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Cosplayers Left & Right, 

Geek girls have an awkward place in the nerd society. We’re the minority in a primarily male-driven pasttime, and, as our numbers have grown, there have been some conflicts brought to light that are not new, but are newly publicized.

In my mind, the idea of the Fake Geek Girl and the Cosplay Consent issues go hand in hand.

For years, gaming companies have used the idea of “HEY BOYS, BOOBS!” to lure gamers over to their booths or to buy their games. Girls, how many cons have you been to where companies hire models and put them in Slave Leia costumes and send them out into the aisles with the sole purpose of bringing <s>men</s> customers back to the stall?  “Booth Babes” are a common tactic and it’s only recently that certain cons have forbidden their use.

Are guys probably inappropriate with Booth Babes? Lewd and awkward? You bet. But those girls were paid, essentially, to be leered at, so, like women in other ogle-intending-industries, they probably just grin and bear it.

It’s these girls that I think of when I think of “Fake Geek Girls” — they’re not at the con because they love Saga or love Bioshock or love Neil Gaiman (though they might anyway). They’re there because they’re being paid.

For female gamers and nerds, having paid models in costume is frustrating because it feels like a gender-based double standard. Sure, male nerds found a niche where they are allegedly valued for their brains instead of for their looks –

Lumps on Display

– a place where it is safe to be awkward and unathletic and smart — so why couldn’t the same be true for girls? Why aren’t the women presented within the niche also allowed to be judged by the same standards?

I will never fit into a Slave Leia costume. Carrie Fisher really couldn’t either. But it does feel difficult to be confronted in every aisle with the “ideal” way girls are “supposed” to look.

Which brings me to the issues of cosplay and its ramifications within the nerd community.

I love dressing up. I made my own Lumpy Space Princess costume for Austin ComicCon in 2012 and put my lumps on display.

But ladies, let us be honest: there is not just ONE UNIVERSAL KIND OF COSTUME that is judged equally. Making generalizations about “cosplay” as though every costume solicits the same response is being blindingly naïve.

Ugly sentimentality re: entitlement, but a common belief

And it’s a REALLY delicate subject, because of the context of rape culture in America today. What a woman is wearing shouldn’t dictate how people behave, and shouldn’t excuse bad behavior. It doesn’t. And my being a woman, having an opinion gives me unfair leniency in some contexts and undue pressure in others.

If I came up to a really sexy lady cosplayer at a con, and told her that she looked AMAZING, that would probably be okay. It doesn’t matter if I’m saying it because I want to have sex with her or not, and perhaps it’s because I’m not being as skeezy as a con dude would probably be asking, but I know many cosplaying girls have taken offense at compliments as innocent as that.

I know if I’d put a lot of effort into ANY costume that I would relish any acknowledgement of that effort [I know from personal experience, in fact].

Also as a woman, however, I’m expected to stand with all women no matter what the circumstances. I’m not allowed to place any blame anywhere except the men. But my own personal credos regarding choices and responsibility and awareness end up making me SO frustrated at the finger-pointing.

Ladies, knowing what we do about the existing male culture within the nerd community, and how most sexy ladies at cons are PAID to be there and put up with a lot of shenanigans (for money), we have to take some responsibility.

Look at anything else, I dare you.

Is promoted/commercialized geek culture oversexualized? Yes.

Are too many female characters essentially boobs with legs? Absolutely.

But if the primary element of your costume is your boobs, you cannot be shocked when people notice… YOUR BOOBS.

Are you dressed like a superhero you love?

Guess what! She was made to market to boys who like boobs. The fact that the boobs in your costume are YOUR boobs and not comic boobs is a really difficult distinction.

I cannot fathom a reason to dress provocatively at a convention other than to get attention and right now, that attention is going to include some good attention and some bad attention.

Is that fair? No.

But you’re negotiating personal interactions with a number of people who may or may not have bonded together through their shared failure at personal interactions.

Understand that at least 70% of the questions Felicia Day gets at con panels involve boys wanting to have sex with her. And she is fully clothed.

So, until the presence of women in gaming becomes more “normal,” and the industry starts recognizing us and maybe even pandering to US too, there’s going to be some awkwardness.

In the Game of Cosplay, you win or you die.
Courtesy of The Otter

And it is okay to be appalled, but don’t be shocked. We girl gamers have come so far but to somehow dismiss what you already know to exist — that many men at conventions are going to be awkward and potentially inappropriate as a result of the very industry that you are dressing up in support of — and then be UTTERLY SHOCKED AND OFFENDED is just not cool.

If anything, don’t perpetuate the industry’s depiction of women that makes us boobs with legs. I guarantee you that if you go to a con dressed in street clothes and talk about how much you LOVE Black Cat or Lara Croft or Aquaman, you will make a million friends who love the same things you do and what your boobs look like won’t enter the conversation…probably.

Want to change things? Don’t patronize vendors that use Booth Babes. Buy comics where women are valued for more than their bodies. Buy and play and talk about video games where women kick ass without showing ass.

We’ve got a ways to go, gamers. But to move forward, we all have to recognize the roles we’re playing in the problems we’re experiencing.

Featured Image courtesy of warriorwoman531