Simple guidelines

So did you hear the latest about a presenter at a skeptics’ meeting getting propositioned? Elyse was handed a sexually explicit invitation by a couple of nice strangers to participate in group sex. Guys, don’t do that.

I have a simple suggestion. Think of sex as something two or more friends do; but also keep in mind that most friends don’t have sex together. When you’re at a meeting, plan to make friends promiscuously, but remember: the purpose first and foremost is friendship, not sex partners. And that friendship takes two people interacting, not one setting the expectations and telling the other what’s happening.

Maybe you make friends really quickly, and one evening of conversation is enough to reach mutual agreement and mutual attraction that leads to sex; that’s fine. But you know, playing pick-up artist is not how you become friends. Handing someone a card does not make you friends. Reading someone’s blog does not make you friends. Hearing someone speak at a meeting does not make you friends. Becoming friends takes a lot of work and communication. If you try to take a shortcut past the “making friends” part, don’t be surprised if you find yourself reported for harassment, or your activities outed and shamed on a popular blog.

The first simple guideline is: make sure you’re friends before crossing any borders.

The second simple guideline is, again: you don’t have sex with most of your friends. Sex is not a necessary side effect of friendship.

Be aware of that, and most of these problems will disappear, and everyone will be able to relax around each other a lot more.

The AAI meeting in Cologne

Hey, I’m leaving Germany. I spent my morning and early afternoon hanging out with lovely smart people, as I’ve been doing all week — Taslima Nasreen, Michael Nugent, Rebecca Watson, Leo Igwe, and all the good attendees who’d come out to Köln for the AAI meeting. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon riding trains to get to the Düsseldorf airport (let me just say that civilized countries have rail networks painlessly linking their cities. Hint, hint, America). And now I’m waiting for my evening flight to Reflavik.

Now about the meeting…

It was a fine weekend, but there were a few awkwardnesses. There was no wireless at the venue (I was told it was broken and couldn’t be fixed in time), and access at the hotel was very flaky. You may have noticed that there was little new material here this weekend— and I also wasn’t able to live-blog or tweet what was going on. I just kind of relaxed and let the meeting flow over me, which was fine for me, but unfortunate that modern conferences use twitter to allow fast real-time reporting from an event, which helps build interest.

Another small problem: some of the talks were in German (I don’t object–it’s Germany!), but the language of the talks wasn’t clearly labeled. That meant that all the barbarous mono-lingual people fled the room at any hint the next speaker was native German. I think most of us experienced at least once the uncomfortable situation of finding ourselves in the auditorium with an enthusiastic speaker lecturing away in what was pure gobbledygook to ourselves — I imagine this is how a biologist would feel if he stumbled into a physics lecture– and trust me, no one would want to experience that twice.

It meant I missed what looked like very good talks, from their titles. It wouldn’t take much to fix it — I did attend one lecture by Prof. Bergmeier, in German, and he provided a handout with a rough translation of his text, organized by his slides. That’s all it took to make his talk comprehensible to us benighted foreigners. (He talked about how the medieval church was a huge drain on the resources of Europe, very interesting stuff. Note to meeting organizers: historians have a lot to contribute to atheist meetings. Invite more!)

The venue was just about perfect.  It was held in a nice European theater: the big auditorium, with good acoustics, was upstairs, and the ground floor was a restaurant/bar. You could start drinking beer at 9am (I didn’t) and you could get drinks any time. It was a lovely environment for schmoozing.

Stars of the show were: Taslima, who quietly described the indignities and difficulties she fought her way out of as a Bengali woman; Leo Igwe, who so passionately talked about African injustice (about the Catholic church, he shouted, “ANY SUPERNATURALLY-INFORMED ORGANIZATION IS PART OF THE PROBLEM!” Yes!); and Rebecca Watson, who really let her anger out at the assholes who make excuses for the abuse of women.

It’s been a great weekend. You shoulda been there. Or even any more local Freethought event. If you haven’t gone to one, know this: to be among a group of  happy enthusiastic rational people who reject supernatural events is a wonderfully invigorating experience. It is so weird to be sitting here now, feeling exhausted and jet-lagged, yet also feeling totally buzzed on a community-driven intellectual high. You have to try it — it’s like the best drug ever.

#WISCFI summarized

So you’re looking for summaries of the Women in Secularism conference, because you, like me, weren’t able to go. Here you go: Skatje Myers, Jen McCreight, Ashley Miller, Skeptical Seeker, and Catherine Dunphy. I’m a little jealous.

Now what I expect to happen, though, is that this long list of speakers — Lauren Becker, Ophelia Benson, Jamila Bey, Greta Christina, R. Elisabeth Cornwell, Margaret Downey, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Debbie Goddard, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Melody Hensley, Sikivu Hutchinson, Susan Jacoby, Jennifer McCreight, Bernice Sandler, Wafa Sultan, and Rebecca Watson — will receive greater recognition, and at the next conferences I attend, more of them will be invited, and I’ll be hearing much more from them.

Another Rock Beyond Belief?

The first Rock Beyond Belief was a phenomenal success, but they need a do-over because there was something important missing: ME. So they just had to fix that and schedule Rock Beyond Belief 2 for next summer, in San Diego, California…only this time, I’ll be there. Rockin’.

I’m going to have to insist that Lt. Connlann Myers also be allowed to attend. He’s based in California, it shouldn’t be a problem.

#INR2 … done

Whew. Good meeting. You should have been here — it ended with a major bang with Seth Andrews blowing us away with some gorgeous video (Sagan!), Maryam Namazie wringing us out with her passionate opposition to the injustice of Islam, and Lawrence Krauss telling us how exciting it was to be insignificant residents of a universe that arose from nothing and is hurtling towards nothing. Now I’m exhausted, but I’m staying here in Kamloops for one more night, with beer to dispose of (I’m like Jesus, only instead of loaves and fishes, beer magically manifests itself in my hands every time I turn around. Which makes me greater than Jesus.)

I think we’ll be having an evening of the remnants of the Imagine No Religion 2 crew and speakers and attendees chattering happily over alcohol. Look me up if you’re still around.

Big day!

I’m about to fly off to the Imagine No Religion 2 conference (hashtag: #INR2), and my daughter Skatje is on her way to the Women in Secularism (hashtag: #WISCFI) conference — there’s lots happening this weekend. It seems like the FtB contribution is split: Maryam, Ian, Natalie, Matt and I will be in Kamloops, while Ophelia, Jen, Stephanie, Sikivu, and Brianne will be in DC.

Follow along on Twitter, and I’ll try to post updates here; Skatje, I think, will also be posting now and then. It’s going to be a fun weekend!

Meetup in DC

I know, I’m going to be in Kamloops next weekend (it will be a great meeting, by the way), but there’s another great meeting going on at the same time in Washington DC, the Women in Secularism conference, and a lot of readers are going to that one, or are just living in that east coast region. So there’s going to be a Pharyngula meetup in DC! It’s a secret gathering of the feminist cabal, though, so I can’t tell you where or when (I don’t even know myself), and if you want to attend you need to write to [email protected] to get all the top-secret details.

Will there be passwords? Secret handshakes? Ritual scarification? I don’t know. Attend and find out.

Converge on Convergence

Freethoughtblogs and Skepchick are collaborating and conspiring together to promote science and skepticism at Convergence, in Bloomington, MN, on 5-8 July. You should go! The skeptic track at this con have been steadily growing over the years, and there will be lots of wild discussion and fun. FtB is new to the game (although several of us have attended in the past) but we’re making a big push to join in with SkepchickCon 2012 and make ourselves known here.

We’ve been doing a lot of work behind the scenes — one of the essential elements of participation is to put on a good party, and this year Freethoughtblogs has booked a party room right next to the Skepchick party room. In fact, we’re meeting this weekend to work out all the details. Those of you who’ve attended in the past know that Kammy Lyon has been the Skepchick hostess and organizer for their party, and this year Mary Myers (the “Trophy Wife”) is teaming up with her to be the hostess and organizer for the FtB party. You got that? Not only do you get a weekend of skepticism and science and weird science fiction and fantasy, but you get two big parties going the whole weekend long. You want to be there.

The Skepchicks also sponsor bringing in speakers to participate in the events, and they need a little help raising money for that. Join in if you can’t make it, and especially if you can.

Madisonian Gathering?

I’m at UW Madison right now…after the meeting ends at 6, any recommendations for an impromptu Pharyngula gathering? Shall me just meet in the ratskeller in the nearby student union? I’ll be there anyway, maybe I can haul in a few other notorious people.

Decision made! Gather at State Street Brats, Ratskeller (again…organizers are gathering there) sometime after 6.

Hey-o, Madison!

I’m about to depart for this event:

Mary and I have 7 hours of driving ahead of us. It’s going to be no fun at all, although it looks like the meeting will definitely be worth it. One peeve, though: the two speakers I most want to hear are Kevin Padian and Elliott Sober, and they’re both scheduled to speak tonight. I doubt that I’ll be able to get there in time. Could someone tell them both to wait until 9:00 or so to start their talks? Just for me?

All right, if they rudely refuse to hold up the entire conference for me, I expect someone who’s there to review it all for me on Saturday. Pantomime over beer at lunch would be acceptable, and entertaining.

(Also: hashtag for the conference is #ftf1. Follow the festivities on Twitter.)