Reading up on the whole "Hey, let's turn con spaces into public grope spaces! Only for people who want it I swear" thing today, I'm struck again (and again, and again) by how many people really don't think about safety at cons.

Trufax: cons are no more safe than a public library.

Trufax: people get assaulted (raped, battered, etc.) in public libraries, just like any other public space.

1. Most cons are open membership.

If you can fill out a form and write a check, you can attend just about any con. You get a little badge that identifies you as a member, and that badge gets you access to parties (most of which serve alcohol) and a sense of mutual recognition among your con-going peers. Anybody can get a badge and become a member.

That badge does not turn a stranger into a friend, or a spiritual twin, or a confidante. It doesn't even necessarily signify a mutual interest in science fiction topics. (Witness all the non-SFF spouses who skip the panels and hang out in the bar.) It just means you have $40 (or $200, or howevermuch) to spare and the ability to provide a home address.

The badge by itself does not signal safety.

2. Most cons feature people with varying social skillsets and varying intents.

The tradition of cons is as gathering spaces for the nerds of this earth. The rejected, the alienated, the weird, the dorky: we bend over backwards to be welcoming to people who might not feel welcomed in the outside world. That's part of the basis of the con gathering.

And guess what: some of those people are alienated in the outside world because they have crappy social skills. Cons are tolerant spaces, but tolerant spaces plus crappy social skills can sometimes lead to unsafe situations.

That goes double when alcohol is in play, and triple when there are things like unescorted minors at the con. Not everybody knows how to respect other people, and a tiny minority might be actively predatory.

Even if you're an adult, it is no less possible to find yourself in an unsafe situation at-con than it would be at a frat party. Probably more possible, since con hotels are ten times the size of a frat house.

3. Most cons take place in open spaces.

Your average con takes place at a hotel with convention space. I've never seen an hotel be completely taken over by a con: there are always other guests in the lobby, in the halls, in the stairwells.

And if you want an image of unsafety at-con, how's this one: a con-member alone, more than a couple of beers down, late at night so not many people are around, trying to climb the stairs to sleep off the night's excitement. If your heart doesn't clutch in fear at the noise of a stranger following her up the stairs, then you haven't thought through what "safety" means.

Hotels don't screen for craziness among the people who use their services. Most hotels don't even have much in the way for stopping a stranger from walking in off the street and roaming the hotel hallways (to say nothing of the hotel bar). You are no safer in a hotel hallway than you are in a hallway at the mall. Just because you're surrounded by people you feel like you know (see 2), and you feel like you have a lot in common with (see 1), you cannot be sure of everybody in the space. Hotels and cons just don't have that kind of security.

4. Con comms cannot be your safety panacea.

Con comms do try to plan ahead to reduce potential danger areas. They field queries and requests from members, they handle awkward situations, they might ban repeat offenders outright. But they can't be everywhere.

I'm not even sure all cons have explicitly written harassment policies. Certainly those policies are not posted on the walls of the con space (I presume those cons with policies print them in the backs of of con-booklets, or similar). And while con workers can have a huge effect in creating the kind of mood where safety is looked after, they don't have police powers, and may even be reluctant to step in for fear of breaking the illusion of a big, happy con-community.

We're not a big, happy con-community.

I go to cons with people whose politics I can't stand, people I personally loathe, people with B.O. like you wouldn't believe, people who don't know a polite brush-off from a hole in the wall. If you have ever in your life attended a con, surely you have seen some dumb asshole wearing a badge just like yours that you would never in your life want to be associated with.

I also go to cons with people I like and trust and respect, and sometimes with people I love deeply and with whom I would entrust my life.

Never assume that the con is composed entirely of your friends. It's not. People of every stripe come to cons, and plenty of those stripes are unpleasant, unhealthy, unwise, or unsafe.

The prevailing myth, as james_angove reminded me today, is that SFF fans are better people: are wiser, are more advanced, are more respectful than any given mundane on the street. If you don't know that that's a myth, please don't go to cons. If that myth were actually true, then SFF comms would not be so wanky and famous SFF people would not act like assholes on the internet.

Trufax: famous SFF people act like assholes on the internet all the time.

Trufax: Fandom is full of foolish, mendacious, mean, predatory, clueless, grabbyhands, and self-deluding people, because fandom is full of people.

It is not in the interest of your safety to assume otherwise.