "you shouldn't have said 'no' without a good reason" that made me leave fandom. I would've felt safe there with one predator and a bunch of loyal friends, or even decent people who didn't care much about me but did care about something like that tainting their social circle. When I found out that actually, they considered me the one tainting their social circle, for having such alien and unreasonable values, I left.

I'm glad I came back; I really am. I've discovered some of the closest friends of my life in fandom, and the filk community (the only thing I really missed in the thirteen years I was away was the music) has become my home and family. I just wish I'd entered fandom anyplace except New York in the eighties -- a subgroup of fandom which clearly just didn't suit me, and vice versa.

[joycemocha]

I am so sorry to read this. Hugs.

[pocketnaomi]

Thanks. It doesn't hurt much anymore, except in the brief period when I deliberately went diving back into the memories to get them right when I wrote them down. Time does heal, and having good people around me now heals even more.

[dormouse_in_tea]

Thank you for writing this letter, and for sharing it here. I'm very sorry that happened to you, all of it.