Jim C. Hines's Blog, page 107

Photobombing Cat

Wrote a long blog post. Torn about whether or not to post it. So for now, have a photobombing cat (source):

Guest of Honor Recommendations

I’ve had several conventions ask me for Guest of Honor suggestions lately, so I figured I’d do some public brainstorming. The following are some folks I think would make excellent SF/F convention or conference guests.

Nnedi Okorafor : Her books have won multiple awards, including the World Fantasy Award. I’ve read, loved, and reviewed several of her books here. She’s also a professor of creative writing at the University of Buffalo.
Amal El-Mohtar : El-Mohtar is an award-winning poet, editor of Goblin Fruit, and a Nebula-nominated author of more than a dozen well-reviewed short stories. She’s a thoughtful and outspoken member of the SF/F community with a broad range of experience.
: Liu has won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy … basically, the dude has ALL THE AWARDS for his short fiction, and his first novel will be coming out in 2015. He also writes poetry, and has done some translation of Chinese fiction into English. I would love to see more discussion of translated fiction at conventions.
Charles A. Tan : Tan was the associate editor for the award-nominated World SF Blog. He’s edited several collections of Phillipine speculative fiction. He’s very active in SF/F, contributing to sites such as SF Signal, Fantasy Magazine, the Shirley Jackson Awards, and more.
Mary Robinette Kowal : I love Kowal’s fiction. (Review here.) She’s also won the Campbell Award for best new writer and the Hugo Award for best short story. In addition to fiction, she does professional audio book narration, and has a second career as a puppeteer. She was SFWA vice-president, and has served as art director for two different magazines. Having worked with her, I can confirm that she’s an excellent presenter and performer.
Kameron Hurley : Hurley’s novels have been nominated for the Nebula and Arthur C. Clarke awards. She’s currently on the Hugo Award ballot for her essay, We Have Always Fought, making her the first person ever (I believe) to be nominated for the Hugo for a blog post.
Keith R. A. DeCandido : I don’t think I’ve ever attended a smaller/local-type convention that featured a tie-in writer as author guest of honor. Why is that? DeCandido has written for Starcraft, Buffy, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Farscape, Firefly, and more. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want the chance to pick this man’s brain at a convention!
Aliette de Bodard : De Bodard has won the Nebula, Locus, BSFA, and Writers of the Future awards, and has been nominated for several others. She was a contributor to the World SF Blog, and her personal blog is on my Must Read list.
Tansy Rayner Roberts : Roberts has at least five SF/F novels in print, and also writes crime fiction under a pseudonym. She’s won the Aurealis Award, the Ditmar, the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, and is part of the award-winning Galactic Suburbia podcast.
Mary Anne Mohanraj : Founded Strange Horizons, one of the first pro-paying online SF/F zines. Founded the Speculative Literature Foundation. Her bibliography includes edited works, short fiction collections, novels, poetry, and more.
Nisi Shawl : Tiptree award-winning author for her short fiction collection Filter House. Shawl is also the co-author with Cynthia Ward of Writing the Other. She also reviews SF/F for The Seattle Times, and is a board member for Clarion West.
Charlie Jane Anders : Anders has received the Hugo, Lambda, and Emperor Norton awards. In addition to being a critically acclaimed author, she’s also co-editor of the popular site io9 and organizes the Writers With Drinks series.
Malinda Lo : Lo writes YA science fiction and fantasy, and a number of people have noted the need for more YA guests of honor. Lo is also the cofounder of Diversity in YA, and has written many well-researched blog posts about diversity and representation.

Who else would you like to see as convention guests of honor? I’m particularly interested in suggestions for folks who — for whatever reason — might otherwise be overlooked.

Cool Stuff Friday

I’m gonna start with a rather self-serving link to Sword & Laser, which just posted an Author Spotlight with me. Personally, I think this qualifies as a Cool Thing, particularly the little whiteboard-animated me in the beginning of the video.

Epic cat-butt-wiggling.
Adventures in Knitting. Swords and monsters and big fluffy knitted sweaters.
Star Wars in Miniature. I want to take pictures like this!!!
Fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay is helping to fundraise for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Very cool!
How it Should Have Ended takes on The LEGO Movie. Worth it for the closing Batman song alone

Diversity, Appropriation, and Writing the Other

I talked about representation in my keynote at Pikes Peak Writers Conference, and also participated on a panel about diversity with Chuck Wendig, Gail Carriger, and Carol Berg. One of the questions that came up during the panel and afterward was about the line between writing diverse stories and cultural appropriation, and whether there were stories and characters it’s just not okay for someone to write about?

My first response is that I hope I’m not the first person you asked. I’ve thought and read and talked about these issues a fair amount, but coming to the straight white guy for any sort of authoritative answer about appropriation is all kinds of problematic. I strongly suggest starting with resources like:

Should White People Write About People of Color? by Malinda Lo
Appropriate Cultural Appropriation, by Nisi Shawl
Writing the Other, by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward
Cultural Appropriation, by Aliette de Bodard
On the topic of cultural appropriation in fantasy, what IS the line…? from the MedievalPOC Tumblr
Diversity in Fantasy  Mine, by Cindy Pon
And in a shameless plug for my authors, I also encourage folks to check out Invisible

I do believe stories should reflect the diversity of our world. To do otherwise suggests a lack of imagination, a barren and narrow vision. It’s lazy storytelling.

It’s important to write about characters and cultures that are different from our own. It’s even more important to do so respectfully and well, to write fully-realized characters instead of caricatures and stereotypes and tokens. That means paying attention and listening. It also means taking the risk that someone will tell you that you got it wrong. Sure, that can be hard to hear, but welcome to writing. I’ve been on the receiving end of such criticism more than once. It’s not fun, but most of the time — if I don’t let my ego and defensiveness get in the way — I come away with a better understanding than before. I come away a better writer. And shouldn’t we always be working to improve?

When I was speaking about diversity and appropriation at the conference, one of the things that came to mind was Kevin Smith’s movie Chasing Amy. I remember years ago talking to a bisexual friend who was upset by the movie. Among other things, she said, “He’s trying to tell our stories.”

In Chasing Amy, our protagonist Holden falls for a woman named Alyssa, who is identified as a lesbian. She ends up falling for him, and the movie tells the story of their relationship, including Alyssa’s conflicts over Holden, and backlash from other lesbians. When I first watched the movie, I saw it as entertainment. My friend saw her life and experiences and identity being misunderstood and  misrepresented by a man who wasn’t a part of that community.

It’s the difference between “I want to include you in my stories” and “I want to tell your stories.”

Another facet of the conversation: when talking about autism in fiction, the titles I see people recommending again and again are often written by neurotypical authors. I wouldn’t say that automatically means these authors are appropriating the stories of people with autism. Some of those stories are very thoughtful and well-researched. But it troubles me to see whose voices are being promoted, and whose are being ignored. And while some of those stories may be well-researched, others are not. They portray a shallow understanding of autism, reinforcing myths and cliches for the entertainment and consumption of neurotypical readers.

That’s another piece of what appropriation means to me. Appropriation is when I take a part of your identity, your culture, your history, and I use it to create a story that isn’t for you.

In Boy Scouts, we had a service group called the Order of the Arrow, which was supposed to be based on Native American ceremonies and cultures. We dressed in headdresses and regalia, we donned face paint, we performed our own ceremonies… Not once can I recall seeing a Native American at an Order of the Arrow event. Not once did we really stop to talk about the cultures whose trappings we were playing with, or the meaning of those trappings.

I think most of us took OA seriously, and the group did a lot of good service work. But we also appropriated aspects of Native American cultures and wore them like costumes from a Halloween store.

We’ve all read stories that do the same thing. They play with the “shiny bits” of a culture without respect or understanding. They perpetuate the exoticization and fetishization of the other.

I don’t have any easy answers, but I think it’s on all of us to continually work to do better. For authors, that means writing honestly and respectfully about the world. It means doing our research. It also means listening, and not just to me. If you’ve read this entire post, thank you, but please don’t stop here.

And if you have additional resources or thoughts, please feel free to share them in the comments. Thank you.

Akata Witch, by Nnedi Okorafor

I finished reading Nnedi Okorafor‘s YA fantasy Akata Witch [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] on the flight to Colorado last week. I then recommended the book to a number of different people at the conference. It’s fun, interesting, fast-paced, and just plain good. From the publisher:

Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she’s albino. She’s a terrific athlete, but can’t go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits. And then she discovers something amazing — she is a “free agent,” with latent magical power. Soon she’s part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal who knows magic too?

I’ve seen a few reviews that describe the book as being inspired by or too similar to Harry Potter. Both are coming-of-age stories about children who discover they have magic. Both protagonists explore a hidden magical community, and ultimately, they both have to face a rather terrifying Big Bad. But none of these elements are new or unique to Harry Potter, and Okorafor’s story and worldbuilding are a refreshing change from most “magical teenager” stories.

I loved the characters, all of whom have distinctive personalities and voices, from Chichi’s bluntness to Sasha’s rebelliousness and American sensibilities to the different mentors and teachers Sunny meets. I also appreciated the excerpts from Fast Facts for Free Agents, a rather condescending but informative book about people like Sunny, who have non-magical parents. The book-in-a-book does a nice job of helping orient the reader while doing the same for Sunny.

It’s not all magic and soccer and fun, of course. Sunny’s world is harsh and unforgiving. The artistic wasp who creates a new sculpture each day will also sting you if you’re not suitably appreciative. Sunny risks being caned for disobeying the rules of magic, and her lessons are potentially deadly. At home, Sunny lives with an abusive father (making this the second YA book in a row I’ve read with an abusive father.) And then there’s Black Hat, a man who’s been murdering children, and whose magic is far stronger than that of Sunny or her friends…

The book is steeped in Nigerian culture and folklore, and recognizes real-world tensions and conflicts without ever feeling preachy. There’s a brief reference to 419 scams, acknowledgement of racism and prejudice in Nigeria and the U.S., and more.

My only nitpicks would be that the final confrontation with Black Hat felt a little quick, and I was disappointed to not see more of a resolution between Sunny and her father. But neither of these things took away from my enjoyment.

Like I said at the beginning of this review, I recommended this book a number of times over the weekend, and I’ll recommend it again. It’s a good story, well-written, with great characters and magic. And I’m happy to say that Okorafor has confirmed there will be additional books in this series.

Also recommended: A review of Akata Witch that discusses the cultural context and references in ways I’m not able to do.

A Point on Frozen and False Feminism

Dani Colman has an article called The Problem with False Feminism, in which she talks about the movie Frozen and why 1) she hated it and 2) it isn’t a “feminist” movie. It’s a long, well-researched article, and Colman makes a lot of good points. I don’t agree with 100% of what she says, but I agree with a lot of it.

There’s one particular point I want to talk about, though. Colman discusses the praise being heaped on Frozen, and responds to it point by point. Toward the end, she gets to the following:

We get to hear the words, “You can’t marry a man you just met!”

Oh, and do we ever. It’s actually one of the few moments in the film I enjoyed: when Anna falls over herself with enthusiasm for her whirlwind engagement to Hans, and Elsa reacts with unfettered horror. We’ve established that Anna is an idiot, but at least the voice of reason is somewhere in the room. We later hear the same words echoed by Kristoff — a lot — and, in a different form, by Hans himself when he reveals his true colours.

It’s a lambasting of the Disney princess tradition, and theoretically a fairly incisive one. You shouldn’t marry a man you just met. It’s unquestionably stupid, and poking fun at the fact that Disney has been not-so-subtly encouraging that approach for decades is a smart move. I mean, come on: how many Disney princesses or leading ladies have fallen in love at first sight with a man they barely know?

Four. That’s how many. Rather than boring you with more tables, I’ll just name them: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora and Ariel. Disney ladies actually tend towards quite extended courtships, and the men are more likely to fall in love at first sight than the women are…

Fair enough. But there’s another message here, and it isn’t just about falling for a man you just met. It’s about the fact that the charming fellow you just met — the man who flatters you, says all the right things, and makes you feel so amazing — turns out to be flat-out evil.

Welcome to the reality of domestic violence. Unlike most Disney villains, batterers don’t come with their own foreboding soundtrack. They don’t sneer like Scar and Gaston, or twirl their mustaches like Jafar. They’re not openly slimy like Clayton.

They’re charming. They’ve learned how to don that mask, how to flatter and manipulate and say just the right thing. They look completely normal. They deliberately seek out victims they think they can control … and what better target than socially awkward, isolated, hopeful Anna?

It’s no coincidence that “Quick Involvement” is one of the potential characteristics of an abusive relationship. This does not mean everyone who had a whirlwind romance is in an abusive relationship, by the way. Only that this tends to be one aspect of such relationships. It’s one of many tactics and strategies batterers use.

I’ve been talking lately about the power and importance of story. Story is how we relate to and understand the world. Whatever else Disney did or didn’t do in Frozen, they provided a story to help understand how what starts out as a perfect relationship can turn into a nightmare. How someone like Hans can be so cruel behind closed doors, but play the perfect gentleman as soon as he sets foot in public.

Whatever else the movie did or didn’t get right, I’m grateful for that story.

Back from PPWC

I got back from the Pikes Peak Writers Conference just before midnight last night. That was one of the most fun events I’ve been to in ages. It helps that Colorado is freaking gorgeous, but the conference staff did an amazing job of putting this together and making sure things went smoothly.

Both my workshop on getting through the first draft and my keynote speech (talking about representation) seemed to go over well. (And the bookstore sold lots of my books, which is always a nice bonus ). I think the best part was just getting to sit and talk to people.

Panels went well too. Our discussion of diversity should eventually show up as a SF Signal podcast.

I wish I’d brought the good camera along, but you’ll just have to settle for iPhone pics instead. Fortunately, some of them turned out quite nice.

Pictures are behind the cut…

First up, we have the famous Chuck Wendig showing off one of the special drinks created for the event: this is “Goblin Wiz.”

I believe the instructions here were to “look thoughtful.”

Bonnie Hagan was kind enough to take me to Garden of the Gods between events…

And finally, another photo of Pike’s Peak, from when I first arrived in Colorado Springs.

Verdict: Five stars. Would keynote again.

Pikes Peak Writers Conference Schedule

This weekend, I’m off to the Pikes Peak Writers Conference in Colorado, where I’ll be joining Chuck Wendig, Gail Carriger, and Hank Phillippi Ryan as Keynote Speakers for the event.

I’ll also be presenting a workshop on getting through your first draft, doing some panels, and chasing Chuck around with a cupcake gun I borrowed from Delilah Dawson. Supersonic chocolate cupcakes OF DEATH!

Anyway, here’s the schedule, for anyone who might want to stop by. And if you don’t want to stop by, that’s fine. I DIDN’T WANT YOU AT MY PANEL ANYWAY! ::Sniff::

Friday

2:30 – Read & Critique 123, Aspen Leaf (with Terri Bischoff, Carlisle Webber)
4:00 – Workshop: Getting Through Draft One, Salon BC

Saturday

9:10 – Mythbusting Keynotes (Q&A Session), Aspen Leaf (with Gail Carriger, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Chuck Wendig)
11:45 – Lunch and my Keynote Speech, Ballroom
1:15 – Booksigning, Aspen Leaf
3:10 – Diversity: It Isn’t Just for Breakfast Anymore, Aspen Leaf (with Chuck Wendig, Carol Berg, Amy Boggs. Facilitator:
Patrick Hester)

7 – Zebulon Awards Dinner, Ballroom

This should be a lot of fun. How do I know? Well, among other reasons, it’s because the bar will be serving Brass Goggles, Primetime, Goblin Wiz, and F-Bomb:

From left to right:

Gail Carriger’s Brass Goggles: 1 1/2 OZ Scotch Whiskey, 2 dash bitters, 1 OZ club soda.
Hank Phillippi Ryan’s Primetime Martini: 1 1/2 OZ Vodka, 1 1/2 OZ Sweet & Sour, 1/2 OZ Grenadine
Jim C. Hines’ Goblin Wiz: 1/2 OZ Midori, 1/2 OZ Tequila, 1/2 OZ Sweet & Sour, On the Rocks
Chuck Wendig’s F-Bomb: 1 OZ Vodka, 1 OZ Red Bull, 1 OZ Cranberry, On the Rocks

As a general rule, I don’t drink, but I may need to make an exception this weekend

Hugo Wars, Part CCXVIII

I debated whether to join the conversation about the recently announced Hugo Awards Ballot. I eventually said the following on Twitter, and figured that would be the end of it for me:

I know awards have always had an element of popularity contest to them, and that any system can be played. (1/5)
Likewise, there have always been people who want to cheapen them for jealousy, bitterness, politics, attention, or whatever. (2/5)
Call me naïve, but I want the Hugos to be about the best authors, artists, & editors in our field. That’s what I’ll be reading for. (3/5)
Yeah, there’s been some annoying hypocrisy and chest-thumping. There are also some amazing people and works on the Hugo ballot. (4/5)
I’m not interested in letting anyone turn the Hugos into their personal political statement. I’m interested in celebrating awesomeness (5/5)

I didn’t originally plan to say more than that, but I’ve been reading along, and feeling more and more bummed about the fallout. So I finally decided I needed to get a few more things out. I’ll certainly understand if you’re burnt out on Hugo-related posts and choose to skip this one.

In an ideal world, I think the Hugo ballot would reflect the best work of the previous calendar year. No campaigning necessary, no politics, no grudges, no systemic handicapping of any groups or individuals, etc. I suspect we can all agree we don’t live in an ideal world.

Recommendations and word-of-mouth: People recommending things they’ve read/seen and loved is a good thing. It’s one of the most important factors in the success of any author or artist. Whether it’s one story you’re passionate about and want everyone to vote for, or a full list of stories and books and shows and editors, saying, “Hey, this stuff is really, really cool!” is kind of what fandom is all about, yes?

Eligibility lists: I think Amal El-Mohtar had a very good post about the importance and value of sharing your list of award-eligible work with the world. I know there are some people who believe this sort of thing is tacky, and any whisper of “Hey, I wrote this thing that’s eligible” counts as campaigning and is a huge insult to the spirit of the awards. Obviously, I disagree, both for the excellent reasons Amal mentioned, and because to be blunt, I can’t remember all of the good stuff I read or saw last year. These reminders are helpful to me as a potential voter.

Campaigning for yourself: When do you cross the line from making voters aware of your work to actively campaigning for it? I don’t know, and I suspect that line is different for everyone. I personally find it tacky when people email me unsolicited copies of their work. But how many eligibility posts and reminders are too much? It depends on a lot of individual and larger factors. For example, I’ve noticed a trend where female creators get attacked for too much self-promotion a lot faster than men do. It’s a mess, and I don’t pretend to have an answer here.

Voting for the work: Nowhere in the Hugo rules, or in other award rules that I’m aware of, does it say you must consider only the work when casting your ballot. I don’t think there’s be any realistic way to enforce doing so, short of somehow removing author names from everything published in a given year and not crediting authors until after the awards season. But ideally, yes, I think we should be voting for the work.

Now, I’ll admit I get a kick out of seeing my friends on the ballot. I wouldn’t vote for them purely because they’re my friends, but given that I’m more likely to be reading stuff by them, those friendships probably do have at least an indirect impact on my nominations. And I understand the devil-on-the-shoulder whispering, “Ooh, if person X gets on the ballot, that’s really gonna piss off person Y. Cool!”

That said, if you’re voting purely or primarily because you want to make a certain group’s heads explode, as has been stated recently? Yeah, you’re pretty much an asshole, and you’re cheapening the experience for the authors you voted for. See, most authors like winning awards because they wrote something awesome, not because they’re being used as a tool so you can piss on a group you don’t like. But there’s nothing in the rules prohibiting you from being an asshole, either.

Likewise, trying to get on the ballot through a false victimhood narrative? That strikes me as tacky as hell. But again, it’s not against the rules, and human history shows how effective it can be to win support by manufacturing a war. (This will, I imagine, immediately spiral into a futile back-and-forth of “But they started it!” and “They’re the ones making stuff up!”)

Separating personalities from the work: Remember, this is my opinion only. Based on my interactions and reading of Larry Correia online, the man strikes me as a pretentious blowhard playing the role of asshole to rile up and entertain his followers. He is also, from everything I’ve seen and heard, a pretty entertaining and successful author of fiction. I think some of his tactics are tacky as hell, but — much as I might not like the man — I don’t have a problem seeing his book on the ballot. He has a lot of passionate fans of his fiction, many of whom have said flat-out that yeah, he can be a dick, but he writes really fun books.

I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t vote for him. Only that seeing him on the ballot doesn’t strike me as a Problem.

So what about Vox Day making the ballot for Best Novelette? My opinion of the man isn’t exactly a secret. If he got on the ballot for writing an awesome story, great. But unlike Correia, I’ve seen very few people trying to defend Day as a good author. He did post his novelette online for potential voters, so I downloaded it and started reading. I can honestly say that even if I knew nothing about the author as a person, I would have tossed this into the rejection pile after the first couple of pages.

Maybe that’s just a matter of personal taste, and Day’s followers are truly enthusiastic about his fiction, not just his attitudes and politics. But I have a very hard time taking his nomination seriously as anything but an attempt to piss in people’s Cheerios.

Buying votes: I’ve seen accusations of people buying $40 supporting memberships in order to stuff the ballot. Which … I’m sorry, but isn’t the primary point of supporting memberships to allow more people to nominate and vote? If folks are buying memberships just to piss people off, then yeah, we’re back to asshole territory … but it’s still legal asshole territory.

The other accusation I’ve seen is of individuals buying multiple supporting memberships in order to get themselves and their preferred slate on the ballot. Basically, a kind of voter fraud. I haven’t seen any concrete evidence for this, though.

My takeaway: I’m not trying to tell anyone else how they should or shouldn’t react. I’m just laying out my own thought process here.

There are some amazing works and people on this year’s Hugo ballot. This makes me happy, and is totally worthy of celebration.
Some authors are assholes. That doesn’t mean they don’t have fans who genuinely like their stuff.
I think it’s pretty clear that there were some voters who voted just to Make a Point and to Piss Off The Enemy. Yes, these people are also assholes. But that doesn’t mean all people who voted for That Thing are assholes who just wanted to make a point.
It’s not my job to police who is and isn’t a real fan of someone’s work.
The run-off voting system should minimize the effects of ballot-stuffing.
The Hugos are not perfect. No system is. People can and will try to game the system.
Maybe the Hugos don’t truly recognize the best work in any given year, but they do celebrate a lot of awesome stuff.
My guess is that we’ll see a significant rise in Hugo voters next year, and that’s a good thing.

RAINN on Rape Culture

Will Shetterly wrote a blog post asking if I had addressed “RAINN’s refutation of ‘rape culture’” yet. I’m writing this less to respond to Shetterly and more because I think there’s some good conversation to be had around RAINN’s recommendations. But I should warn folks that by invoking his name and linking to his blog post, I’m basically guaranteeing that Mr. Shetterly will show up in the comments. To Will and anyone else, please remember that trolling, refusing to respect boundaries, and general dickishness will get you booted.

The Rape Abuse Incest National Network (RAINN) released 16 pages of recommendations to the federal government. In his blog post, Will chooses to quote a TIME Magazine article by Caroline Kitchens about “Rape Culture Hysteria” that references a few select paragraphs from RAINN’s recommendations. Kitchens claims that by blaming rape culture, we “implicate all men in a social atrocity, trivialize the experiences of survivors, and deflect blame from the rapists truly responsible for sexual violence.” She talks about the “thought police of the feminist blogosphere,” and how the concept of rape culture poisons the minds of young women and creates a hostile world for young men.

I’m glad to know Mr. Shetterly is looking for good, objective reporting to validate his crusade against those he dubs “social justice warriors.”

Let’s look at the primary source and talk about what RAINN’s recommendations actually said, shall we?

The paper opens with a discussion of how rape is alarmingly underreported on college campuses. Rape culture is mentioned on page two:

“In the last few years, there has been an unfortunate trend towards blaming ‘rape culture’ for the extensive problem of sexual violence on campuses. While it is helpful to point out the systemic barriers to addressing the problem, it is important to not lose sight of a simple fact: Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime.”

I absolutely agree that it’s important to hold rapists accountable for their choice to rape. I’ve been saying and emphasizing and teaching that for decades. I think it’s absurd to claim an individual has no responsibility for their crime … but it’s equally absurd to claim that crime occurs in a cultural vacuum, or that these two ideas are mutually exclusive.

Most of the time, when I see rapists being excused with little more than a wrist-slapping for “cultural” reasons, it’s judges and police blaming victims, or the old “boys will be boys” attitude that minimizes the severity of the crime and the responsibility of the rapist. Which is exactly what so many conversations about rape culture try to point out.

RAINN says it’s important to remember that the rapist is responsible for the choice to commit rape. I agree. They do not say that the concept of rape culture is invalid, only that it shouldn’t overshadow the need to hold individuals responsible for their crimes.

RAINN recommends a three-tiered approach to reducing rape on college campuses:

Bystander intervention education: empowering community members to act in response to acts of sexual violence.
Risk-reduction messaging: empowering members of the community to take steps to increase their personal safety.
General education to promote understanding of the law, particularly as it relates to the ability to consent.

Bystander intervention includes educating people about what rape is, helping them see beyond rape myths and victim-blaming narratives, sharing the research that explains how the majority of rapes are committed not by strangers, but by people the victim knows, and so on. (Strangely enough, a lot of the points I made in a blog post about rape culture a few years back.)

RAINN acknowledges the difficulty in separating risk-reduction from victim-blaming. Personally, I have very little problem with a risk-reduction approach. I do have a problem when that’s the only approach, which seems to happen all too often. When people focus solely on what women/victims can and must do to reduce rape, then we put the responsibility on them. If your only idea about reducing rape is to tell women what to do differently, you’re the one who doesn’t understand that rapists are responsible for their decision to rape.

I’ve been pushing for education for ages, including education about the laws. And for improvement in those laws, based in part on a better understanding and definition of consent. Unfortunately, a lot of people have a very poor understanding of consent. We encourage things like getting prospective sexual partners drunk, pursuing reluctant or uninterested partners, and the myth that you should just magically know what your partner wants. (It’s almost like we have an entire culture that doesn’t really get how consent works.)

On the legal side of things, RAINN stresses that college advisory boards aren’t in a position to be deciding rape cases. I agree. I worked as part of a student justice program at Michigan State University. Rape cases went to the police. We tended to work with things more on the level of catcalling from the street, trying to intervene with behaviors and attitudes before they escalated to more serious crimes. The goal was early intervention and prevention.

But there’s also a culture (oh look, there’s that word again) of secrecy around sexual assault and abuse, and I certainly understand that many institutions do try to bury rape reports and pretend it’s not a problem for them. Steubenville is a good, well-known example.

The report then goes on to talk about:

The need for more education for everyone about rape
The need for the legal system to respond more seriously to rape cases
The need to provide support services to victims
The need for more research

In RAINN’s 16-page report, we find a single mention of “rape culture,” which is part of a paragraph stating that rape culture shouldn’t be used as a way to remove responsibility from the rapist. Sorry, Will. I see no “refutation of rape culture” here, just a call for a balanced approach, one which I generally support and agree with.

I get that Mr. Shetterly is mostly just interested in scoring points against those he deems “social justice warriors.” My advice to him would be that if your knowledge and understanding of rape is such that you believe “saying no usually works” to prevent it, maybe you should try talking listening to rape survivors and learning more about the topic before you try to have this kind of conversation.