xiphias | A negative comment about a party at Arisia

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Far as I'm concerned, you can EITHER have an invite-only party OR you can advertise your party.

But it's FUCKING RUDE to advertise your invite-only party.

Don't mind invite-only parties. Don't even mind invite-only parties who, apparently, were going around handing out invites only to women who were dressed slutty. Heck, if someone took that to the extreme, and walked around the con handing out slips of paper which said, "You're sexy. Come to my room at 11 pm," that wouldn't bother me. And if he or she got people to show up, more power to him or her.

DO mind people who do that and also put posters up in the stairwells advertising their party. It's fucking RUDE to do that, then set up a velvet rope outside, and do the "club" thing. Dunno about you, but I go to cons to get away from that kind of dynamic.

Yes, I'm pissed off at not being pretty enough to get into that party.

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From:

redbird

Ditto (re going to cons in part to get away from that sort of crap).

For that matter, I suspect I'd mind less if someone advertised a party with posters saying something like "you must be wearing a short skirt or kilt" and applied it to everyone, regardless of gender. I still wouldn't get in (I don't own any short skirts, and probably wouldn't take a pair of shorts to Arisia, given the time of year), but it wouldn't feel quite as much like yet another example of het guys making rules to give them lots of conventionally pretty female skin to look at, while not providing eye candy for people who'd rather look at men, or making the men meet any requirements.

Hmmm. "Short skirts or evidence of having showered within the last hour", anyone? (I have a hunch that the guys who organized that party would have trouble getting into a similar party in the outside world.)

From: (Anonymous)

Organized by a co-ed group actually, with a female overlord (me.) We like the men very much, we just recognize that men at conventions on the whole make less of an effort to get dressed up. That is why we came up with imaginative ways to try to get the guys to make an effort - we tried 'take off some clothes' (it is pretty low effort...) but that led to some problems in the past so we moved to the leash policy to let costumed folks take in non-costumed. Guys could take in other guys, we're not sexist or orientationist. The leashes weren't a BDSM statement, just a glow-in-the-blacklight statement that screamed 'I made no effort!', and which generally seemed to work out a lot better than having guys in sweaters and jeans disrobe a little. The number of leashes (5) also put a limit on the number of jeans inside at any one time.

Some of our male friends probably were inviting only hot chicks I can't deny it, but our lady friends also had invites to hand out so it should have evened out.

Just for the record, we're NOT a fetish party, NOT a BDSM party (though we support the right of anyone to their lifestyle), but fetish wear is certainly skanky and usually gets through the door check. Not reeking is also a plus, we do our best to keep out the BO. I was voted down on using the sniff test as criteria, but luckily the overlap between folks in costume that also neeeeeed a shower seems to be acceptably small.

Oh & the girls (and guys) who organized this party organize and are invited to a lot of other parties all year long, we all shower regularly, and the het guys on the party committee had awesome space theme costumes thank you very much.