
Photo by Heath. Used under a Creative Commons license.
I was going to write a post about some bit of pop culture ephemera here, as usual, but this week I was reminded that there’s this boil that’s festering in fandom (and in society at large), it isn’t going away, and it needs to be addressed head on. I refer, of course, to the ongoing and escalating river of misogyny that flows under the comics world, occasionally bubbling up in a noxious eruption. It runs the gamut from the arguments over Frank Cho’s latest attempt to simultaneously provoke and deplore outrage over his cheesecake covers, to the death and rape threats against any woman who dares to express a contrary opinion about anything, to the groping of cosplayers at conventions. The extreme endpoint of this behavior is illustrated by the 2014 Isla Vista shootings in Santa Barbara, where Elliot Rodgers killed a bunch of his fellow students and himself because he couldn’t get a girlfriend. That extreme outcome might not happen in the comic fan world any time soon, but the underlying behavior does create a toxic culture at conventions and online. So let’s talk about it.
Recently, one of my online friends, who is part of the cosplay community, posted about having been sent a link to a section of Reddit devoted to a group that calls themselves “incels”; short for “involuntary celibate,” these are guys who have been unsuccessful in finding someone willing to mate with them, so they gather in this forum to console and support each other. It turns toxic when they start blaming women for their problems, declaring that all women are manipulative monsters who reject “nice guys” deliberately due to some imagined “war of the sexes.” Then one of them will post something like this:

The women on this Facebook thread had this to say about the guy who wrote it:
Woman #1: He’s cute. He seems smart. He seems to think that he is so hideous that people recoil at the very sight of him, and that makes me really sad. Like wtf, he is attractive and seems completely normal aside from his clearly extreme depression and dysmorphia.
Woman #2: Holy shit. He is literally the exact physical type of guy I went for when I primarily dated men.
And then I reread his “I hope she gets tortured and killed” line 😐
Woman #3: Wow. Wow. Just….he’s a cute guy. His insecurity is just so insane.
Woman #1: He honestly is really cute. I feel bad for him. I can’t imagine the depth of mental illness he is dealing with to feel this way about himself.
Clearly the problem is not physical appearance.
Let’s get real. Back in my teens and early twenties, I was one of these guys. I moped and whined about why girls didn’t like me. I chased and bothered girls I found attractive, pestered them, made an embarrassing spectacle of myself, went in for grand gestures to demonstrate my devotion and worthiness, and managed merely to aggravate, frighten and alienate a number of young women who deserved far better than what I inflicted on them. The only thing that kept me from going to the toxic level of these guys was my inability to blame the girls for what I knew was something wrong with me.
It turned out that what was wrong with me was not that I was short, weird, skinny, nerdy or anything else. I was so focused on trying to get something from them (attention, affection, validation) that I never gave any thought to what they might expect to get from me. I was that classic mix of unexamined entitlement and overexamined self-doubt that Woody Allen described in Play it Again, Sam; “I’m very picky about women. I don’t know how I can afford to be, but I am.”

I bought into the myth of Clark Kent, which previously was the myth of the Frog Prince, Beauty and the Beast, and a dozen other fairy tales. Someday some smart princess was going to figure out that her love and affection would transform me from grotesque to royal. The part I missed was that it only works if you really are a handsome prince under enchantment or a superhero behind the glasses. I also missed the more obvious part that the curse that had turned me into a monster was insecurity. For a variety of reasons, none pertinent here, I was deeply convinced that people were inclined to instantly dislike me at first meeting. I was thought to be terribly shy and introverted as a child because I was afraid to talk to people I didn’t know, but the truth was I wasn’t shy, I was insecure. I wasn’t introverted, I was afraid. And I projected it in a way that invited attacks from jerks and scorn from girls. At least that’s how it felt, though I was told decades later that some girls actually thought I was cute, but I was either oblivious to their signals or too wrapped up in my own self-loathing to ever believe them. If they straight-up told me they liked me, I’d say “why?” and assume they were setting me up for ridicule like the mean girl in an ’80s teen comedy.
My selfish reverse-narcissism (which is still narcissism, since I was still wrapped up in myself, though it was entirely negative) made several girls’ lives miserable. Almost 40 years later, I still sometimes remember some stupid or awful thing I did, cringe at the memory, wish there were a way to apologize, then sigh and accept that there’s nothing to do but to let it stay buried.
I also learned how I was making those girls feel; how I stressed them out, made them frightened, forced them to eventually tell me flat-out (and repeatedly) to get lost, drop dead, go away, because I couldn’t take a hint or accept a polite refusal. I couldn’t understand that by making some innocent kid the magical solution to all my personal demons, I was putting an enormous and terrifying burden on her, especially the unspoken implication that the price of failure would be terrible. Would I get violent? Would I harm myself? Would I seek some sort of vengeance? I was obviously unstable, but just how unstable was I and what recourse did she have? How did my problems become her problem?

Eventually, with the help of a number of friends, I gradually figured it out. I learned that I wasn’t ever going to lose my hard-wired feeling that people don’t like me, but I didn’t have to act on it or let it control me. As soon as I stopped telling people not to like me, they stopped not liking me. More than that, I learned that, as the Ancient One says, it’s not about me. I was so focused on my own fears and wants that I was oblivious to anyone else’s. I told the girl all about what I wanted from her, but never mentioned or even considered what I was bringing to the table; what was she supposed to get out of the relationship, apart from the satisfaction of having improved and rehabilitated me, which is what all good Manic Pixie Dream Girls really want? Once I acquired a little bit of empathy (which was greatly assisted by immersion in the works of Harry Chapin), I realized that most girls were every bit as unsure, insecure, fearful and self-doubting as I was. If you treat them like people, they tend to respond well to that.
Today, when I rationally examine the facts, I know that I am popular and well-liked and have a lot of friends. I also know that I endlessly rehash every gaffe I ever made, every display of awkwardness, every incident when I offended or hurt someone, and wonder if they will ever forgive me for the terrible things I did (that they had actually most likely forgotten pretty quickly). I still live with doubt, insecurity, recrimination and second-guessing, but I don’t give in to it. When you know better, you do better.
(One note: If you’re one of my long-time friends, please do me the kindness of repressing the urge to jump into the comments section with “hilarious” stories of my embarrassing behavior. I know all too well what I did and to whom, I don’t need to be reminded of it, and nobody else needs to hear those stories. If you’re still friends with one of those women, just tell them I’m sorry and leave it at that. Thank you.)
So yeah, I get it. I understand what these guys are going through. I know how painful and lonely it is to be where they are. But I also know firsthand that they are keeping themselves in that dark and miserable place, and in so doing, are inflicting a lot of unnecessary misery on themselves and the people they are directing their intentions toward.
Dr. Nerdlove has done a far better job than I can of trying to help these guys understand how their attitudes and ingrained beliefs are undermining them, so I’ll just point to a few of his links and leave it to him, while I move on to my major point, which is this:
THIS SHIT SHALL CEASE.
Frankly, it doesn’t matter whether you feel entitled or frightened, whether you’re just awkward or a full-blown stalker, whether you’re parroting the Red Pill bullshit or just wallowing in your own self-loathing. You are an adult, and it’s not too much to expect and demand that you act like a civilized one in public.
Your problems are your problem. She can’t fix you. She’s not the Nerd Whisperer. She’s not your Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and it’s wrong of you to put that on her. So don’t.

She didn’t put you in the Friend Zone. The Friend Zone is a do-it-yourself operation. She told you she wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship, and instead of accepting that and moving on, you chose to pretend to be her friend in hopes of getting another shot. That only works in movies. The cold truth is, there’s a reason Andie didn’t end up with Duckie (and shouldn’t have) at the end of Pretty in Pink. He was a mess and she couldn’t fix him. And no, he wasn’t gay; he was just hiding his insecurities behind a carefully constructed facade; his awkward crush on her was concealed behind a lot of passive-aggressive behavior calculated for self-protection and a refusal to ever be honest or vulnerable. He didn’t get the girl because he refused to take a risk and just be his honest self. She might have fallen for him if she could find him in all that camouflage, but then she’d have to deal with his baggage. Maybe he eventually dealt with his own baggage and an older and wiser Duckie & Andie got back together and finally made it work. (Hey, a sequel!)
She doesn’t want a fixer-upper. She doesn’t need a project. If you really love her, fix yourself up and make yourself into the person she deserves, and then come back when you’re ready to have a partnership of equals. Let your desire for her inspire you to hang up the trilby (it’s not a damn fedora, and anyway, a fedora only works with Humphrey Bogart’s double-breasted pinstripe suit or Indiana Jones’ leather jacket; it does not add a dash of panache to your Wolverine t-shirt) and lose the carefully-crafted persona that you think is protecting you; learn to be yourself and be comfortable in your own skin, and then ask her out, without any passive-aggressive games or histrionic gestures. You might be surprised. Meanwhile, learn to behave in public.
When my kids acted up, I used to tell them “if you can’t control yourself, I will control you, probably in a way you won’t like.” I’ve been where you are, I know how you feel, but I also know how the girl you’re creeping on feels. How YOU are making her feel. So knock it the hell off.
Here’s the thing: My first comic convention was in 1978; there were very few women there. The few that were there were welcomed and popular, and nobody treated them the way girls and women are being treated at cons today. Most of us just wished there were more cool geek girls like them, girls who liked the weird stuff we liked, who wanted to hang out with the nerd boys. And now there are. Beautiful women want to dress up in the costumes from our favorite comics and movies, they want to be in the thick of our celebration of all that is geeky.

Photo by Ethan Trewhitt. Used under a Creative Commons License.
We’ve won. Our weird comic book characters are starring in billion-dollar movies; jocks and rock stars are playing our weird video games and reading our weird books, and women are flocking to conventions and dressing up as our weird comic book characters because they love them and it’s finally safe for them to say so. Geeks rule the world now, and instead of being gracious and welcoming in our massive victory, we’ve become as nasty as the people we complained about. If there were ever a place where girls should feel safe and welcome, it should be at a comic book convention. We prayed to a variety of deities for this day. And yet here we are having this conversation. The President-Elect may think it’s okay to grope women, but it isn’t. As Anne Bancroft told the vulgar construction worker in Garbo Talks, “if your head’s in the toilet, don’t blow bubbles.”

Good advice.
Let me be blunt. It’s long past time the rest of us (by which I mean men; women have been talking and taking action to mitigate this forever) drew the line in the sand, stepped up and told you to knock it off. We have to. If we don’t rein you in now, we know where your road leads. If we don’t stop you now, your path leads to where Eliot Rodgers ended up, to where that sad guy on Reddit wants to go. We can’t let you do that.
So here’s the line in the sand: I’m going to interfere. If I see you creeping on a cosplayer at a convention, I will insert myself between you and her. I will get in the way of your camera if she doesn’t want her photo taken. I will make a scene if I catch you trying to shoot a photo up her skirt. I will certainly call security to have you removed if I see you being inappropriate. And I’m not alone. There are a lot of us who have had enough of you being an embarrassment to us. We are going to call you on it.
If you can’t control yourself, somebody else will control you.
Well said.
I’ve always been baffled by the incredible malice some of these guys express towards women who don’t want them. Lord knows there’ve been a lot of women who didn’t want me (I’d definitely qualify as incel at various periods) but I’ve never had the Some Day She Will Pay feeling (other mistakes, yes, but not that one).
Bravo, Jim.
Very well said.
Hear, f-ing hear!
Yes, and Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Aren’t 4004 BC’ers still indoctrinated every day, though?
Meanwhile, AT&T’s Time-Warner’s DC has kicked out most female Vertigo editors. (Karen Berger in 2012, Sarah Litt in 2013, Shelly Bond in 2016, maybe more.) But fanboys pay to keep ALLEGED sexual harasser Eddie Berganza on SUPERMALE. (Who is told he should be selfish.)
And now, may I quibble? I’m good at quibbling.
– “arguments over Frank Cho”
“In U.S. news, comic book artist Frank Cho’s artwork was recently criticized on Twitter, creating an outpouring of support from anti-censorship advocates, as reported on approximately once per day for the past two years by Bleeding Cool. Asked their thoughts on Musa Kart’s imprisonment over political cartoons, the advocates collectively replied, “Who?” We’ll keep you updated on this story, but, er… probably not as much as the Cho one, if we’re being perfectly honest with ourselves.” (entryist Jude Terror)
– “river of misogyny […] the groping of cosplayers”
Sorry, but aren’t you conflating misogynists with pigs and other sexists there? They’re similar but different problems, just as flu and bronchitis are. Isn’t accurate diagnosis half the cure?
– “your path leads to where Eliot Rodgers ended up”
Or Ted Bundy, per Ann Rule’s THE STRANGER BESIDE ME. Still a valuable insight beside the bio.
I’m good at quibbling too.
Musa Kart’s case is irrelevant to the topic at hand; putting it in counterpoint to Cho’s manufactured drama is a useful exercise in illustrating a whole lot of things wrong with our community, but it also illustrates why I chose Cho to represent the trivial end of the spectrum.
Yes, I am conflating misogynists and pigs and sexists, because, as I said, I frankly don’t care what their particular damage is; I’m addressing how they express it. They can sit there and pack their skulls full of self-defeating sociopathic garbage all day long, as long as they keep their hands to themselves and their creepy selves under control when around other people.
Accurate diagnosis is important for the ones who want to address their problems. I’m not the Nerd Whisperer. I’ll let Dr. Nerdlove try to hand out the cures. My primary concern here is that I want conventions and comic shops to be nice places where everybody feels safe and welcome. In 31 years of marriage to me, my bride has gone into precisely ONE comic shop that didn’t make her feel like she needed a can of pepper spray on hand and a shower after leaving. I’d like to see that number increase.
@Jim: Fair enough.
– “my bride has gone into precisely ONE comic shop that didn’t make her feel like she needed a can of pepper spray on hand and a shower after leaving”
Someone once made the case that the content, clientele, and atmosphere of comic shops made them essentially like sex shops, heh. (Maybe Gail Simone? Can’t find it back.)
By the by, Burns’s BLACK HOLE and Clowes’s DEATH-RAY provide interestingly allegorical looks into the dark side of the nerd. (And to some extent, Pud in JAKA’S STORY.)
The comic shop in my old home town was pretty nice–family concern, owned by a woman. The two I frequent where I live now both seem pretty decent and have a fair number of female patrons; one sponsors a women-reading-comics book club. Admittedly I’m a man so I may just be missing stuff, but I’m always surprised when I read about these hellmouth stores (and as a former salesclerk in a bookstore, most annoyed at the unprofessionalism).
To be fair, that store is the only one she’s visited since we started shopping there several years ago. The industry has changed, and the smart stores have changed with it. I’m sure there are still many where the clerk gives you a dirty look if you interrupt his D&D campaign to make him work, where the guy who smells like a catbox is lecturing and haranguing anyone who enters, where new customers are to be scorned and ridiculed for their lack of familiarity with 70 years of continuity. I’ve been in them, but I’ve seen a lot more of them boarded up, and I don’t think that’s entirely due to the economy or the industry.
Here’s one thing I left out of my story: I told myself I was in love with each of those girls, but the truth is, I didn’t love any of them. I was in love with the idea of not being alone, head-over-heels in love with the notion of being wanted by somebody, and really mad for the thought that winning the heart of this or that young goddess would elevate my status. It was always all about me.
I wasn’t very nice to the girlfriends. I never had to be concerned with finding another one. I owe them all apologies for being jerk. I didn’t abuse them, in my misguided way I thought I was showing respect.
Now I realize I was treating them as other guys instead of treating them like the pretty young ladies they were. I’m glad my wife was able to put up with me over the years.
When you do not treat a girl like a girl, it comes back to haunt you. And there’s nothing you can do to rectify it. I can say that to every guy here, it is a fact. Be a nice guy toward them. They deserve it.
Catching up, late to this party…as one who knew Jim since the second half of high school, let me assure anyone spelunking through these archives that the bad behavior he confesses must have happened with me offstage; I have no recollection of any such thing. (The nearest to it was some girl too sourly-disposed to be worthy of his time anyway, not even the object of his direct attention but who just happened to be in the room. And one late afternoon trying to get the school magazine pasted-up (we used paste!) by deadline in the same room as the school newsrag, whose staff found Jim distracting — he was in rare form that day, coping with pressure by a sort of nonstop comedic pushback that everyone would have found hilarious in retrospect; but their tastes in real-time tended to low-key deadpan. I tried to thread the needle because he was vital, while they had the right to kick us out; I failed; Jim deserved better from everyone.)
Otherwise, EVERYONE of any account or merit thought Jim was cute! On my honor! (He looked like Jack Wild as The Artful Dodger in ‘Oliver!’) Charming; talented beyond his years; quicker on his feet than anyone around; and at the top of his game, could make me, my father, and my father’s girlfriend laugh so hard we were gasping and seeing stars FOR NINETY MINUTES OVER DINNER — IN PUBLIC. The girlfriend offered to meet him up with her daughter. There was NOTHING wrong with Jim, and nobody I ever spoke to would have changed anything about him but his circumstances, his poor self-esteem, and his height. (By graduation, he was taller than me.) So I don’t know what he’s talking about, but his pain is real, so the incels should take his advice before they’re declared The Next Terrorist Threat.
Thanks for the very flattering description, but the truth is I was merely pathetic in high school; I got obnoxious at the community college. In high school, with no job, no car, no money, and an embarrassing family, I knew a girlfriend was out of the question and didn’t bother any of the girls in drama (pretty much the only class where I talked to anyone). Though you may remember me moping and mooning over Sue Duncan, who went to the other high school across town.
It was when I moved out and was on my own that I became desperate and creepy, as a long line of former classmates and co-workers could tell you. I will not share the shameful details, beyond saying that I once drunkenly bit a girl I did not know, on the ass, in the middle of a cast party. I’m still mortified at that idiotic bid for attention.