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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.
Any comment in the public sphere that can have the effect of making a rape victim "relive" the event. So basically, anything that can have the effect of reminding a rape victim they were raped is now a censorable "offense." Basically, as feminists like to USE situations to leverage their agenda, they are using this as an excuse to violate freedom of speech. Expect to see this strategy expanded and used more often as people begin to resist feminist hegemony. From Violet Blue's blog: "I found out a few hours later that I had been targeted by a feminist organization, The Ada Initiative. I learned that the woman who smiled at me while talking to the BSides SF organizer was Valerie Aurora, from the Ada Initiative. I also learned that what happened with my talk wasn’t a case where someone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as a survivor of sexual trauma or abuse, which is how it was presented to me. Instead, it was an organization that had planned to get my talk removed. I wonder, if I had offered to omit the section about GHB from my talk, which they did not know about, would the talk have been permitted by these people and the threat of problems for the organization lifted? "
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
You should read the link under "The Ada Initiative responds that such talks do more harm than good." It's SFW and it contains the counterpoint to this biased/revisionist submission.
Here's the text of TFA:
"
What happened with my Security BSides talk
It had been decided months ago that I would give a talk at Security BSides San Francisco. The subject of my talk was up in the air until just before the conference started, and the organizers were okay with that, but to not inconvenience or surprise the organizers, I decided to present the same talk I had given at Security BSides Las Vegas in 2012. I submitted the talk description just before the conference began, and it went on the website immediately.
This is the talk name and description:
sex +/- drugs: known vulns and exploits
What drugs do to sexual performance, physiological reaction and pleasure is rarely discussed in - or out of - clinical or academic settings. Yet most people have sex under the influence of something (or many somethings) at some point in their lives.
In this underground talk, Violet Blue shares what sex-positive doctors, nurses, MFT’s, clinic workers and crisis counselors have learned and compiled about the interactions of drugs and sex from over three decades of unofficial curriculum for use in peer-to-peer (and emergency) counseling. Whether you’re curious about the effects of caffeine or street drugs on sex, or are the kind of person that keeps your fuzzy handcuffs next to a copy of The Pocket Pharmacopeia, this overview will help you engineer your sex life in our chemical soaked world. Or, it’ll at least give you great party conversation fodder.
I put this talk together for BSides LV knowing it would be seen at the same time as Defcon, which is reputed to be a con with lots of parties and wild behavior. The talk is structured with harm reduction methodology, the act of giving the talk is an act of harm reduction for the community, and also gives me another opportunity to tell the hacking/security communities about what harm reduction is.
I have presented talks about sexuality at tech conferences all over the world, and I make it clear each time that my talks are not technical and that they are about issues that affect the culture to which I am presenting.
This is the third slide in my sex +/- drugs talk:
I arrived at the Security BSides venue half an hour before my talk was set to begin, and I tracked down the main organizer to get connected with the speaker wrangler. I found him next door at DNA Pizza, where he was talking with this person. I apologized for the interruption, the organizer told me where to wait, and the woman he was talking to smiled at me. I smiled back.
The organizer came into the LockSport Lounge around 10 minutes later and asked if he could speak with me. I asked Eric Michaud to join me.
The organizer said, “So, I need to ask you: is there any rape in your talk?”
I said, “Is there any WHAT in my talk?” I was shocked.
“Well, there’s been a complaint about your talk.” He continued, “It’s from someone who is a rape survivor and they said they will be triggered by your talk if there’s any rape in it.”
“No, no, there’s no rape in my talk. I talk about human sexual systems and the effects drugs, including caffeine and alcohol, affect the performance of these systems and the dangers of mixing different things. What’s going on here?”
He replied, “Someone has said they will be triggered by your talk, and they’re a rape survivor.”
“Okay. In the talk I do cover ‘date rape’ drugs, and I explain their actions and how they’re dangerous.”
Then he said, “Do you describe how to use date rape drugs? They said that if you are going to tell people how to use date rape drugs then it
I suffer from combat related PTSD. It sucks, I get triggered all the time. I especially don't like the filled to the max hallways at defcon, I have had more then one panic attack from that. I don't like the hackers that wear leather and combat gear around thinking its funny or cool, it scares the shit out of me at cons. I know they are kids, they mean well, and no one is trying to hurt me. Unlike the drunk guy who gets in my face for no reason, their actions are not malicious.
Most of the time I am able to keep my shit together and no one knows how I feel on the inside. This is my trauma, my probleme, to think that others should change to satisfy me is pure stupidity. I am the one that needs to recover and be able to move on in my life, so I do it. Victims of crime are in the same position, if you have triggers, you need to be in weekly counselling until its resolved. Pretending that its OK and if others would just not trigger you will ruin your life. No amount of activism will ever heal the wounds you have.
Yeah, this is a horrible summary especially considering all the useful links in the original submission are blocked at my work. However, the Ada Initiative link that the editors added explains the situation well.
The gist of it is that people attending this conference were expecting it be about computer security. One of the invited speakers decided to make their talk about drug use during sex, and didn't let anyone know about this until a few hours before they were scheduled to present. The conference organizers *asked* the Ada Initiative what they thought about this, and they told them it would make the women at the conference uncomfortable, so the conference organizers canceled the talk.
Looking past all the sociology/feminist terms, this is what it boils down to. The woman there just wanted to go to a technical conference and talk about technical things, and be treated like professionals. Putting sex on people's mind takes the focus off technical things, and onto sexual things. It does so regardless of whether the talk is pro-women or not. It will make interactions between the men and women at the conference more awkward at best. It will take what should be a comfortable professional environment, and make it less enjoyable and welcoming.
There was nothing wrong with Violet Blue's talk in general, if it was given in an appropriate setting, and people attending knew the subject of the conference. But springing it on people when they are trying to avoid people thinking of them sexually isn't cool.
To summarize the Ada Initiative's argument, "You should never talk about sex, because if you do, you'll give women traumatizing rape flashbacks and turn all men in the audience into pathological rape-machines. Especially techies, because everyone knows techies are super-rape-happy already. So no talking about sex."
I hate it when I have to agree with people who think "feminist" is a dirty word, but in this case Ada's "Think of the children!"-esque rationale just seems absurd.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
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".
For the love of humanity, mod parent up. People need to be responsible for addressing their own difficulties, not force all of society to acquiesce and adopt arbitrary strictures to make sure they don't possibly ever cause somebody to remember something nasty.
So, all you whiny feminists, unless you are willing to be sensitive to people like this AC and ban all pseudo-military accouterments from all fashion forever etc. then you can STFU. That is of course if feminism wasn't already based on double standards run amok.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
But they should NOT. That is ridiculous. If someone is so emotionally scared than a person of the gender that raped them, bumping into them in the conference is probably just as likely if not more likely to make them uncomfortable.
If you are a psychological wreck and need others to work around your weaknesses then go live in a padded white room in an asylum.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
One woman was giving a talk, and other women were upset because it was about sex. Now they are discussing, blaming, and working through emotional issues. This sort of stuff is annoying.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The Ada Initiative takes the position that any sex content at a technical conference is out of bounds and hostile to women--and there's a good argument for that.
OK, what is the good argument for that? It's certainly not the following.
Women at tech conferences are very much in the minority, sex is generally not a topic within the normal scope of technology, and the geek community has real problems with sexism, creeping on women at conferences, and just generally losing its shit when the topic of women comes up.
That's a great reason to get it out in the open, talk about what's acceptable and what's not. Making sex an uncomfortable subject will only make men more uncomfortable which will make more "creepers". You don't fix problems by not talking about it.
What's the actual argument that talking about sex openly is harmful in any circumstances? Are there any such arguments that are not as easily deflected as the one above?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
'm sure that's easy to say if neither you nor anyone you love has ever been the victim of a violent sexual assault.
Go volunteer at your local women's shelter, then try and come back here with that attitude.
And that is supposed to mean that because there are people who got hurt, we stop discussing the problem in the public? How has that ever actually helped anybody?
Ezekiel 23:20
There was no premeditation, and no conspiracy to silence Violet Blue or an interesting talk.
Yet that was what the first request was - silence the talk. Not a question of what was in the talk, not a request to speak with the presenter, but instead a request to shut it down. No, not a conspiracy, but something worse - a knee-jerk reaction that was honored as a "reasonable" request, causing a speaker to be silenced based on no evidence.
This was a really great way to make your point, Ada Initiative. As a person who supports the project's overall goals of fighting sexism in the high-tech community, I think that the person who requested this action is an utter moron who needs to be expunged from this group before she (or he - how would I know) does any more harm. If it happens to be the group's leader (as indicated in the article summary above), you need a new one.
That is all.
Any sex content is hostile to women?
That is the most misogynistic thing I have heard all week.
You do know that women are as interested in sex as men, right?
You do realize that the treating them with kids gloves you are endorsing is exactly what people expect of geek groups right? It is the other side of the creepy fratboy coin. Same not treating them like real people BS.
Yeah, too bad that's bullshit. By that line of logic, we can't blame fundamentalist groups for pressuring stores into not selling what they don't like with boycotts, or for getting people fined by harassing the FCC. Don't be such a quisling, Mr. Poo.
We blame Valerie Aurora for being a censoring anti-feminist hypocrite.
We blame The Ada Initiative for not immediately firing Valerie Aurora and repudiating her actions.
And we blame the Security BSides people for being spineless.
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.