This godawful mess with the Dark Romantasy convention that devolved into straight women committing mob sexual assault is a great reminder that the sexes really are not fundamentally different from one another, they just usually have different levels of power and opportunity to inflict violence.
For those asking, the event was Sinners & Stardust.
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
The what what did what
thank you
...what happened now?!?
I have questions and I'm not sure about the answers I'm going to get
I heard about this last week on “the Mind of Sai Marie” podcast and was floored. Consent is a life skill that many people lack. And yes- too often this behavior is excused in women as “funny,” “cute,” “harmless” when it is now of that. It is assault.
Where did this happen? This is the first I'm seeing it & I'd like to learn more! I know two wrongs never make a right, but given the Trump-Epstein Files, Trump, Hegseth, McMahon, and Cavanaugh (just to name a few) all having committed or helping to pedos to commit sexual assault, this isnt a shock
smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/08/sinn...
Tyvm for that link, I appreciate you taking the time. It's a feast for thought. I've heard that some women get super aggressive with male dancers also, but I know how crappy it feels to be objectified, & I can't imagine enjoying making someone else feel that way. Has trauma gone viral?
I am sorry *what*
Here’s where I found out what happened. (Content warnings: sexual assault mentions, panic attack mention, stalking, victim blaming of a sexual assault survivor.) smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/08/sinn...
"As for the Air Tag, we didn't find out who planted it..." Jaysus. I bet those same women would have FREAKED if a man had done even a tenth of this to them. I would. Bloody hell, just being cornered incites me to violence/panic/both.
Jesus christ
Whenever I say that working at a bookstore was by far the worst, most grueling job customer service-wise I’ve ever worked in 10 years of retail jobs, this is pretty much. I’ll be the first to take accountability as a book reader, but there’s something srsly wrong with book readers
More hobbyist readers is good! But when they gain the title of hobbyist they seem to lose most other functions, like reading is "quirky" enough to excuse being an asshole to fellow readers, and staff It's fuckin anime convention bullshit all over again
Aren’t most readers “hobbyists”?
I’ll have you know I read professionally* * ignore customers and read on the clock
they're modern consumers in an artisan industry. they keep walking into mom and pop shops and demanding starbucks NOW
This is true, but I also think there’s a really weird boundaries issue that plagues regulars to a book store. I mean I worked a rock venue for three years and I ran into public sex like three times more at the bookstore
The queer cafe/bookstore that is explicitly sexual and you have to fuck is real
Apologies I didn’t see you just referenced it earlier Gretchen I thought I was making an awesome pull on my own
I’ve not the capacity to say why, just that whenever stuff like this happens I think about my three years in the shelves and am like, ya tracks
I must be patronizing different book stores
Patrons can’t see it because they only go in for at most a couple hours, and it’s worse if you work at a book store mecha like I did. While participating in national bookstore unionization efforts I met book comrades around the country and learned that it was definitely not just our whacky ass store
Not even in the bathroom? Just out in front of everyone?
In the true crime section one time which I thought was fucking wild. Like please pick a different section to do a true crime
People are uncouth
The consequences of killing third spaces radiates down the spine of all who shelve books for a living
Something about the current framing of this as "fandom drama" isn't sitting right with me at all either. Drama is two podcasters I hate fighting with each other, not a guy getting groped en masse
People being unable to separate their fantasies from reality continues to be the defining challenge of our time.
There has been a long history of inappropriate behavior by women in fandoms and at conventions that people have just let slide or made excuses for and this is the latest escalation. Online discourse always wants to make it seem like no big deal and here we are...
Incidients like this always make me think about how 'fan' is just shortened from 'fanatic'.
I’m sorry, what…*googles* … …. … … What. The. Fuck. Dear gods, that poor person!
(un)holy schidt. 😱
the....the what now
good lord
Oh no. I don’t know what you are talking about, but it sure sounds bad.
I confess, finding out that nerd fandom basically had an entire Tailhook scandal this last week reminded me that 1) indeed fandoms can be horrible and 2) I guess it’s still possible to really party in these grim terrifying times
book fandoms freak me the hell out
This sounds like one of the themes in a piece of post-apocalyptic trans fiction I read
what beautiful genius would write something like that
I want to do the meme of attributing this paragraph to a piece of fiction but it would be a little redundant to put "Manhunt" under this huh
ugh i don't get it. why are people like this. everyone would get laid more if people didnt create this climate of fear that you're going to ignore other peoples boundaries. i know i would spend less time pretending not to pick up on signals "bc haha guess i transitioned into a Useless Lesbian lol".
Just read what happened and JFC, wtf is wrong with people? And the victim blaming is sickening 🤬
This really sickens me. I went through SA, and I'm a woman, but I would NEVER turn a man away. They are equally valid in struggles. To pretend they don't exist is terrible. How are you different from the people who silenced and laughed at you?
what happened where???
I haven’t heard about this either. Sounds awful
Lots of trigger warnings - about almost everything inc rape, stalking, assault, SA, etc. smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/08/sinn...
That’s horrifying!
Yes. Women in mobs are. Tho i remember in a v crowded nightclub being constantly SA'd until i managed to get out - not women, all men. They thought cos of crowd they could act without any consequences. Women maybe do SA things because they're repressed? Those men did because I couldn't stop them.
I'm totally unsurprised tbh. It's nothing to do with the genre of fiction either. There's a long history of it happening to men performing at music concerts as well as my own experiences and things I've witnessed over the years
Tagging @naomialderman.bsky.social here because this has shades of The Power
my first job as a teen was guiding celebrity lookalikes around ladies' day at a racecourse, and a solid 80% of the work was trying to stop mobs of drunk women from sexually harassing or assaulting them!
The problem with spectrums is by definition the difference between the extremes is quantitative rather than qualitative.