Walling keeps creeping

[avram]

You’d think René Walling would have taken his banning from Readercon as a warning, and cleaned his act up. That’s what a sane person would do, right? Take extra-special care not to be a sleazy jerk, just to be on the safe side? Just out of a sense of self-preservation, even if not out of an honest desire to be considerate of women’s feelings? You’d think.

I had hoped so, if for no other reason than that he and I have at least a couple of friends in common, and his bad behavior hurts those friends (in addition to the women he behaves badly towards). But here’s some news from the just-ended Worldcon in Chicago:

From: copperwise
2012-09-05 12:26 am (local)

I was disgusted to find him tending bar at the Commonwealth party. Then he made repulsively suggestive comments to the girl I was hanging out with. She was disgusted by his smarmy, smirking leer, but she didn’t feel he was worth making an issue of. She was unaware of the Readercon issue at the time, though.

Comments

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I had hoped so. I had assumed, at the very least, that the creeping would come from people about whom we were not alerted.

All right, if I'm trying to give every last benefit of the doubt -- and I am not going to tell anyone else to do this -- I suppose I could say one cannot change all at once and that his friends should try to ride herd on him. But, it rings hollow.

[avram]

Yeah.

I suppose there's always some remote chance that this'll turn out to be some weird kind of joke, or misunderstanding, or something. But I'm not expecting it to.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I've checked the Lonestarcon Progress Reports. The latest news I have says that Walling is a supporting member. I haven't checked to find out if he's currently in a position of responsibility beyond that.

[avram]

I expect to see a lot of noise being made about this over (at least) the next few days, especially if more women come forward with similar reports.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I wasn't actually creeped out specifically by Walling, but by the woman who was tending bar with him at the Commonwealth party, who not only hit on my SO, and shoved her cleavage at him instead of turning around to adjust her ballgown when she reached in to move one of her breasts, but was dismissive to me and to the other person I was with to the point of not serving us at an otherwise empty bar.

At that point I believe Walling had stepped away from the bar, since I didn't encounter him, but I found her behavior offensive and appalling. Shortly thereafter someone told me that she had been acting as an apologist for Walling's behavior at Readercon, which made me feel better about being creeped out by her in general, because it otherwise felt like a snap decision, which isn't usually my way. However, she was acting in such a smug and repugnant manner to me and my other companion (the one she wasn't flashing) that I really did get angry, albeit not until we'd left the party.

The fact that they were actively campaigning for one of the party awards and won it meant that I had to see her at the closing ceremonies too. I'm hoping she was less repulsive to other party goers, but she was actively rude to me and one of my male friends, and if this is the sort of person giving Walling feedback about his behavior, it's no surprise that he hasn't changed a whit.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't really care what her stance on Walling is. If she's shoving her cleavage at someone without indication that this is welcome, that does get my back up. We both know that a woman can engage in harassing behavior.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough both men who were standing there with me told me I was wrong to think that she was doing so out of a desire to flirt and that I was overreacting and that the fact that she was practically throwing herself over the bar at my date was all in my head.

I suspect I'm still angry about it.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Were either of these men the date in question?

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Good guess.

[avram]

Are we certain the bar was supposed to serve drinks? It's starting to sound like this was a harassment bar, where you go to get sexually harassed. Sort of like the Argument Sketch from Monty Python, but with harassment instead of arguments. It'd explain everything.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

You know, that would explain a few things, but no, they also were serving drinks. In fact, they won the 'Best Drink' award for their hot buttered rum, which they were campaigning for heavily, and pecunium was able to obtain sortilege from them, which he was gracious enough to share with me, despite the extremely bad reaction I had to our treatment, which mostly took the form of being really upset.

I think I like it better as an insult bar. Perhaps we should host a party like that someday. I mean, like, on purpose.

[avram]

pecunium was able to obtain sortilege from them

That was a bit confusing till I looked it up.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I can see why. That's a great disambiguation page. I particularly like the form of fortune telling.

[avram]

But it's not the greatest disambiguation page.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Now is that greatest in the sense of 'with the most gravity' or 'most awesome'? I think we're gonna need to disambiguate that ...

[jl8e]

The latter, surely.

This one wins for the former.

[batyatoon]

Wikidaleks: "DIS-AM-BI-GU-ATE! DIS-AM-BI-GU-ATE!"

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Hot buttered rum? I'm trying to figure out if mnemex and I ever made that party. The drink sounds familiar, but none of the rest of it does.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

The woman tending bar was wearing a blue gown and a Queen Elizabeth II style mini-crown on her head. I don't remember what the other bartenders were wearing, but they all seem to have been wearing tiaras on the Commonwealth theme.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'm fairly sure we were at that party at some point on some night. Walling wasn't there, but there were tiara-clad folk pushing for votes on their drinks. We took the maple walnut thing and the cream thing that might have been the buttered rum. Not usually to my taste, but very helpful when I made the mistake of assuming mnemex's habanero infused Amaretto wasn't any more dangerous that the Brotherhood Without Banners's ghost pepper infused Master of Arms.

mnemex kept calling that party "Brotherhood Without Borders" -- I have a feeling we're not the only ones slipping up now and again.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The cream thing was based on "ice-cider" and cream. It was what she told tirerim and I we needed to come and try because it was, "better than Sortilege."

It wasn't.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Well, no. As I said, for me, its primary use was counteracting the Amaretto.

[akawil]

As opposed to "Doctors Without Banners", which is clearly a Doctor Who / Avengers crossover.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I'd totally watch that.