The “industry parties” that used to be held by the (now deceased) Marlon Stodghill at AWA were pretty... raunchy. Themes would be things like Arabian Nights, Las Vegas, etc... a lot of the anime cabaret performers would be there... excessive amounts of alcohol would be involved, not to mention the host himself had a history of some pretty raunchy behavior.
Special events for guests were normal. The guests and the staff are under an INSANE amount of stress during the operation of an anime convention. The parties were a way to blow off the steam from having to be “on camera” for 16+ hours a day, three-four days straight. That’s why the 18+ panels became SO popular. It let the guests and the attendees partake in that catharsis together. Not that they’ll probably be able to do those anymore because you’ll have every other person calling RAPE!! and clutching their pearls at every off-color or sexual innuendo.
Almost every guest I’ve worked with has gone to these parties or events. I’ve gone with them, been drunk with them, done questionable things with them.
Adults behave like adults. We operate on an unspoken social contract. I don’t NEED to ask xyz person if I can do pqr. I’ve been paying attention, I’ve read the social cues.
That’s how our society use to work. But all these folks wanna do is turn every human interaction into a fucking legal contract-requiring exchange.
When you make out every dog to be a wolf and then keep raising the alarm, eventually everyone is going to be desensitized to the alarm and when the real wolf shows up they aren’t gonna recognize it OR react to the alarm.
But hey, if they wanna apply their current-trend shit behavior filters to the recent past then let’s start talking about all the behaviors they exhibited then that wouldn’t be appropriate now, shall we.
