Thread by @AlexandraErin

I'm glad I saw this (although I'm never happy when this guy's name came up) because it reminded me of a term that I coined that is relevant here:

The Sad Boner Confessional.

https://twitter.com/q_aurelius/status/1276153040832212994

And a thing about this point in particular is that writing books... yes, there are advantages to being able to participate in cons, but more so than most forms of entertainment media?

These guys could have careers and not *be present*.

https://twitter.com/LeeFlower/status/1276187707497238528

If you upset the punchbowl (or leave something unpleasant in it) you can be disinvited from the party but literally no one can stop you from writing and publishing books.

The names of the authors don't belong to some production company that can prevent them from using them on future works. There's not likely to be many rights issues that prevent them from writing future works based on their original properties.

As I was saying in regards to the copyright dispute with the IA... writers own their work. Outside of specific work-for-hire style stuff written for branded properties, writers own their work. An angry publisher could tie up reprints and distribution of older stuff, temporarily.

But, anyway.

The Sad Boner Confessional is when a Good Guy Comes To Grips With The Fact That He Did Bad Things and he wants you to know how very sad he is.

And I call them Sad Boner Confessionals because go figure, most of the bad things these good guys did revolve around women and their actions or relationships with them.

Some years ago a very florid man who styles himself a "new paradigm storyteller" or some similarly happy horse leavings wrote a very discursive and introspective, achronological essay called "Love Will Be The Death Of Us" about how he'd ruined his marriage.

How did he ruin his marriage? Through infidelity, emotional abuse, manipulation, and that thing that guys do where they coerce and cajole their wife into an open relationship and then discover too late how good they had it and how little their partner needs them.

You can find a link to it here, at the top of my satire on the whole sad, sick thing, if you want to read either or both of them.

My version has a more honest title.
medium.com/@alexandraerin…

(Remember when I used to primarily be a satirist? Yeah, the Trump regime kind of killed that.)

HS, referenced in the tweet at the top of this thread, wrote a more concise but even more jaw-dropping Sad Boner Confessional on his blog where he described how he'd consoled a friend who accidentally let a dog out by telling them about the time he tried to murder his girlfriend.

I can be accused of leaving out context (they were both drug addicts and it was actually an attempted murder-suicide) but I am not exaggerating this. He wrote a very thoughtful-sounding very feminist-guy-style musing about how he had tried to murder his girlfriend.

And his point here was "Hey, bud, we're all only human. We all make mistakes and we need to forgive ourselves for that."

And the oopsie he compared it to was someone watching a dog for someone and letting it out.

And when his essay was first published, I think it was on his blog originally and then picked up by Vox or somewhere like that, presented to a sympathetic audience who admired this great, kind, wise, sensitive man and his writing, oh. They were impressed with his vulnerability.

So vulnerable, so sensitive, so thoughtful, so honest. Brutal honesty. Merciless self-inventory.

But when the essay escaped those sheltered coastal waters to the wider internet, of course we responded: "...you did what now?"

And his blog actually had more essays in which he'd basically mined things he'd *done to* past partners and women in his life, things that had *happened* to them, for his sensitive he-flections.

And a lot of his fans were shocked, SHOCKED at how suddenly people who didn't understand this great man was one of the good guys were ~*taking things out of context*~ and not recognizing how much he'd ~*learned*~ and ~*grown*~.

I mean, how could we judge him for dating his own students when, as part of Doing The Work, he had helped his institution write a policy to clarify that this was Bad, Actually? Also didn't we know he was an addict?

AS PER USUAL, though... there were people (many of them Black women) who had along spoken with force and clarity and very specific details about how he had used his Sensitive Feminist Guy credentials to manipulate and abuse, and been ignored at best and frequently attacked.

Anyway.

I keep seeing people saying that the apologies and explanations being offered right now are well-written and that this makes sense because they're written by writers.

My experience of them is a little different.

As a writer myself, I can't help notice that most of the writers I follow are not terribly taken with their efforts. To me, they seem a bit overwritten. They're being written for an audience. The fact that they're crafted rings out pretty strongly.

I don't know. I already mused on another thread about what the actual difference between someone saying "I'm listening and learning now." and someone who has learned that those are the words to say, and the answer, from the outside, is nothing. We can't know another's heart.

One of the men, in response to speculation that his somewhat famous mother (this is not a sleight on her, no more than MAYBE five authors are more than "semi-famous", she's certainly connected and knowledgeable) is responsible for his career, has opined that talent matters more.

And we certainly hear this all the time. Authors who can't get to conventions and can't do the workshops and such aren't ultimately missing much because Good Manuscripts Always Find A Home and Talent Will Out.

Under this theory of reality, nobody can take away a career. Maybe take away access to some of the faster ramps to getting noticed, but an author who's already established ought to be able to tick away at the keys in the privacy of their own home.

Even if they're just throwing books up in the online stores themselves, those books will still be linked to their names and their previous works, findable by their fans.

Certainly many authors who never had the same advantages that they did have done so, and the truism that applies to all self-publishing and crowdfunding applies here: it's easier and more lucrative if you're already an established figure with a good career.

The point I'm circling around here is that writing is the form of mass media where it is EASIEST, most financially and artistically feasible, to do the work alone by yourself, without requiring other people to work with you.

It's easier and can be better if you don't.

But again, the world is full of authors who can't make it to conventions. Financial reasons. Lack of accessibility. Travel requirements. The fact that cons are giant fun parties for a few and varying levels of physically unsafe for others.

So the thing that would be most likely to eventually convince me that these guys are committed to Doing The Work... and the thing that would be a safer outcome for everybody if they're unwilling or incapable of changing... is actually very doable.

The thing about an apology -- and even if Myke Cole's 2018 one was legitimate and if he had made a lot of progress since then (which is not a thing I can say happened) this would be true -- is that if it's sincere you have to be prepared for it to change nothing.

"We have to leave space for people to change!" I mean, it's nice if they have that space, but we have to leave space for people to grieve and heal and keep themselves safe. Space for the ones who hurt them to change is a lower-tier need than that.

And part of the personal growth that this change would represent is understanding that there may be people who can never trust them. Not saying those words. Living them.

Living the understanding that some people won't trust you means giving *them* space. Not putting them on the spot with emotional protestations that you don't deserve their trust or respect, not repeating the words over and over again.

If I were to put on my social analysis hat, I would say... I mean, if I were a peer of any of these men and they asked me what they should do, and my only motivation was helping *them*, I would tell them: the best thing you can do for yourself is go away.

A big part of the dynamic of what people call "cancel culture" is that when someone hurts another person or group of people and then persists in flailing around trying to do what they think is damage control, they aggravate the injuries.

These guys could write, "I don't like who I am in these settings and I don't want that to be me. I have a lot of work to do on myself and to be honest, I'm not sure if it'll ever be done. Because I cannot trust myself right now and I cannot be trusted, I'll stay away."

Obviously they would say more than that but that was fitting the key points in a single tweet.

And would they be sincere or insincere? Who knows. We don't have sincerity meters. We're not telepaths. We cannot weigh a person's heart.

But if they did that, they could turn around and bury themselves in the actual making-books part of their work and stop doing damage to their careers and reputation and brand and self-image, and stop doing damage to the people and communities they're hurting.

And would it suck for them?

I don't know, any more than I would know if it's sincere. Maybe they'd find out that they really *don't* like who they are being big-ish fish in the ponds of the fandom carnival scene.

Maybe their careers would suffer, or maybe they'd find that when they cut out all of that stuff their writing takes off in a way it never has before. I don't know. I don't actually care. The outcome, vis-a-vis them, is not the concern here.

I'm just pointing out, in a very disapassionate way, that if you look at the position they have put themselves in, and look at their options, this is the best thing they could do for themselves.

And if that's how they lived their professional lives from now on, for the rest of their lives a thing would happen when someone would squee over their latest and someone nearby would go, "Oh, haven't you heard? He harassed my friend. Said he'd like to piss on her."

And that is a consequence. And I have friends who disagree with me on the nature of consequence vs. punishment but that person would not have been there at the behest of a grand council of social justice. There's no plan. There's no sentence.

When you tell a professional acquaintance out of the blue and as part of "aggressively hitting on her" that you'd like to piss on her, that is a thing that has happened. It cannot unhappen. And people who know about it, or hear about it, will continue to feel ways about it.

But if these guys disappear from the convention circuit, quit mouthing words and just say "Sorry, bye." and keep writing, you know, there will also be people who have never heard of them. Years from now they'll get invited on radio shows or podcasts or whatever's after podcasts.

The guy who tried to murder his girlfriend and then told the internet under the guise of a ruthless self-inventory and plea for self-compassion will always have done that.

Leaving room for change doesn't prevent that.

The flipside of the fact that even famous authors aren't famous means that not just most of these guys' potential future customers but probably most of their past and current ones don't even know about this and won't ever find out about it.

And the part of me that thinks I'd be really good at PR crisis management wishes someone close to them was shouting at them that the more they try to finesse the situation the closer they come to the day where it makes a splash in The Real News, and they lose a lot of that.

There is no fixing this situation. There is no winning move on any side of this equation because what was done cannot be undone and they'll always be the ones who did it.

But they could stop doing ongoing harm and prevent future harm, and that would be best for them, too.

I said earlier in the week that I am tired, just deeply tired. Also angry and disappointed, but also tired of being those things.

Why do people never understand they can just stop and just leave? Even if you're not convinced it's the right move, try it.

Tell yourself you're taking a year to work on the next book(s) without distraction if that's what you have to tell yourself to fight the impulse to Make People See That You're Different Now.

Worst case scenario you got a break and some breathing room.

Even from a purely self-interested point of view, there's nothing better to do right now. Certainly from the point of view of accountability and responsibility and growth and change and the love of tiny little otters in adorable hats, there's nothing better to do.

Stop with the Sad Boner Confessionals, stop with the repeated explications of how you're humiliated and crushed or how you're listening and learning, just stop. Make like Marvin K. Mooney and please go now.

There is no force on earth that can stop an established white guy author from continuing having a career as an author. The tools are there. The technology is there. And I doubt either of these gentlemen are actually going to lose all points of sympathetic professional contact.

And if anyone is wondering why my focus is on telling them what they should do and not figuring out what the community should do about them... I mean, there is not one single community, for this purpose. No grand council. No United Federation of Literary Conventions.

I don't know if this is a conclusion or if I have a conclusion. Like I said, I'm just tired.

Just to add to this thread - I have alluded to the possibility of them coming back to cons at some future point, but I want to stress how much this is because I am not in charge of what they do or what cons do. I'm not advocating for their public rehabilitation and return.

In terms of things that are maybe doable, what I think needs to happen is we completely overhaul convention culture to the point where if they do come back, it's not the atmosphere they may be looking for and no one, no matter who they are or who they know or what they wrote...

...talks to, handles, or treats fellow con-going guests and members and professionals and facility staff and passersby in these ways without swift and permanent consequences.

To be very clear I'm also fine if, as part of this overhaul of convention culture, conventions make decisions about people who have previously harmed other people at their convention. But there's no way to make that happen across the board, and an uphill slog for each con.

If I knew these guys in particular were just not coming back to any convention for the indefinite foreseeable future everybody could work on preventing future harm from *anybody* who shows up rather than trying to prevent specific individuals from showing up.

I am not in charge of anybody or anything, I am the gadfly on the outskirt of many circles, and from my very tired point of view, the fastest path to the greatest reduction of harm is if they just stop showing up.

That's it.

I see people trying to figure out what the appropriate period for absence would be, and. How. How would you even know what that is? Again, if we could just up and banish them, it wouldn't be a *sentence* where oh as a penalty you forfeit access to the fun place you did the things

If the idea is that they're going to learn and change to grow and get better, how do you look at them and go, "Yep. That's about a twelve month job." or "Five years is enough for anyone to stop treating other human beings as objects, obstacles, and opportunities."

My idea of allowing for the possibility of growth and change would be... I mean, I think one of the biggest acts of maturation is realizing that it's possible for you to screw something up so badly you've ruined it forever.

If you hurt one person, that person might forgive you and you might repair your relationship with them. If you hurt two people, that's two "mights". If you hurt four people... well, and so on.

If you hurt a lot of people in a community with those people's friends and family...

...and people with similar vulnerabilities and fears and experiences to the people you hurt, at a bunch of different places across a bunch of different years...

Even if it's possible to know within yourself that you're different now and won't ever do those things again.

The thing about leaving is that it's not a permanent act. It doesn't have to be forever. And I point this out mainly because I think it might be easier to do with that in mind.

But if anybody asks me what real change would look like.

It would mean never coming back.

"Room for growth" to me is not "Oh I healed my Bad Person defects and now I can come back and have fun in the place I was denied in penance."

Growth would mean recognizing they burnt this thing to the ground and figuring out something else to do.

Doesn't mean no fun, doesn't mean no fulfillment, doesn't mean no future community.

Sometimes you break something and you can't put it back together. Sometimes you lose something and you can't get it back.

This stance is not about room for forgiveness. Anybody who was harmed by another person can forgive them at any time they're willing and able. Forgiveness doesn't mean restoration of trust or relationship, but even when it does, that's an individual choice.

Anyway. I think I'm off Twitter for a few hours. I didn't plan on spending whole days on this and tired as I am I'm afraid I'm probably just repeating myself a lot.

I just tried to write a summary of my points but if I was good at summing things up I'd have fewer threads and more individual tweets.

My big point, though. If these two guys were either rationally self-interested, OR sincere and compassionate, then either way, they would leave.