Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) - Nerds protecting nonces

[Sun Sucker]

I'm very late to the conversation, but I'd like to add something here that really helps hit home how prevalent this child molestation/ grooming shit is in these circles:

This is from Baen's Bar, in the section that lists the rules of engagement for their annual Barfly meetup (granted I have no idea if they're still doing it), in a post all the way back in 2012. The second item about minors reads like it actually happened for them to include it there, from the way I'm reading it.

 

[Mola Ram]

I'm very late to the conversation, but I'd like to add something here that really helps hit home how prevalent this child molestation/ grooming shit is in these circles:

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This is from Baen's Bar, in the section that lists the rules of engagement for their annual Barfly meetup (granted I have no idea if they're still doing it), in a post all the way back in 2012. The second item about minors reads like it actually happened for them to include it there, from the way I'm reading it.

I dunno, that's a really broad category. It covers everything from grooming to hentai fans casually flipping through horrifying pornography to simple swearing in front of kids. I have a hard time seeing your average SF/F groomer being all that comfortable at a Baen gathering to begin with.

 

[Welf Welf]

I have a hard time seeing your average SF/F groomer being all that comfortable at a Baen gathering to begin with.

Yeah, the feeling I've gotten over the last ~15 years is that Baen's become sort of a refugee for the more sane people in SF/F. No DRM, no censorship? It tends to attract people with morality that's not based purely on how they can use it to gain power over others.

 

[Mola Ram]

Yeah, the feeling I've gotten over the last ~15 years is that Baen's become sort of a refugee for the more sane people in SF/F. No DRM, no censorship? It tends to attract people with morality that's not based purely on how they can use it to gain power over others.

I'm not saying that kiddie diddlers are a strictly left wing phenomenon; obviously you see that kind of awfulness in people across the spectrum. But the sort of open, Breen-esque grooming that Moira Greyland describes and the current drag queen-to-grooming pipeline that plagues us today are both things I'd be surprised to see at Baen.

Honestly, I think "put the freaking hentai art away" is the likeliest culprit for this sort of admonishment. I also suspect it's due to things Baen folks have seen at other venues.

 

[Wot Zit Too Yah0996]

Can't we just go back to the days where it was "okay" to drink and smoke on the job, and play Grabass, like Isaac Asimov did?

 

[Peaches the Wonder Cat]

Can't we just go back to the days where it was "okay" to drink and smoke on the job, and play Grabass, like Isaac Asimov did?

Of the big three in the golden age - Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein - I never thought Heinlein would be the one looking squeaky clean.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

but there's plenty that argue the slippery slope will reverse.
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It's not just "teaming" it's the flaw in all revolutions who do not have a goal or stop gap measure to end the ride. So they get stuck in a cycle which even communists pointed out "the revolution must never stop otherwise it will become fascist."

Even if the trans thing gets under control there's still backlash brewing over "bake the cake, bigot" and similar merited impossibilities because gays couldn't resist being drama queens and let things lie.

It's almost like hear me out proving every 1980s evangelical televangelist completely correct on everything and refusing to deal with the problems in your own community tends to get people want you shoved in a closet

 

[Wot Zit Too Yah0996]

Of the big three in the golden age - Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein - I never thought Heinlein would be the one looking squeaky clean.

Don't really know that much about Heinlein. Never read any of his works. Never read any of Clarke's stuff, either, but I'm a lot more familiar with him. Here's something you might not know: he was something of an adventurer. His favourite hobby was to dive for treasure. In fact, he was so passionate about his hobby, that he co-founded a diving company called Underwater Safaris.

As for Asimov, though, I'm currently reading The Complete Stories: Volume I. Gimmicks Three, Jokester, and The Message are great reads. You know, as a few examples.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

In a Venn diagram of SF and fantasy, an overlap is "magic": in fantasy there's straight-up "magic", and it's named stuff like "psionics" or "the Force" in SF. Same thing.

 

[MajinGoku]

not trying to powerlevel but my dad is a moderately big author not for sci fi. He always told me that these types of organizations are just scams to get your money and obedience. They dont really help you with anything.

 

[Loose Goose]

Of the big three in the golden age - Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein - I never thought Heinlein would be the one looking squeaky clean.

Clarke: pederast
Asimov: dirty old man, son was a pederast caught with California's largest physical CP collection
Heinlein: still pretty skeevy

Bradbury seemed okay, I guess.

 

[Sun Sucker]

I'm not saying that kiddie diddlers are a strictly left wing phenomenon; obviously you see that kind of awfulness in people across the spectrum. But the sort of open, Breen-esque grooming that Moira Greyland describes and the current drag queen-to-grooming pipeline that plagues us today are both things I'd be surprised to see at Baen.

Honestly, I think "put the freaking hentai art away" is the likeliest culprit for this sort of admonishment. I also suspect it's due to things Baen folks have seen at other venues.

I do hope so. My thinking was that they must have had a significant issue to put a warning in the conduct rules section- not the drag queen story time sort of stuff, I don't think that's plausible for Baen either, but akin to a DragonCon situation perhaps, where a few behind the scenes problem individuals are concerned. Otherwise a simple "hey minors are allowed here, no hentai manga/ nsfw material is allowed" would have sufficed.

It's all just speculation though, and indeed it could just be a preventative measure after observing other cons. In today's environment, Baen (the publisher and the forum at least, don't have experience with much else) are very much a diamond in the rough.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

They dont really help you with anything.

The SFWA used to offer members a health insurance plan. I think it just got too expensive to keep. 'Course it was likely far more difficult to be a member back then, too.

About the only good thing the SFWA does nowadays that I'm aware of is that blog about author scams, and I think that is just one or two people. (And IIRC they won't "go there" when it comes to the hideous contracts TradPub offers nowadays.)

To weigh that against everything else

 

[Frankenhooker69]

her interview with Obscura, Moira Greyland said that sci-fi and fantasy is all rooted in "weird sex"

This was my exact thought as I read through. The early scifi fantasy authors were all fucking weirdos. L. Ron Hubbard wrote science fiction and had weird sex things with Allister Crowley. Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure Lovecraft was at least a racist but also a recluse. Maybe they aren't all pedophiles but they definitely do weird sex shit.

ron hubbard never met crowley.
he did the babalon working with jack parsons and her wife, which ron stole with parsons moneys

 

[Wot Zit Too Yah0996]

In a Venn diagram of SF and fantasy, an overlap is "magic": in fantasy there's straight-up "magic", and it's named stuff like "psionics" or "the Force" in SF. Same thing.

Your point actually gives me an excuse to raise a fun fact: science is supposed to be based off some Ancient Greek word/terminology that basically translates as 'An understanding of things', or 'An understanding of the world around us', so when people say there's a science to everything, technically, there actually IS, which is why, when you think about it (and I think too much, yeah), when people dismiss magic over science, and or, one can't be part of the other, they're wrong.

(Sharp intake of breath - That was a long sentence, LOL)

 

[Flexo]

Otherwise a simple "hey minors are allowed here, no hentai manga/ nsfw material is allowed" would have sufficed.

I'm sorry but.... no. These people that you are dealing with if you try anything like that there are plenty who will make it a game to see how risqué they can get without "technically" breaking the rule.

Baen did the right move of making the rule broad and general enough that people can't try to game the system.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

dismiss magic over science

There can be a "if magic exists, it would be science" semantics mess. To avoid it, I go with "magic" being that which breaks physics.

Like how conjuring a thing out of thin air violates conservation of mass-energy. Or "telekinesis" violating conservation of momentum.

 

[Super Guido]

Clarke: pederast
Asimov: dirty old man, son was a pederast caught with California's largest physical CP collection
Heinlein: still pretty skeevy

Bradbury seemed okay, I guess.

Heinlein wrote a story called All of You Zombies where the narrator casually drops he's a troon ("I used to be a man"). I don't know that much, otherwise.

 

[Tablet County]

Heinlein wrote a story called All of You Zombies where the narrator casually drops he's a troon ("I used to be a man"). I don't know that much, otherwise.

To be fair, Heinlein was probably envisioning some super gene science where you could rewrite someone's DNA and remold their body into that of the opposite sex. I don't imagine pseudoschlongs made out of arm tissue or heckin valid axe wounds were on his mind.

 

[Super Guido]

To be fair, Heinlein was probably envisioning some super gene science where you could rewrite someone's DNA and remold their body into that of the opposite sex. I don't imagine pseudoschlongs made out of arm tissue or heckin valid axe wounds were on his mind.

Yeah. I'm so used to the shit we have today that I forgot about that.