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Controversy Over Violet Blue's Harm Reduction Talk
Weezul writes "The Ada Initiative's Valerie Aurora got Violet Blue's Hackers As A High-Risk Population (29c3 abstract) talk on harm reduction methodology pulled from the Security BSides meeting in San Francisco by claiming it contained rape triggers [ed note: you might not want to visit the main page of the weblog as it contains a few pictures that might be considered NSFW in more conservative places]. It's frankly asinine to object to work around hacker ethics as 'off topic' at such broad hacker conference. Is Appelbaum's 29c3 keynote 'off topic' for asking hackers to work for the 'good guys' rather than military, police, their contractors, Facebook, etc.? Yes, obviously harm reduction is a psychological hack that need not involve a computer, but this holds for 'social engineering' as well. It's simply that hacking isn't nearly as specialized or inaccessible as say theoretical physics. Worse, there is no shortage of terrible technology laws like the CFAA, DMCA, etc. that exist partially because early hackers failed to communicate an ethics that seemed coherent and reasoned to outsiders."
The Ada Initiative responds that such talks do more harm than good. It could also be argued that "not working for the bad guys" type talks aren't off-topic, since the hacker community has traditionally cared about things like information freedom.
What is a rape trigger?
WTF is a rape trigger?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
So, AFAICT from the summary and blogs, this was some hippie slap-fight between a bunch of feminists over "rape triggers" (a term so silly that it could only have meaning in San Fran, Austin, and Portland) in some presentation?
And isn't the term "rape trigger" ITSELF a rape trigger?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Considering that the link to TFA is NSFW, and the other links are blacklisted at many sites for security reasons, it'd be nice if the summary actually explained what the presentation was about and what the objections to it were rather than jumping into their opinion of the situation and assuming we all know WTF they were talking about.
I ran this through Google translate and still couldn't figure it out..
Are you people doing this on purpose.. to make me doubt my sanity?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
That's a little tendentious. The police and military are ostensibly designed to protect the general population. I mean, I'll respect your concerns about police oppressing people instead of protecting them, but if you go so far as to call them "bad guys" per se I'm not convinced that you're not just bringing a pre-existing political prejudice to the table...
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
This is the single most incoherent story summary that I've ever read at Slashdot. Congratulations!
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
In short the Ada folks believe "Simply put, even the world’s most pro-woman, sex-positive, pro-consent talk about sex is likely to have negative effects on women at a technical conference."
They have a complete lack of understanding of hacker culture, take one or two relatively minor, usually unreported, incidents out of a group of 10k+ people in a weekend and us it to drum up hate and a paycheck for their founder as they push their specific agenda. There concerns are not hacker specific issues that affect women, they are the same women's issues that have been out there for years. Their "initiative" is widely rejected by women who are long term attendees at cons. And that is what defcon and others are, cons, not technical conferences.
Their choice in venue (cons) has a very low rate of incidents compared to the general population. They have caused far more incidents of things that may be considered sexual harassment as backlash for their bizarre behavior. At Chaos Communications Congress 29 this group handed out "Creeper cards" to men who in their sole judgement did something offensive. The folks at the con responded with their own form of "anti-feminist" cards. Their surprise at this response reiterates that they don't understand our culture.
If there are incidents where someone is assaulted then call the police. Someone keeps proposition you at a bar? Tell them to go away, then call the bar's security, have you ever been to a bar? With defcon, the move to the more traditional strip hotels from the AP has brought in loads of Vegas trash. Pimps, bro's, etc roam the hotel and proposition every girl there for "shopping for sex" or other pimply schemes. No girl is safe in any Vegas venue from these guys, welcome to Vegas. If Vegas trash keeps hassling you, ask the passing group of hackers for help, they will solve it for you without any expectation in return, that's our culture.
Violet was scheduled to speak about "sex +/- drugs: known vulns and exploits", not about "Hackers As A High-Risk Population".
While I don't agree with the cancellation, this talk was more sexually charged (hence problematic) and much less on topic at a hacker conference than her talk at 29c3 was.
Did anyone else think this was a group for advancing the use of the Ada programming language?
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Disclaimer: I think it's silly, but I'll try to keep my personal opinions restricted to parens.
A rape trigger is apparently anything that could cause negative feelings in a person based on their experiences with rape, or sympathy with those who have been raped. (as opposed to the norm, I guess, which is everyone is pro-rape?)
So, talking about rape is an obvious rape trigger. Talking about being powerless is a rape trigger. Talking about sex is a rape trigger. (even loving, consensual, romantic sex.). Talking about drugs, or the role of women in society, human rights violations - all rape triggers.
Like the warnings before TV shows, some groups prefix their discussions (usually men-and-sex-are-pure-evil feminist blog entries) with a list of potential rape triggers (the list, by-the-by, is also a rape trigger). In this way, the person who is sensitive to these triggers (and more likely, those who are attention whoring and overly-sensitive to those who are sensitive) may avoid the discussions.
(This post is also a rape trigger, due to it's content)
but how does one not survive
By committing suicide. The suicide rate among victims of rape jumps significantly.
Obviously those phrases are part of a culture the general populace (at least me) is not accustomed to using/hearing,
And it would be really beneficial if people like you and geeks in general were exposed to them.
Rape victims often suffer PTSD. People who suffer PTSD can suffer from things that trigger their PTSD response--like a rape victim who sees a rape scene in a movie, or a veteran who hears fireworks and relieves Fallujah. It's a common aspect of PTSD, and as we become aware of it, it's becoming common in some areas, at least, to warn people of triggers in your essay or blog entry or whatever to give them a chance to duck out.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
That way no wombyn can be raped, rape-triggered, demeaned, offended, creeped out or indeed involved.
Now, hush up and knit me a pie.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
From the Ada Initiative's own statement on this:
Simply put, even the world’s most pro-woman, sex-positive, pro-consent talk about sex is likely to have negative effects on women at a technical conference.
More simply put: "Any talk of sex at a technical conference is bad m'kay, because a rape survivor might get offended."
Sorry, but covering the ears and mouths of others to suppress information YOU DON'T LIKE is against feminism since it presumes that women are too fragile to handle sexuality in a positive and adult manner, is sexist to men since it presumes that the mere talk of sex, no matter the content of message of purpose will push some men to rape or "give women bad sexual experiences".
And how many of these men would attend this fabled "Conference on Sexuality" where Violet Blue's talk would be "on topic"? I predict none.
So a chance to raise awareness, engage, inform and encourage healthy debate has been lost because one group with a very clear agenda decide that no one t a "Tech Conference" should be able to be so educated and informed on subjects they feel are harmful based solely on their own ideals.
The Ada Initiative should be wholeheartedly shunned by the tech circles who value freedom of information and freedom of choice for being counter to the very principles upon which their culture is formed. This is a culture based on curiosity, exploration, boundary pushing and self-education -- we don't need Ada Initiative telling us where or how to educate ourselves or dictating what topics are "safe".
There is a consensus that people attending computer security conferences should expect the focus to be on computer security, not some very weakly tangentially related subject, especially when the title of the talk isn't announced until a few hours before the talk.
It isn't just a matter of not attending the talk if you don't like the subject. The talk itself turns the attendees' focus away from technical matters and onto sexual matters in an environment where women already have a difficult time being treated professionally rather than as sexual objects. And in a crowd of socially awkward men who already find it challenging to interact with women without having sex rubbed in their face.
The talk was completely off-topic and couldn't possibly improve the environment of the conference.
Yes, the police and military are the bad guys and have been for decades. They are designed to protect the general population in the same way an electric fence protects cattle. Every war since at least Vietnam has had nothing to do with protecting people, only securing global hegemony. And the main purpose of the police is to keep the peasants from revolting. Notice how robust the response to OWS was, when the real criminals on Wall Street went untouched? Look at how willing the police are to ruin lives over a little Cannabis or how much respect the military has for basic principles of justice like innocent before proven guilty.
These are not honorable institutions with honorable goals, and none can be associated with them honorably. We live in an upsidedown world where the authorities who are supposed to protect us are in fact the greatest threat. Wake the fuck up already.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It's a common aspect of PTSD, and as we become aware of it, it's becoming common in some areas, at least, to warn people of triggers in your essay or blog entry or whatever to give them a chance to duck out.
A well-written essay will do that simply by being an essay. The introductory paragraph will give the reader a clue as to what kind of material follows.
In any case, we can't take all the rape triggers out of society because there will always be another trigger. I have various friends around whom I cannot play specific albums because it's the music to which they were raped. The problem with the idea of trying to avoid triggers is that they are individual-dependent. We all know that depictions or discussions of rape can trigger a reaction in people, at least, all of us who care even a little bit about other humans. But pretty much anything can do that. Maybe the problem isn't the trigger, but the societal surroundings that affect how victims deal with their problems.
Finally, I don't want anyone to believe I'm trying to diminish the actual problem. I was never sexually abused, but I was the target of systematic bullying and violence basically from the day I set foot in Del Mar Middle School, throughout my career at Branciforte Jr. High, and until the day I left Harbor High School. I didn't even get summers off since I was so regularly in summer school. I still sometimes have dreams about it. I can imagine that someone who had been subjected to still worse abuse might have still worse reactions. But I'm pretty sure that suppression of discussion is not the answer. It's just pretending the problems don't exist, and when you do that, you can't address them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So basically the presenter said she would hold the talk in a separate room in the after party, so that only the people who knew what the content would be and consented to see it would see it.
This was the response: “No, they’re here and they’re not leaving. They told me they’ll make it into a bigger problem if you do your talk.”
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
...with a man that you don't trust. Some facts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape
Drug use, especially alcohol, is frequently involved in rape. A study (only of rape victims that were female and reachable by phone) reported detailed findings related to tactics. In 47% of such rapes, both the victim and the perpetrator had been drinking. In 17%, only the perpetrator had been. 7% of the time, only the victim had been drinking. Rapes where neither the victim nor the perpetrator had been drinking were 29% of all rapes. Contrary to widespread belief, rape outdoors is rare. Over two thirds of all rapes occur in someone's home. 31% occur in the perpetrators' homes, 27% in the victims' homes and 10% in homes shared by the victim and perpetrator. 7% occur at parties, 7% in vehicles, 4% outdoors and 2% in bars.
One of six U.S. women has experienced an attempted or completed rape. More than a quarter of college age women report having experienced a rape or rape attempt since age 14.
For one-third to one-half of the victims, ... symptoms continue beyond the
first few months and meet the conditions for the diagnosis of
posttraumatic stress disorder. In general, rape and sexual assault are
among the most common causes of PTSD in women.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/rape-and-violence-against-women-crisis
If you have triggers, then you have mental issues that need to be dealt with. Pushing it aside is NOT healthy. If something traumatic happens to you, there will be mental consequences. You need to work through those. That means counselling, confronting, understanding, etc. If you don't, you'll never fully heal. The mind isn't like the body, you can't just leave an injury be and hope it heals on its own. You have to work on it.
So never mind telling others they have to change, if you ever want to truly recover, you have to deal with the mental scars the trauma has left. Just pushing it aside won't do it. IT is still there, lurking, festering.
It is a terrible thing that somebody has a traumatic experience.
If you're walking on eggshells around that person, you're part of the problem.
PTSD represents a bona fide injury and needs to be treated.
If you have an injury, the injury is almost always not your fault, but your recovery is absolutely your responsibility. In those cases where it is your fault (deliberate self-destructive behaviour), you have another problem, which is also not your fault. But dealing with it IS your responsibility!
This is a practical, not a moral judgement--nobody can make you deal with your issues. There's truth to the old punchline "the light bulb has to want to change".
Because there is a behavioural component--sometimes including denial--in psychological injury, the injured person may need some external help to get them started. But, even in this case, the injured person is responsible for their own recovery.
Demanding that the world re-arrange itself so that you can continue in your injured condition is NOT dealing with your problem.
Complying with such demands is--on a personal level--classic codependent enabling behaviour, and does not help anybody.
"Codependency" is not meaningful on an institutional level. The harm to the injured person, whether enabled by an individual or an institution, is exactly the same.
Somebody fresh from their injury is likely to emotionally raw to "get out there".
Stay in a safe place and work on your issues: Home. Halfway house. Hospital. Talk to your counsellor. Call your sponsor. Go to a meeting. Have a session with your psychologist. Pray. Meditate. Whatever your program for recovery is, work your program and get your life back. Get yourself ready to go out and live in the world, and then go out there and live.
Somebody who goes out into society and tells everyone "please don't talk about these things because it sets me off" is NOT dealing with their problem.
Rather than doing the painful, humiliating and frightening work on themselves, they're assuming the role of director and staging the world to suit themselves.
Even if it would work for one person (it doesn't), there is more than one psychologically traumatized person in any given place. It's simply not practical to ban everything.
"I was locked in a tiny room. If only there weren't all these closed windows, I wouldn't have panic attacks."
"I was abandoned in a big train station. If only there weren't all these open doors and windows, I wouldn't have panic attacks."
"I'm an alcoholic. If only there wasn't booze everywhere, I wouldn't get drunk."
"I'm a compulsive gambler. If only there weren't internet cafes on every streetcorner, I wouldn't gamble."
"I fought in a war. If only people wouldn't slam doors, I wouldn't have these flashbacks."
If only the world would re-arrange itself to suit my particular trauma, I could be comfortable in the world NOW, instead of after I've worked for my recovery.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
So how do I go about getting some of these creeper cards? Is there just one design or is there a full set? Are they collectible?
Does anyone have t-shirts with Creeper Cards printed on them? I'll take a size large in black please.
Sex is a perfectly ok subject at all times. It is a fundamental and ultimately healthy part of human activity. Arguing that it isn't puts you in the position of someone who is defective, or padding the room for someone who is defective.
If you're defective, you should get that fixed. Not expect the rest of us to modify our behavior.
Eventually, the path of "padding the room" leads to no discussion of any issues because someone might be sensitive to them. That's not the way of liberty; that's the way of the ultimate mommy universe, and it is fundamentally wrongheaded.
Liberty is not a condition where you won't hear uncomfortable things because everyone else is responsible for keeping you away from potential discomfort. It is a condition where you may hear anything, and you are responsible for keeping your own comfort. That's where a healthy human's center needs to be focused.
If you're not a healthy human, you should get that fixed, rather than inconveniencing the rest of us, either directly or via misguided advocates, however well intentioned they make think themselves. If you are one of those advocates, rather than one of the unhealthy, don't work on the rest of us to pad the room. Work on the unhealthy to bring them up to snuff.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Each time you use the word G**k, you validate the society prejudices that lead to violence against certain groups, especially minors, including violent sexual assault such as wedgies.
People who have experienced this violent sexual assault often re-experience their trauma when they are exposed to this kind of language, and the stereotypes you have used that promote anti G**k prejudice.
Your prejudice is so extreme that instead of objecting to the content of the talk itself, you are just as concerned with "discussing sex with a room full of geeks".
Attributing sexism in a community to the presence of G**k's is no more acceptable that attributing sexism in rap music to the presence of Black people.
The phrase "harm reduction" is most often used in the context of sex and/or drugs.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Suppression of sexuality is the core goal of rape.
psychobabble