Many times, creepy dudes try to excuse their behavior or other creepy dudes’ behavior by whataboutautism?! Meaning, they pull out the ‘maybe they’re on the spectrum’ card at the merest whiff of the c-word (creep).
I was reading today’s Ask A Manager column, and there was a question about a middle-aged man at a con (that is almost all women/young girls) who monopolizes conversations, can’t read social cues, and in one case, stalked a woman in a social media group for this particular fandom and had to be banned. Then, he sent gifts to her house as an apology. This same woman will be attending the next con as a speaker.
Before I dive into it, here’s my last post about compartmentalization.
Some other details: in the past, Alex (the man in question) had a chaperone to smooth over the interactions (paraphrasing the LW). In a nutshell, he would monopolize someone’s time and not read any cues that they wanted him to stop. If someone was definitive with him, he would simply move onto the next woman/girl and do the same thing with them. The Letter Writer, who is on the committee for this year’s con, said this committee couldn’t babysit Alex this time around.
The majority of the commenters said just to ban Alex. A sizeable minority suggested some version of babysitting, including a stoplight solution (three different buttons. Green for ‘I’m up for chatting’. Yellow for ‘I only want to talk ot people I know’. Red for ‘Stay the fuck away from me’. More than one person pointed out that it wouldn’t work in this case because the problem was specifically Alex and not talking to people in general.
One thing that ran through the comments was how much energy was devoted to one man at the expense of everyone else. Several women had complained about Alex. The LW hastened to add that there was no evidence of anything untoward (I’m assuming meaning grooming-like behavior), but that the girls did not like it and did not know how to tell him to stop talking to them.
I firmly believe that many times when people talk about how creepy men are just misunderstood or on the spectrum, they are full of shit. Oftentimes, it’s neurotypical men who are creeps themselves who toss out this excuse because they want a shield for their own creepiness. Also, it’s been pointed out that being called a creep is considered worse than actually being a creep, much like being called a racist is a hundred times more hurtful than actually being the victim of racism.
While over 90% of the comments were in favor of some knid of ramification for Alex, there were a few that were defending him. Kind of.
One was flat-out defending him. Said it would be discriminatory to ban Alex because of his disability. Another was saying that NT people should not be allowed to define what is and isn’t comfrotable with a neuroatypical person’s attidue/behavior. A third said that sometimes, the behavior is the disability.
Let’s tackle these one by one. In the first case, no.
In the secand case–I’m kidding. But it really is that simple. They would not be banning him based on his disability, but on his behavior.
This is a post that made me feel like a smack in the mouth for espousing my belief in a social model of disability. Remember, I have been waxing poetic about being accommodating of neurodivergent folks and making society a more welcoming place for them/us. This post made me think, “Am I being a hypocrite?”
No, I am not. I’ll get to that in a second. Let’s get back to ‘you’re banning him because of his disability’. If they did ban him for this behavior, it would be for exactly that–his behavior. The LW was clear that the wmoan he stalked in the social media group had told him to stop texting and calling her, but he didn’t. Then he sent her things to her house as an apology. Then he was banned from the group.
Before I go on with the other points, I also want to point out that the LW said Alex was low-support when it came to his professional life (and that he was high level at work), but high-support in his personal life. Also, that he had not interacted with the woman he stalked virtually since the ban.
Part of the problem is explained by the Five Geek Social Fallacies. This was a post made in 2003 by Michael Suileabhain-Wilson on his blag, Plausibly Deniable. I first found it on Captain Awkward’s site, and I can’t tell you how prevalent it is in geek societies (the notion and the people who enact the fallacies). The basic gist is that geeks have been bullied and ostracized for decades. Once they grew up, they vowed that no one would be ostracized or excluded the way they were. This leads to not addressing actual problematic behavior and just letting it slide.
Another explanation for the problem is The Missing Stair. I also found out about this concept on Captain Awkward’s site. This concept was coined in 2012 by Cliff from The Pervocracy, and the post was more specifically about a person (usually a man) in a social group (in his case, it was a BDSM/kink group) who everyone knew was a bad man (in this particular case, a rapist), but did not kick out that man. Oh, sure, they tried to warn incoming women and keepy an eye on the rapist, but actually kick him out? No way! They adapt around the missing stair rather than repair it.
I saw it in the comment section with all the ways th e LW could be accommodating to Alex. These suggestions included the stoplight solution I mentioned above; volunteers to babysit Alex; funthering on that, those volunteers coming up with elaborate systems to signal to Alex when to stop; giving Alex detailed instructions about how to talk to what people and to what extent; and more. More than one person pointed out that the LW noted there were other neurodivergent people in the crowd (meaning women and girls), and they were not being afforded the same consideration.
In fact, that’s one of my biggest gripes about this kind of agonizing about the poor white cisguy who might have to alter his behavior in the slightest–people expect it of non-male people all the time! Even in this situation, there were commenters who chastised the women for complaining! Or tried to say that because Alex was neurodivergent, his behavior was excusable.
I’m tired. More later.