What I saw at the same Con was this:

During the day: A few people in costume, most not, wandering from event to event; Dozens of people piling into the Skepchicon sessions and very seriously discussing skeptical issues.

During the night: Many people dressed up in sometimes very spectacular costumes wandering in a mostly clockwise direction around the hallways that encircle the reception room, stopping in some of the rooms, and continuing to wander, getting increasingly drunk. I didn’t go into those rooms. I assume they were full of people fucking and doing drugs, or at least, that it the impression I get from what people are saying. In the skepchicks room, people were watching Dr. Who on TV.

It was nothing like I expected it to be.

The skepchick room was, by far, not the “sleaziest” or most sexed-up room there. Not to mention there’s the secret BDSM room somewhere on the 18th floor that you have to know about in order to find.

I think what happens at the parties at this con (and probably many others) is less a result of the skepchicks profiling themselves as smart or sexy women, and more the result of 6000 horny nerds (both male AND female) getting drunk and finally letting go of the inhibitions they’ve lived with throughout the rest of the year. Dressing up as a character just makes it easier to let go and be who you really want to be.

If that kind of thing is not for you, then that’s fine. I did not go looking for the BDSM room for the same reason. But I wouldn’t judge the people who did.

Boobs? I dare you to do your own anecdotal study TOMORROW. Here is the test: you cannot look at boobs, but you must look at the boobs who look at boobs. Chances are ( based on my own anecdotal evidence) is that you ( male) will not look at boobs until the woman you are looking at ( her face, her hair, her dress, her eyes, most of which was triggered by her speech or the manner of her entrance into your space) looks at a pair of boobs, in which case, your own etes will follow HERS.

Then, if you are a woman, you need only admit to yourself that you looked first, before you noticed the guy whose attention you were trying to garner , looks second, after your own glance at the same boobs.

The result: you are all a bunch of boobs, and twice the tit if you are a woman, complaining about boob glances…

Regarding “getting involved”, I thought I did? My blog is there for people to take or leave.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/are_the_skepchicks_too_sexy.php

I’m sorry, but there are limits.

Every time women who promote a cause, or are professionals, or are feminists, get caught having fun, a bunch of concern trolls fill up a few threads with lots of tiresome off-topic comments about how said women are not really professional, are doing their cause a disservice, or are not really feminists. And I feel I’ve been time-warped back to the high schools I went to while growing up in Utah, hearing overly-loud Mormon girls whine about a terrible “slut” so-and-so was. A puerile and stupid conversation, entirely not worth having.

Now, if you wish you were at the party, if you wish you were the satyr they took body shots off of, or, if you are, like me, the sort of person who never has an opportunity to go those sorts of parties – I can empathize, but only about 500 times or so. Unfortunately for you, those 500 times went by a long time ago.

I came here because Greg left a comment at Henry Gee’s blog. That comment was quite interesting (sorry, no link, closed the tab by mistake), and was, as far as I could tell, the only thing on that blog worth reading. I wanted to thank Greg for it, and raise some minor issues I had with it.

But I didn’t find an appropriate thread, and I ended up in a thread so full of garbage the garbage washed those thoughts out of my mind, and now Greg will have to do without my thanks and my quibbles.

the bitter truth is that objectifying *people* has worse effects on women than on men

Becca, sexual intercourse does as well, but we still do it. The question is where we draw the line, how fuzzy it is, and what it actually consists of.

Your statement contains some assumptions about reductionism and application of unrealistic standards that I don’t think apply here. It’s definitely good to ask whether the addition of “sexy” to the description of a person makes everything else evaporate, but you have to listen to the answer too. When it comes to the discussion of Skepchicks, I don’t hear that, except from their critics and a few people I know well enough to know they’re going to make the joke no matter how badly the audience wants to be taken seriously on the subject.

As for unrealistic standards, Bug Girl and Elyse have already spoken to part of that. However, you should note that Skepchickcon also sported visible disability, crossplay, and PoC, just among the Skepchicks. None of the Skepchicks in evidence were there because they fit some mass-produced definition of sex appeal.

At some point, you have to ask when the objection to calling someone “sexy” becomes an objection to women’s sexuality. When we’re sitting someplace, as we are, where no one objects to people saying they find PZ sexy (except PZ, of course) but they do to the same description being applied to the range of talent and physical characteristics found among the Skepchicks, I think we have some kind of problem.

*displaying* your ability to appear thoughtful is generally referred to as ‘being smart’

Well, that depends on whether you’re talking about someone being praised for what they’re doing or whether you’re talking about “being smart” in the abstract, Madame Snarky. :p

But I can clarify what I said in my earlier comment, since it appears from this it wasn’t clear:

“Is little zaftig woman vs. boozy floozie just a more sophisticated Madonna vs. whore complex? Women are complex. PEOPLE ARE COMPLEX.”

Yes! That is exactly what I meant. You can enjoy smartness, hawtness, and sex no matter what your size or appearance. And the skepchicks do.

And, no matter what your size, intellect, or appearance, someone will find it offensive on the interwebs. Sigh.

Naive, much? Welcome to the elephant in the room and the clique in the clubhouse.

One good thing from all of this is the ‘if you don’t want to support, then feel free not to.’ Makes a nice change to ongoing attacks and bitching for daring to say ‘no thanks and you can keep it’.