(For those as don't know, Harlan Ellison
groped Connie Willis's boob during the Hugo presentation, and the internets are in an uproar about it.)
I come not to praise Harlan. I've heard that Connie was upset by the contact, which makes it clearly Not Okay in my book. However, there are levels of Not Okay, and the internet discussion has been largely black and white, which bothers me. I come not to praise Harlan, but to bury the internet response.
If
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
adfamiliares were groped by a presenter at an academic conference, it would be humiliating sexual harassment that might be worthy of suit and certainly would be worthy of public censure. Get that shit out in the open and stomp on it, I say. If she were groped by
irilyth while goofing around at a SWIL event, and it upset her, it would probably be a private matter worthy of an apology. (Not to imply that
irilyth would ever do such a thing without permission.) There is a spectrum there, and while both gropes would be Not Okay, I hope our response to each would be different. We would not be calling for
irilyth to lose his job, be barred from SWIL events, get kneed in the balls to "see how he likes it." (Er, sorry, Josh.)
I don't know where on that spectrum the Harlan/Connie grope falls, and I don't think anyone else outside that dyad does either. Connie has been silent, at least publicly. Harlan has been predictably abrasive and obnoxious in his public "apologies". I do know that Harlan and Connie have known each other for 25 years, and Ellen Datlow says Connie kissed him within moments of the grope (I've seen that picture), which seems to beg for context. People are turning Harlan into a poster boy for male privilege, and saying
ludicrous things like,
"This is just not cool. It’s not 'not cool if' (as in, not cool if Connie wasn't in on the gag)..." as though it wouldn't be okay for one adult to grant another permission to grope her boob as part of an act. Of
course it would have been cool if Connie had been fine with it; that's how "it's cool" is defined. But violating the Sacred Boob is somehow a crime worthy of any loss of perspective, and the response is rapidly becoming a fannish version of Nipplegate.
No matter what, Harlan screwed up big-time, and I hope his private apology was a lot more sincere. Connie Willis was apparently very upset, and that's Not Okay by definition; nobody should get groped when they don't want to be. But whether it was one old friend kidding another and crossing the line or the patriarchy reaching out a hand to violate the dignity of an upstart female, only Connie and Harlan can say. I think the rest of us should grab some perspective until more information forthcomes.
[Edit: This LJer claims to have forthcome more information from the Willis family, which seems to move the incident away from friendly play-gone-wrong and closer to sexual assault. But, as this poster rightfully asserts, even her information is secondhand, and her speculation about motives is speculation. (And did she really need to compare him to a rapist? Is there a Godwin for that?) I'd feel a lot more comfortable if the world of fandom were waiting for solid information before rushing to judgment.][Edit 2: Okay, really, this is a case of "people say stupid things on the internet." Having now read a thread in which someone characterized Adrien Brody as "some utter nobody -- possibly a screenwriter?" when expressing outrage over him kissing Halle Berry as he accepted his Best Actor award, I should really just get used to the idea that people don't do research before they rant. Other people do say sensible things sometimes.]![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
