If you claim to be able to regulate anything that happens within your site because it’s your personal space, then I’m going to demand the same right. The first regulation I’ll make is that you may not look at me or what I’m doing. Therefore, you can no longer object to what I do at any distance from you, because you can’t know about it without violating my personal space.

Or are you somehow entitled to all the personal space you can see, and other people aren’t? Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. Whatever rules there are apply to all.

If you don’t want to see me doing something, then I don’t want you to look at me. Why should you be able to control my behavior more than I can control yours?

As for it being a bad idea legally, I’ve seen only strawman claims (first, that there were laws; that poster never actually specified which laws or what they said) (second, that “convention employees” are entitled to some higher degree of protection; there are none of those).

I’ve said that. I’ve explained just that.

Out in the hallways, not in a set-aside sapce is public.

I’ve explained myself, over and over, in as many different ways, as have others. I don’t think I really can be any clearer.

I’m done.

The people involved all knew each other and one person only was giving out the badges, the WOMAN who made them. They had complete control over who had badges, and the woman who made them already stated on the other thread that no one underage was given a badge or was part of this. So you can give that argument a rest as well.

No one was coerced into taking a badge, and they basically had to ask for them. They had to find the woman who was handing them out and get it from her. So you can retire that peer pressure argument as well.

If they had to ask for them, they had to make a decision to be asked, and took a position where they could control their own sexuality. Some men even got a badge, which allowed people to ask to touch their ass. This was, name notwithstanding, an equal opportunity situation. No one was harassed because they were, seriously, actually “asking for it.” So you can retire the sexual harassment argument, too.

The uproar is only from people who were not there and are reacting to ferrett’s poor choice of words, not the actual event. Only one person involved has even expressed the slightest amount of remorse, and that not at participating, but at how ferrett’s blog made it all sound. Not one person involved has reported anything but a positive experience, and other con goers have posted numerous places stating they did not even know this was going on.

Basically, all of your arguments are, quite honestly, crap.

If you want to say that you feel it promoted negative stereotypes about con culture, I could see that. If you were to say you felt it was a bad idea, I can agree with that. If you were to say you would not participate in this sort of thing, I am with you.

But when you come out with a line of crap about sexual harassment or underage participation when you don’t know what you are talking about and obviously have not taken the time to find out – you are just stoking the fires of ignorance.

Please, give it a rest.

What you’re describing has a name in anime circles: glomping. Most anime conventions have taken to adding a rule disallowing it.

Seth… plenty of posters, men and women, have gone over (and over, and over) the myriad ways, legal and ethically, at why this behavior is a bad idea, and wrong to do, in a public space.

I’ll try one more time, with the only way I don’t think I’ve tried explaining it.

Involing consenting adults is not enough(*). You also need to have a consenting environment, a place or space where anybody who attends knows what it is they’re getting into. That way, attendees are still allowed the freedom and the dignity of having their personal space be their own space. They’re also aware of the ways in which that personal space is accessed by others’ consensual decisions.

With great freedom, somethingsomething &etc.

Consenting environments are why things like hentai rooms and leather nights and the like exist. If the group had kept the “Open SOurce Boob PRoject” to a private room or space, there would have been far less of an uproar.

(*)Assuming that you have some way to one hundred percent without a doubt verify the age identify people under the age of consent on sight of both genders, of course. What happens when a 13, 14, 15 who “looks 18″ gets a “yes, you may” button and her parental unit(s) come to pick her up, only to come across her across getting felt up by a bunch of 20 or thirty year old guys? In some states, this will get you placed on a sexual offender list for the rest of your life, plus mandatory jail time.

Suppose there were some people whose greetings tended to be rather enthusiastically physical; should they be told not to come to conventions, or at least not to greet each other in public? How far do you think you’d get with that campaign?

That’s not what I’m saying at all.

Or is this one special for some reason.

Bingo.

Remember, a third party has no idea what the prior relationship of participants in anything is.

In any case, it’s the hotel’s problem, not the convention’s. (Just like violations of the law aren’t the convention’s problem; the convention isn’t the police.)

My point is, one of the many, many reasons why doing this sort of thing in a public space is a bad idea is because it opens up a hotel to liability for just such a reason.

Were you serious in implying I was constructing strawmen?

The hotel has employees. If any hotel employee felt harassed by a guest (or other convention member), I haven’t seen any evidence of that. Have you, or are you just inventing strawmen?