I thought this might be a useful article for a few con-goers

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

I could go on and on with an explanation, but I'll just link the column with the caveat: this is not me saying *anything* about your average con-goer. Please read the article through before reacting. Ktnx.

Guest blogger Starling: Schrodinger's rapist, or a guy's guide to approaching strange women without being maced.

Comments

Bah, and I can't edit either!

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

edit to number 3 above...

3)My title of my post, "I thought this might be a useful article for a few con-goers," is exactly what I meant. No, I was not saying that all men at con, or all men, are rapists. If that's what you got, you missed the entire point of the article. The majority of women like men. We want to like you, we don't *want* to fear you, or mistrust you, or think that you will hurt us. Unfortunately, that's not the world we live in. And what the author of the post is trying to explain - this is how a lot of women think, and it's not always conscious, it's instinctive. And some people - a group who, due to the nature of the crowd that the con attracts, comprises a larger percentage of congoers then normally encountered in the "every day world" - have not interacted a whole lot with other people, regardless of gender. Yes, women set off my danger instincts, too. So these people may not even *know* that they are tripping the instinctive danger signal in the people they are merely trying to be friendly to. This linked post, I believe, is an attempt to explain that in a way that is easy to understand, and reduce the miscommunication.