TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Hi.

THERAPIST: Hi.

CLIENT: You’re on time for once.

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: You’re on time for once; I’m very excited about that.

THERAPIST: That’s good. I’m sorry I was late.

CLIENT: That’s okay. Logistically, it wouldn’t have been a problem. (chuckle) (pause) (sigh) I kind of would talk about the awards, but like it would require a great deal of back-story to set-off why it’s been so upsetting. And I don’t know that I really want to recap since the last two years in politics in the field.

THERAPIST: Yeah; this sun (inaudible at 0:01:01).

CLIENT: Yeah, I understand. (pause) I’d rather you not be distracted for the next hour squinting at the sun. (pause) So where to start. (sigh) I’m going attempt to narrate this chronologically and linearly, but I can’t promise that will work.

So there’s this other [], who is immensely popular, and has established a reputation for himself, and goodwill in the community by positioning himself as an ally to people of color and [what he is] (ph). Unsurprisingly, he’s just [had white jute] (ph).

THERAPIST: He what?

CLIENT: [Just had white jute] (ph).

THERAPIST: Had some sexual (intent) (ph)?

CLIENT: (inaudible at 0:01:55).

THERAPIST: Oh okay.

CLIENT: So, obviously I (inaudible at 0:02:03). (pause)

THERAPIST: What is – all right, I don’t want to know.

CLIENT: It (sigh).

THERAPIST: It’s okay, yeah I (inaudible at 0:02:14). (laughter)

CLIENT: No, I mean, it’s important that like you know what the words I use mean too. So you know transgender -

THERAPIST: You know, and actually, I know what you mean when you say cis as opposed to trans, I just – you know, trans stands for transgender, and I wondered what cis stood for. That’s all.

CLIENT: Just gender.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Because in chemistry, cis is the opposite of trans, and so it was coined in order for cis to not be the unmarked default state, so you could actually mark it, as opposed to having innocent to people. Anyway, so it’s just called the white (inaudible at 0:02:52).

And he writes fiction by about four white dudes mostly.

THERAPIST: All right.

CLIENT: I mean this section isn’t bad, but like it’s about dudes doing dudely things in dudely settings. And I’m like, whatever. But he has positioned himself as an ally to women and people of color, especially women and people of color writers. And he does have a widely read blog, and he does invited women and people of color to guest post on his blog; he gives exposure to people. But he also profits and benefits from it.

He also likes to position himself as like the voice of reason in the field, and the voice of moderation, and like he is calm and dispassionate, and objective, and analytical, and like all these things that are terribly, terribly problematic cults that I don’t have to explain why.

But anyway, over the last several years, he has nurtured a collection of trolls in the comics (city) (ph) blog, who he doesn’t band, and he gives them space to like say their horrible things. And he takes a great joy and pleasure in arguing with them. He does actually argue the correct side if you ever came in question.

But I don’t know, he has limited space. And so there’s this dude, who writes under the name [] is like -

THERAPIST: [] (inaudible at 0:04:14)?

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, he’s not quite not arrogant, but I can see where you might have gotten than from. (chuckle) Anyway, he – it doesn’t make sense that he mixes Latin and English that way, does it? Maybe he did intend it to be a [homophoned voice of God] (ph). I – whatever.

THERAPIST: Whatever.

CLIENT: He is an overt racist and misogynist. And then he’s actually made a blog post in which he says that, you know, rape should be allowed, because he’s just pursuing his right to pursue happiness.

THERAPIST: Oh God.

CLIENT: Yes. He has explicitly said that black people are not the same race as white people, and deserve to be put down like dogs.

THERAPIST: Oh my God.

CLIENT: Like I’m not even paraphrasing; these are like quotes from his – he’s terrible, and so he has let him – [overlapping conversation at 0:05:16]

THERAPIST: about having some problems. I mean and not just somebody with, you know, some kind of differing and unpleasant viewpoint.

CLIENT: Yeah. He calls himself a Christian libertarian, which anyway – (sigh) So there’s a big ta-do last summer when an up and coming black woman author; her books have been nominated for awards. As far as I know, they’ve never won, but they always get short listed. She’s very popular; she sells very well; she’s a sweet person, like when you meet her. But she gave like this (boner) (ph) speech at some (con) somewhere, where she talked about how like as a community, we need to make it clear the racism fundimists aren’t welcome.

I mean among other things, she had like a whole 15-minute, covered on a number of topics, but one of the things she covered – anyway, [] would intensify this, and wrote a post about how George Zimmerman should put her down like he did Trayvon Martin.

THERAPIST: Oh gee.

CLIENT: And then he posted this to the – a professional association for science fiction writers; anyone who’s a member of the association can promote their blog posts on the official rss feed and (inaudible at 0:06:39). So there’s a process where you register an rss feed of your blog with the promotion tool, and then if you tag your blog posts, it will automatically appear of the blog.

So he had disagreed about how she should be put down like a dog up here on the blog, which is against policy, so they kicked him out. It’s the first time anyone has been kicked out of this association in like 35 years. And a lot of people were horrified by that, because free speech, oh my gosh, free speech. (pause) (sigh)

Anyway, another man, who is also a misogynist homophobic asshole, who like refuses to use correct pronouns for trans people and communicate that; like refuses to call by their name; just like, this female author. [0:07:40]

He organized a voting blog on his blog to get him and like seven other people, who are similarly horrifying on the award ballot. Now this is not against the rules for the award; like anyone who ponies up their $40 can nominate whoever they want to be on the award ballot.

THERAPIST: And this an award; I thought it was an award for science fiction writing? It is, okay. Has he written stuff?

CLIENT: Yes. But they have written science fiction – I hesitate to call them books, because they are (sigh), they have spewed forth the words that are science fiction, that are bound in book form; I hesitate to call them novel, because they don’t have anything resembling characterization of or plots.

THERAPIST: All right.

CLIENT: (chuckle) So they got themselves and their friends on the ballot, and again, not against the rules, but tacky as hell, especially if go read their book, they say they’re doing this explicitly to offend women and people of color in the field, and the pinko common liberals, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. [0:09:00]

And they weren’t promoting each other’s books on the merits of the books; they were promoting them on the merits of like this will piss off women and people of color in the field. So a bunch of women and people of color in the field unsurprisingly, went on Twitter, or social media or wrote on their blogs about how this was offensive, and insulting and like, “What the fuck?” Why are there so many terrible people in our field? (sigh)

So all lead up to all of the things that are upsetting, because as horrible they and them are, their clearly in the minority; clearly apart from their tiny fan base, no one cares about them. It only requires like 100 votes to get on the ballot, because not that many people nominate, so whatever. There are 100 (spitabonal) (ph), racist, misogynist assholes in the world; I knew that already. [0:10:01]

So someone makes a post, poking fun of these guys and talking about how this is ridiculous. Then he gets a lot of people stirred up in the summit, then he makes another post about how ladies, let’s not get hystNealal, what they did was not against the rules, blah, blah, like -

THERAPIST: Right, he could have done it a bit quicker.

CLIENT: Yeah, then he went on about how last year, he organized his fans to nominate his book for the award, and that’s totally legit, and blah, blah, blah. And it’s just (sigh) (pause) it’s insulting to the people who are annoyed about the ballot, to say – to imply that we don’t understand how the rules work and all.

So last year when a female was on the ballot, a bunch of people, mostly white men, attacked her for having promoted her work on her blog. There were vicious, vicious, not just blog posts, but she had received rape threats and death threats in her physical mailbox at her house. So people got her address; knew where she lived, and were writing her death threats, because she dared to post on her blog that, “Hey, these are the works I’ve written that are eligible for the award this year. If you like them, consider nominating them. [0:11:29]

Which is so much milder than like, let’s organize a voting blog, and here’s a plate of like 12 people you should nominate, because it will piss off the liberals. And also when people bitched about Shawn being on the ballot, that’s a time-honored commission; everyone gripes about the Hugo ballot, but suddenly when it’s women complaining about an advertent misogynist being on the ballot, like “Oh no, we don’t understand how award nominating works.”

The double standard is so infuriating coming from someone who has positioned himself as an ally, and who has made money off of being an ally; like he edits anthologies of essays written by women and people of color, and promotes the man. Yes, I’m glad he’d putting our voices out there, and using his platform for that, but he’s also making money; he’s also establishing a reputation, and generating goodwill. Then he turns around and (sigh)

So anyway, there was a response, but I am – (sigh) I have a personal grudge against one of them, ever since the time he told me how I should feel about being a rape survivor. So (pause) although in this particular instance, he was not as terrible as the other; I hate him more. [0:12:50] (sigh)

Then a bunch of people wrote about how what they were doing was not okay. But this was contributing to the problem; contributing to the marginalization of women some people call those voices. Then he collected six links to post criticizing him; posts them on his log, after he had just finished writing on Twitter about he has 16,000 Twitter followers, and his blog has like 500,000 views this month. Which, just rub it in that you’re platform is bigger than any of ours, why don’t you?

He posted links to blogs of a bunch of friends of mine, including Vanessa and Kiki who I’m very close to, and some other women who criticized his position.

THERAPIST: What was the second name?

CLIENT: Kiki.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: And was like, “Hey fans, some people disagree with me; you should go read their blog posts.” Now all of my friends’ blogs are being overrun by his fans who are trolls, and telling them that they are wrong in how there they criticized him, and don’t they know that he’s the best ally they’ve ever had, and blah, blah, blah. It’s just – (sigh) it’s wearisome. [0:14:10]

And while all of this was going on, over Easter weekend, and Monday, and Tuesday, I was also reading submissions; I had something like 70 submissions to go through over the weekend. Most of them were really gross stories about boners basically. There was a whole 5,000 word pornographic rape fantasy. And in the last 500 words, the thing that made it science fiction was that like some artificial intelligence that was in the camera, that was filming the rape decided that this was okay, and body-swapped the rapist and the victim. Then the rapist got to feel what it’s like to be raped. That makes it okay, apparently. I don’t – [0:15:05]

There were like masturbation fantasies, and there were like revenge fantasies, where a husband who feels like he’s not appreciated enough, murders his wife. It was just an unending stream of like dudes and their boners being gross.

So yeah, (pause). And then a coworker of mine at work decided he needed to regale me with stories about a now deceased coworkers boners. (pause) The guy, Neal, who I only met once,

THERAPIST: The deceased coworker?

CLIENT: Yeah. Apparently, he had pulmonary hypertension, which is a condition for which Viagra was originally developed to treat.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So, Josh told me all about how, you know, Neal had to deal with outraging boners at work that wouldn’t go away, because of his hypertension. I don’t know – I don’t know why he thought I needed to know that. [0:16:21] (pause)

THERAPIST: Well that’s like men who either are throwing it in your face -

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) Because of course all the really gross stories were written by men; that kind of goes without saying. (pause) [0:18:00] (pause)

THERAPIST: And in a way, it’s kind of the same thing with this author and the (pause) like I don’t have a (inaudible at 0:18:40), but the way that (pause) a big part of his sort of (pause) I can see the relation in that (inaudible at 0:19:07), the way he kind of professes to be genuinely kind of altruistically interested in like promoting the work and (inaudible at 0:19:21) as women and people of color in science fiction, is really quite self-evolved and self-serving.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: And (pause) I guess one thing I’m liking about the boner metaphor here is the way that it sort of like condenses both and kind of like self-involvement; like a masturbatory self-involvement, and the possibility of sexual aggression.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That those things kind of go together in the context that you’re talking about. (pause) Like his self-involvement becomes quite aggressive, and demeaning and (intrusive) (ph).

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) [0:21:00] (pause) I’m just so angry, and it’s been so draining. (pause) [0:22:00] (pause) And like I realize I can just, you know, close the browser window and walk away, but friends of mine are getting harassing e-mails, and items, and letters in the mail, and I don’t know, I feel like it would make me a coward to just walk away; not think about it. Or at least not respond. (pause) [0:23:00]-[0:24:00] (pause)

THERAPIST: I can see how you are pissed off, and I think in a kind of an impossible situation there. (pause) It’s going to be stressful, and upsetting, and maybe even unbearable either way.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: Whether you sort of get into the prey or don’t. (pause) [0:25:00] (pause)

CLIENT: Well the other thing that’s been going on the last couple of weeks, is I’m still doing the local story with Cricket, and Lucas, and her bullshit claims that he was emotionally abusing her, and then her claims that I abused her and how in a poetry book. I’m like that’s all I know in all of that.

THERAPIST: Now was Lucas the one who lives in Illinois, and has the daughter who has health problems?

CLIENT: Yeah. So, (sigh) (pause) the way Cricket has positioned herself as like the expert on sexual assaults in our community; and she actually is a state certified rape and crisis counselor. She’s positioned herself as the expert, like this is how dealing with domestic violence and emotional violence should be handled. [0:26:26]

And so she’s been bragging about how she managed to dismantle her PTSD triggers like in a day, and everything’s fine now. When she discovers a trigger, she spindles it, and la, la, la. So (sigh) she has also been with more than one person I know, trying to for example, my friend Vanessa and Otis, have a very (sigh) I don’t even know how to describe their relationship. They both have a lot of trauma from immigrating, and being Jews in Eastern Europe, and violent anti-Semitism. So sometimes they end up triggering each other’s memories of bad things that happened in their youth.

THERAPIST: Are they together?

CLIENT: Yes. Their relationship has been very difficult, and they’ve had a lot of work to do, and they are seeing a couples counselor there, but individually getting therapy. They are trying to do their best by each other, but it’s hard. [0:27:37]

But Cricket has tried to force Vanessa to accept the narrative of Vanessa and Otis’s relationship parallel to narrative of Cricket and Emmett’s and then Cricket and Lucas’s relationship. And has been hinting at Vanessa that like maybe Vanessa should leave Otis, because Otis is abusive and (inaudible at 0:27:57) isn’t abusive. Although Otis does things that hurts Vanessa, because -

THERAPIST: Sure. That’s clearly all Cricket’s triggers in the example.

CLIENT: Yeah, but this has Vanessa very upset. Danielle -

THERAPIST: Sure; confusing enough without hearing that I’m sure.

CLIENT: So my friend Danielle was in a relationship with a violent alcoholic eight years ago, and she has not fully dealt with that. As far as I know, she has never sought therapy for it, and so she’s dating someone new, who’s very important to her. They recently moved in together, and her girlfriend drinks. As far as I know, is not an alcoholic, but does get drunk occasionally. And when Eleanor gets drunk, Danielle has panic attacks. [0:28:43]

But because Danielle is British, and stiff upper lip, and all of that, her panic attacks just – it’s not really visible to people outside, that she’s panicking, it just look like she’s yelling at Eleanor for no reason. Now she is convinced that she is the abuser in that relationship, because – her trigger should be dismantled, because it’s been eight years. And it’s just like – (sigh)

I’m so angry at Cricket, because she has at this point, four friends and I who are convinced that they are horrible people, and they’re abusing their partners, because of things Cricket has said to them about her and Lucas, and her and Emmett. Even though, as far as I know, I’m not inside any of these relationships, so what do I know?

But as far as I can tell, maybe not all of these relationships are healthy, but there’re not all – there’s not abuse going on. There’s a spectrum of like, this relationship is a bad idea, and this [overlapping conversation at 0:29:43]

THERAPIST: Sure, and you have good reasons and you are suspicious of Cricket.

CLIENT: Yeah. So there’s been – I’ve had a lot of conversations with friends of mine, and they’re all like abuse, and trauma histories, and it’s been a lot to cope with. Anyway, people are talking about Cricket and how we think she’s full of shit.

And a bunch of editors have blacklisted her now, because of her whole, “I don’t want my work to be on the Internet anymore, I want it to be pulled down; I want to break all these contracts that I signed, and have you take down my work that you paid for. If you don’t, I’m going to call you an abuser.

Well, shockingly, editors don’t want to deal with that shit. So her work has started getting rejected in a lot of places. There’re two magazines I know of that have asked her to – where she had like guest editing gigs lined up over the span of the next year, that have asked her not to do that many. But that’s basically taken – I don’t know what the correct reserve is there.

THERAPIST: Withdraw their offer.

CLIENT: Yeah, withdraw their offer, to let her guess that it’s an issue. So yesterday she went on Twitter, and accused Lucas of raping her. And I know you should always (inaudible at 0:30:59) the victim; I know that culture says that (sigh) it’s easy to believe men aren’t rapists, when they really are.

And the whole – I feel really bad about it, but I don’t believe her. I think she’s lying, because she realizes that she is very rapidly losing social and political capital, and she wants to get people to feel sorry for her.

THERAPIST: Yeah. (pause)

CLIENT: But yeah. (pause) She’s lied about so many things; she’s lied about me. (pause) I went back and I looked at her response to – she e-mailed her response when I asked her out last winter. So all this time, I had been remembering it as, she said maybe, maybe not, ask me later.

THERAPIST: I remember, yeah. [0:32:10]

CLIENT: But when I looked at the actual e-mail, and sent it to a trusted friend of mine, and said “Am I crazy? Was this an outright no? Like should I have just dropped it immediately?” Kiki’s response was like, “No, that actually sounds like a yes to me. If I had received that e-mail, I would have assumed that she wanted to date me, and would have pursued actually meeting up in person to talk about it like very aggressively.”

I was like, “Oh, well.” But apparently, Cricket’s been telling people that I have a crush on her, and she feels nothing for me. So, I don’t know; I don’t trust her; she’s a liar. And I feel bad, because, you know, there’s a tendency in our culture to believe women are lying when they say they’re raped. That’s a serious problem. (pause)

I want to always believe someone who says that they’ve been sexually assaulted, but I don’t believe Cricket, and that’s really upsetting to me. [0:33:26]-[0:34:26] (pause)

THERAPIST: Well, (pause) all right, let me be clear about this. So, I think in telling Cricket in both of the incidents that you have, (pause) the one with the author?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And then with Cricket. I think there are things about coping it all; like about what’s going on that feel to you, or that kind of (inaudible at 0:35:59) sort of abusive; you’re not saying they’re abusing you, and I’m not talking about like in some sense what’s going on in like external reality.

But the extent of your helplessness; the sense of your being kind of helpless, maybe even bound, and like, you know, [treats you] (ph) aggressively, intrusively, hurtfully, the way you feel silenced. Or very mixed about taking care of yourself, or speaking up in a way, remind me of abuse.

I’m not sure what to make of that, or what the ramifications of that are; like what that – why? But I’m struck by it. And again, I hope I’m being clear in sort of differentiating like your internal experience of those things from -

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: (pause) Like the kind of external situations that you’re describing. (pause) [0:37:59] (pause) And I suppose, as I think more about it, (pause) rather they feel abusive in somewhat different ways; one is the more sort of stereotypically male boner in your face, self-involved and aggressive at the same time, sort of. Then the other is, more the (pause) I guess in a way, you could say like, again I wouldn’t say abusing female, I would just say more like a stereotypically borderline; not you, but the other person; kind of (pause) gas lighting, crazy-making, aghhh; sort of play the victim in this really aggressive way; sort of perform.

CLIENT: Yeah. [0:39:22] (pause) It’s been really frustrating and upsetting. (sigh) (pause) [0:40:22] (pause) (sigh) [0:41:22]-[0:42:22] (pause)

THERAPIST: Well, yeah it sounds like (pause) you’ve been like pretty absorbed or immersed in feeling this way. (pause) Well and a lot to this, you’ve been in (inaudible at 0:43:36) and that made you feel like that too.

We should stop.

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