Geeks Gone Wild! The Rise of Raunch Culture at Conventions

Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs, one of my favorites in what can only be called the mini women's studies library in my bedroom, is all about women's participation in raunch culture. The concept is summed up well in the beginning of the book: "If Male Chauvinist Pigs were men who regard women as pieces of meat, we would outdo them and become Female Chauvinist Pigs: women who make sex objects of other women and of themselves" (Levy 4). The book touches on topics such as Girls Gone Wild, cardio strip teases and pole dancing classes, and women going to strip clubs. When I had to read the book again for a class, it reminded me a lot of the raunchy atmosphere that often takes over Anime Boston at night.

I say Anime Boston because at the time, that was the only big convention I'd been to at the time. ConnectiCon has some pretty raunchy stuff as part of their nightlife as well, as do many other large cons all over the country. At your typical convention, at a certain point in the evening, the atmosphere changed to one that is electrifyingly sexual. Pretty much all the programming requires an ID; cosplay burlesques and strip teases are an emerging trend; hentail panels dominate the anime convention, even the evening's main event(s) will be of an R-rated nature; the winner of this year's Anime Boston Masquerade was a sexy and titillating skit on why Japanese android girls were better than American robots (I shit you not); and booth babes and scantily clad female cosplayers are part of the scenery at any nerd convention.

My discomfort came not from the fact that there was programming of an adult nature, but that the vast majority of it was sexual, and not exactly in a progressive sort of way. Most of the hentai clips featured young women being raped, sometimes by much older men, or showing lesbians and women masturbating. While men are not absent from the sexy entertainment, women's bodies are usually the main attraction.

So now I read Female Chauvinist Pigs, this time actively applying the concepts in the book to convention culture.

When I asked female viewers and readers what they got out of raunch culture, I heard similar things about empowering miniskirts and feminist strippers, and so on, but I also heard something else. They wanted to be "one of the guys"; they hoped to be experienced "like a man."  Going to strip clubs or talking about porn stars was a way of showing themselves and the men around them that they weren't "prissy little women" or "girly-girls." (Levy 4)

This, again, resonated with me, as it reminds me how femiphobic nerd culture can be. We don't want those ditsy, cheerleader/sorority girl types flitting around at our conventions - it's bad enough having to put up with their giggling and inane chatter in our every day lives. Any indication of being "one of those girls" is quickly shut down with an unamused "no, stop it" or outright shunning. Don't admit to liking Ke$ha or watching Lifetime shows and expect to be taken seriously as a nerd. Going to Hentai Dubbing with your friends, however, shows that you can hang like one of the guys.

A little later on, as Levy discusses spring break and Girls Gone Wild, she begins to explain that "The heat is turned up a little in Miami, but a baseline expectation that women will be constantly exploding in little blasts of exhibitionism runs throughout our culture. Girls Gone Wild is not extraordinary, it's emblematic" (Levy 17). At conventions, guys may not go specifically for the sexual scenery, but it's certainly taken for granted as part of the experience. They go knowing there will be booth babes, skimpy cosplays, and evening events where girls will go wild.

In a later chapter, Levy profiles the Female Chauvinist Pig as someone who "gets it." She has a sense of humor, and is totally cool with "cartoonish stereotypes of female sexuality," as well as the stereotypical male response to it. And in a subculture that is still mostly run by men and for men, where men are the target demographic and dominant group, girls who "get it" are going to be much more appreciated and accepted over girls who are uncomfortable when it comes to sex and raunchiness, or "humorless" feminists trying to spoil the fun. In nerd culture, you either have to be "for the boys" - wearing skimpy costumes and, if possible, gyrating on stage at a main event - or one "of the boys" - hooting and hollering right along with them, or at least laughing and rolling your eyes playfully as they do so.

These are the women Levy calls "loophole women." They're often the mitiating presence as well, making the objectification of women's bodies less creepy. Sort of like Robin Quivers on Howard Stern (I am grateful for Mr. Stern bringing Spencer Horsman back to America's Got Talent, but that doesn't make him any less of a misogynist douche blanket). They're there to reassure everyone else that it's not that bad - it can't be sexist if women are okay with it, right? That's an issue I run into a lot when talking about these issues in nerd culture, or even in normal society. There's this idea that as long as some women are okay with something, no woman is allowed to raise concerns about it.

I also want to bring up the issue of accepting and fulfilling the cartoonish stereotypes Levy is talking about. Fact is, nerd culture revolves around cartoons - animated movies and TV shows, comic books, and live action movies based on those cartoons. People dress as cartoon characters, which may have been drawn with revealing outfits and outrageous proportions (I know my favorite cosplay, Germaine from Neurotically Yours, is one such example), and thus are going to act as those characters to a degree. There's a sort of "anything goes" atmosphere that encompasses that costumed play and occasional fanservice - the rules of normal society are, for at least a few days inside the convention hall, suspended, and you can get away with behaving in a manner that you could never get away with on a typical day. Some people are inevitably going to take it too far, and that is probably one reason why sexual harassment is still prevalent at conventions, if not the biggest reason.

Similar to the the topic of cartoonish stereotypes is the issue of "uncle Tomming," or "conforming to someone else's - someone more powerful's - distorted notion of what you represent. In doing so, you may be getting ahead in some way . . . but you are also reifying the system that traps you" (Levy 106). Not that Levy was trying to imply that being a woman today is anything like being a slave in antebellum America, but there are parallels. Women in nerd culture who partake in "Tomming" may dress and act the way they believe they're expected to, as women and as nerds. They may take on the "sexy nerd girl" stereotype in order to gain favor with the group she's in or at the convention she's attending. She may very well succeed, but in doing so she's only supporting the expectation that that's what geek girls are like, giving merit to those who fetishize female cosplayers and girl geeks in general.

Ginny McQueen can definitely attribute a lot of her success to her appearance and her willingness to wear revealing cosplays and photograph naked. That's mostly what she's known for. She is a skilled seamstress and people know that, but I doubt she'd be half as famous if she wasn't showing "the goods" regularly. Yet then it's assumed that her main purpose is that of a sex object and hardly anything more, which is probably why she was solicited to strip at a convention. People are taken aback by the idea that while she may objectify herself on her own terms, she's insulted that people only value her for her appearance rather than her contributions to the cosplay community.

I'm not against sex or sexy costumes, I don't think that stuff needs to be censored at conventions. A few hentai panels are fine, a little naughtiness in big events can add spice to the experience. We all know these conventions aren't just for kids, and the Cosplay Burlesque troupe was founded as a way to make conventions more adult oriented. But since when do mature adults need to be surrounded by boobies, lesbian lapdances and tentacle rape scenes to have fun? To me, things like Anime Boston's jazz lounge have the right idea, give the grownups something to do that's fun and mature that isn't necessarily sexual (too bad the drinks are horrendously overpriced at that thing). I just have a problem with conventions who think the only way to entertain their adult attendees is to make everything, well, "adult." Especially when that adult programming is overwhelmingly done at women's expense.

As far as burlesques in general go, I'm not certain I know how to feel about them. Where is the line between a positive, genuine expression of real female sexuality and a raunchy display of commercial sexuality for the horny masses? Can they truly ever be one in the same?