“I’m up here:” On getting the full Tara treatment at NYCC and why consent to photograph cosplayers is not enough
I am wearing a skin tight, backless red gown with cutouts at the abdomen and a plunging neckline, my interpretation of Tara’s sexy red carpet dress that holds itself up seemingly by magic in the last pages of The Wicked + The Divine #13. I am hoping that having more or less run from the 7 train to artist alley in 6 inch heels through hoards of people hasn’t ruined my turquoise make-up too much as I suck in my stomach and pose for a crowd of people taking pictures.
A guy approaches me with a sheepish look on his face. “I guess I was supposed to ask for consent?” I tell him that it’s fine. At least it occurred to him as an afterthought?
One guy asked to take a picture with me, and then snaked his arm around my back, pressing his hand into the bare skin at my waist.
NYCC is among many that have lately been campaigning hard to disseminate the message that “cosplay is not consent.” It is expressly stated in the anti-harassment policy to ask permission before photographing cosplayers. And I am pretty pleased to report that I have almost always been asked before having my picture taken at the handful of conventions I’ve attended in cosplay. This is a great first step towards making conventions a safe space for women.
It does not go far enough.
I lost count of the number of dudes who took my picture and then, when I asked if they read The Wicked + The Divine, would shrug and scurry away. They were not taking my picture because they are fans of the character or the comic. They were taking pictures of me, of my body in a tight red dress. “Spank bank,” a (male) friend remarked knowingly when I brought this up.
There is literally nothing I can do to control what these men do with my picture once I give consent for it to be taken. They are under no obligation, neither formally nor by social expectations, to continue being respectful to me as a person and cosplayer once they’ve received consent to photograph. On the contrary, social expectations put the onus on me to somehow not let myself be objectified.
Why do I agree to be photographed, then? Why don’t I just say no? Why don’t I stop cosplaying characters who wear revealing costumes?
Let me back up for a moment.
In May, I cosplayed Angela at AwesomeCon. I spent months and months making the costume. It was my first time making armor and I was really proud of the work I did. One day at the con it took me like two hours to walk maybe 50 yards, I kept getting stopped by so many photographers. It felt good to be the focus of that attention, because I had worked so hard to create the costume. Not everyone knew who Angela was, and that was fine. I saw my picture on Instagram generically titled “Female Warrior.” It seemed to me that people were responding more to the costume than to my body. There was no way to justify it that way with Tara. It was just me in a red dress i bought online.
The photographer who took this picture at one point stopped to chase away another photographer, explaining to me that he’d noticed this photographer zooming in on women’s breasts and behinds when he photographed them. He was warning female cosplayers to avoid him, and running the guy off when he noticed him lurking around.
I’ll say it again: There is literally nothing I can do to control what these men do with my picture once I give consent for it to be taken.
These men think that once I’ve agreed to the photograph, they can zoom in on my boobs, or touch my bare skin, or keep my picture as some kind of hot-girl trophy for personal use later.
So again I will ask: Why do I agree to be photographed, then? Why don’t I just say no? Why don’t I stop cosplaying characters who wear revealing costumes?
Let’s start with the second question, as it has a simpler answer. Why don’t I stop cosplaying these characters who wear revealing costumes? Why should I have to? This is of course part of a wider social conversation about victim blaming, and I fall firmly on the side of, it is your job to control yourself and be respectful of me as a human being, it should not my job to change my perfectly reasonable behavior to suit your hideous belief that you can treat me like an object.
I cosplayed Tara because I love her as a character, and because I didn’t think there would be any Tara cosplayers at our WicDiv meet-up and I wanted there to be as full a Pantheon represented as we could muster. (As it turned out, there was another Tara, and she was lovely, but I digress…) I cosplayed Angela because I love her as a character, and because I wanted to take on a challenging costume. It isn’t fair that I should have to sift through the characters in my favorite comics to find the one who is covered up from head to toe because, you know what? It wouldn’t make any difference. Women are harassed no matter what they wear.
You know why I love Tara? One of the reasons is because I identify with her experiences. I vividly remember being about nine years old and walking down the street to the bookstore and being catcalled by grown men from passing cars. Apparently it doesn’t matter if I’m wearing a sexy red dress or if I’m an actual child wearing a baggy science camp t-shirt. (And you know, I love Angela because she will fucking kill you if you catcall her.)
And this brings me to My Point. Why do I agree to be photographed? Why don’t I just say no? This answer is more complicated. And more heartbreaking.
Honestly? It is sometimes more psychologically and emotionally taxing to refuse consent than to just accept the consequences of consenting. Which is so extraordinarily messed up. But there it is.
It’s kind of scary to be viciously called a fucking bitch by a strange man. It’s kind of scary to wonder if he is following me to the bathroom. It’s infuriating to know that he is going to take my picture anyway, as soon as he thinks I can’t see him. Giving consent is sometimes being put in the position of being implicit in your own objectification, because it actually feels safer than saying no.
And, yes, I could report any of the above behavior to con staff, but my first thought when any of it happens is, “Well, look at what I’m wearing.” It’s kind of upsetting to think about how thoroughly I’ve internalized that kind of thinking about myself.
Which is why we need more people, especially men, to be more like that photographer at AwesomeCon. We need to collectively make it unacceptable to treat women this way by calling out harassing behavior. We need to speak up for women who are uncomfortable in a situation but don’t feel safe speaking up themselves. Maybe we can’t change the wider world, but we can start by trying to change con culture. If you see some dude with his phone zoomed in on a woman’s butt, call him out. If you see a girl looking uncomfortable because she is being railroaded into a conversation or situation she doesn’t want to be in, ask if she’s okay. I have to believe that the good guys outnumber the bad here, and we have to assert that more explicitly in our spaces.
To bring it back to Tara, we need to be kind to each other. We need to look out for each other. Because if we take anything away from WicDiv #13, it’s that people internalize abusive and objectifying treatment in damaging ways, and a sexy red dress shouldn’t diminish a woman’s humanity.
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