Zathlazip wrote:
WisCon 32, the 32nd year of the "World's Leading Feminist Science Fiction Convention," is taking place this Memorial Day weekend in Madison, Wisconsin.
If you are unfamiliar with this con, it is like any other sci-fi con, except that well over half of the attendees are female, about a third of the panels are political, there is no gaming, and absolutely everybody is a huge bitch.
This is my second year attending WisCon. I go because I love this. I remember how much I hate my fellow women, and then I go the whole rest of the year thankful that normal life is never this horrible.
^This is what a feminist looks like.
Friday:
The Gathering
The first stop at the con is the pre-Opening Ceremony gathering to help con-goers feel comfortable at the con with their fellow women. Activities include Tarot Card reading, Numerology, (Fat) Clothing Swap, lesbian knitting circle, Reiki light-touch energy healing...
There was supposed to be the hair-braider there. He's a guy with a hair fetish who comes to cons in the Madison area with brushes and ribbons. The line for his services was quite long last year. He didn't show up this year. His booth was sad and empty.
There was a massage booth. I knew beforehand that there would be one, but I assumed it would a creepy old man. But, I was pleasantly surprised.
This is Eileen. She is 400 pounds of tension release. She is bodacious. The name of her massage parlor even has the word "Bodacious" in it. Because she is.
...
Thinking Ahead: Feminists thinking about possible near and middle futures and feminist responses to them
WisCon description: What challenges and opportunities will feminists face in the coming decades? Feminism has always looked to the future. But are feminists now in danger of falling behind the curve? Isn't it time to use our SFnal skills to feminist advantage?
Panelists:
Moondancer - A white woman who is Native American because she wears a cowboy hat and has wolves all over her shirt. And because she calls herself Moondancer.
Xakara (no last name) - Saucy black woman who writes multicultural, bi-poly-transamorous science fiction.
(Three other people...)
This panel seemed innocent enough. Future feminism. I can do this. Seems like a sane crowd.
Moondancer starts going on about how your womb space has power, and that men are threatened by your womb power. Women exude energy during their moontime.
Feminism is making progress, because Moondancer's son is a little pussy who gets beaten up by his sister and takes it.
Then, out of nowhere, a broad-shouldered woman with an Adam's apple shouts out, "How can we say we are moving forward when Hillary just gets consistently struck down!"
The crowd gasps. This is what I came for!
"She opened her mouth and said things she shouldn't have said!"
"A president can't be nice! She can only go so far because women have to be nice!"
"Systematic, intentional vilification of Hillary as a nagging woman is because of socialization of men!"
"Every strong woman is a lesbian!"
"My magi-shapeshifter race is council-governed by all women!"
Hour's up. Oh good.
...
The Joy of Fat Sex
WisCon description: Fat people are sexy: big butts, full breasts, plump thighs, plush soft bellies. Let's celebrate the joys of loving a voluptuous body—your own or your lover's. We can also discuss techniques and positions comfortable for larger lovers, finding sexy clothes and toys that fit, and fighting the stereotype of the sexless fat person who substitutes pasta for passion—not to mention the one of the desperate fat chick who's therefore an easy lay. We may also want to explore body acceptance issues, such as learning to enjoy the way you look naked (an issue not in any way limited to fat people). People of all genders and sizes welcome, but the focus will stay firmly on fat.
Panel: Three fat chicks.
I noticed immediately as I entered the room a lot of labored breathing.
The audience has come to enjoy...the joy...of fat sex.
First topic of discussion: "A flaw in this patriarchal society is that male partners do not even know that fat is attractive." It's true! You're socialized into believing that that female in the picture shown above isn't a sexual being, hungry for a penetrative expression of love.
A woman on the panel says that she was once sad because she was glancing at herself naked in the mirror, and she picked up her bra to put on, and instead put it on her head, and noticed the breast cap of the bra fit her well as a hat. It was that day she knew she was fat.
One of the panelists at some point brings out these giant, supported black fabric-covered wedges called "faciliators". Apparently they are cushions that can be be adjusted to "facilitate" fat on fat sex, when, for instance, the bellies would otherwise squish together so much that normal penetration may not be possible. In the photo, a panelist shows off her fat sex facilitators to a female-to-male transgendered observer:
A not-fat, male-to-female transgendered person raises her hand to say that exercise can help strengthen your body for sex too. Oh, man, the way they looked at her for suggesting exercise helps with anything. A panelist calmed the angry crowd down by saying that she exercises herself twice a week: Chair Yoga.
I also learned that even in Madison there are meetup groups where really fat ladies come together to go buy lots of desserts without guilt. And that fat lesbians often jump up into the air and hit their bellies together as a form of foreplay.
Who knew.
...
Dealer's Room
At some point I entered the dealer's room. It wasn't terribly out of the ordinary for a sci-fi con. A lot of books, but pretty much nil in the gaming category. Way too much fantasy-inspired jewelry, but whatever. But, in the corner was this delight:
If you can't read the bottom there, it says
Plus Sizes
L to 10X
10X?? It goes up to ten!?
According to eBay (I can't even find info on this fascinating thing anywhere else), a 10X sizing corresponds to:
Bust: 74-77"
Waist: 70-72" (note, 6 feet!!)
Hip: 78-80"
SEXY.
On my way out of the Dealer's Room, I noticed some pamphlets on the freebee table for something called the "Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness Polycamp NW." The NW implies that this is not the only one. Blegh!
...
...
Saturday
Soylent Green or Just Plain Soy?
WisCon description: Soy has been portrayed as a miracle product, able to be transformed into food to please any human or alien palate. Is a vegetable-based diet inevitable as we realize the environmental impacts of deforestation to raise cattle, animal waste contamination of ground water, and massive water shortages? What would a world full of vegetarians look like? Will our brave new vegetarian world be a soy monoculture, or are there alternatives that can still feed the world? Is there such a thing as vegetarian SF/F?
Panel: Three really skinny women with a lot of piercings. One man with dreadlocks, who claims to have lived in a Buddhist monastery for many years.
Okay, I'll admit that I am a vegetarian. Maybe this would be informative. Perhaps.
I felt the strong urge to leave as the panelists started going on about how vegans are pure because eating an all-vegetable diet flushes out the toxins. The best triatheletes are all vegans. Furthermore, you're apparently more attractive if you're a vegan. But, as far as you would assume that a no-cheese, no-butter, no-meat, all vegetable/whole grains/legumes diet would make you thin, ask this guy:
^I think he's doing it wrong.
...
Fat is Not the Enemy
WisCon description: You can rarely find any media outlet lately that doesn't have some mention of the 'obesity epidemic' somewhere, and fat people are often the targets of societally condoned discrimination. Although this attitude is most prominent in Western societies, unfortunately it is beginning to span the globe. The fat acceptance community is becoming ever more vocal, and the mainstream media is beginning to notice. If you're fat, or an ally of someone who is fat, how do you work for empowerment and real change? As Liz Henry notes in a recent guest post on Body Impolitic: 'Radicalizing yourself to body acceptance and the complete refusal of fat-shaming could save your life.'
Panelists: Fat chicks. Duh.
The entirety of this discussion was quoting fat activist blogs verbatim and claiming that everything you read on the internet is true.
Fat activism is, in my opinion, one of the stupidest types of almost entirely online-only activism there is. I'm sitting at a computer, and I'm super fat (well, not me actually), and I can't get a date, so therefore I AM OPPRESSED. People look at me funny when I am taking up all the handicapped seats on the bus with my mega-ass, therefore I AM OPPRESSED. The doctor says I have high blood pressure and at am risk for diabetes, therefore I AM OPPRESSED.
The sense of denial in the room is amazing. One woman says that she was 95 pounds when she got married, but then took some medication which brought her weight up to 150 pounds, and then her husband complemented her because the little bit of fat was more attractive, and that their sex life was better now that she had gained that little bit of weight. Fair enough, BUT SHE WAS AT LEAST 250 POUNDS. Not 150! How can you even compare this to 150?
The rehashing of fat activist blogs made me grit my teeth. I read those blogs for a long time as a daily fuel for my hatred of all people, and perhaps as some good trolling material, but they were talking about studies which had been talked about in blogs from bloggers who hadn't even read more than the abstract anyway...the result was stupid, non-scientific (and not even accurate) jibberish, portrayed as if it was scientific fact.
The worst part for me is keeping silent while they claim that every doctor who tells you that being morbidly obese isn't fine for your health is being paid off by the pharmaceutical or diet companies.
Their heroes, from whom they get most of their data, are Gina Kolata and Sandy Szwarc, whom I know very well are themselves paid by companies such as Coca Cola, to disseminate information to gullible people that doctors are evil people trying to take away their precious, normal fat.
But I can't tell them that...because they'll eat me.
...
Fighting the Good Fight with Limited Resources
WisCon description: It's incredibly easy to feel overwhelmed when there are so many problems in the world that have to be addressed, and as we get older, we often lose the confidence that there will be enough time to effect change. Add physical and financial limitations, and the process gets even more daunting. How can we target our efforts without draining ourselves? Let's discuss strategies.
Panelists:
Cynthia (a polyamorous woman in a group marriage with [the fake disease] fibromyalgia)
Nabil: Seen earlier in that fat joy facillitator picture as "the skinny one." "He" is a non-op transgendered person...a person who looks like a woman, talks like a woman, likes men, but says that I AM A MALE AND YOU WILL REFER TO ME AS SUCH. It'd be easier if he/she just drew on a beard or something. Geez. Try harder.
Marna: Another fat activist. BLEGH.
See, this was supposed to be a normal panel, where I could just learn and not be affected by all the shit from the other panels. Why couldn't I have nice things?
But then the polyamory woman starts going on about how she was having a fight with her husband and her wife about her fibromyalgia and so she joined an Anglican convent for a week...and the transgendered she-he starts going on about how ignorant everyone else is and how her heroes go by the pronoun "Ze", and the fat activist is going on about everything she read on the internet about fat activism and oppression...
The transgendered she-he says that she-he brightens her day by walking through the park, sticking her-his fingers into flowers to use to pollinate other flowers that she-he likes.
"I appreciate what they [the flowers] do for me, so I do something for them...sexually."
When I didn't think I could be any more uncomfortable, it did.
The fat-activist had a bit of a breakdown, right there.
Fat activist: "I AM FULL OF FAIL."
Polyamory woman: "No, we are full of win."
Trans she-he: "This room is full of win."
AND THEN THE AUDIENCE STARTS CLAPPING.
OH GOD.
...
Then, I went to the consuite to recollect my shattered existence, and somebody handed me a tofu hot-dog. I ate it, and then threw up all over the place. And on the bus ride home.
...
Tomorrow, Sunday:
Power, Privilege & Oppression
WisCon description: With the Clinton and Obama candidacies, there has been a great deal of discussion in the press about race and gender. Unfortunately, this discussion is often framed in terms of which is the so-called bigger issue. Black women in particular have been singled out as facing a perceived dilemma in terms of identity framed as an either/or situation. This panel will look at identity intersections—ands instead of ors—using the discourse around the Clinton and Obama candidacies as a framework.
I'll be wearing my Obama pin. I can't wait.