Bárbara Pereira et al.

Línguas e Culturas Estrangeiras

ESE
3/5/2021
Body shame, racism and harassment in the Cosplay community

Harassment in cosplay
Before my researches, I genuinely thought that the Cosplay world couldn’t have any
dark side, since cosplaying irradiates a fun, creative and inclusive atmosphere. But
unfortunately I was terribly wrong.
Sexual harassment and bullying are shockingly common in the world of cosplay.
Although some conventions and the cosplay community itself take measures against
bullying and sexual assault, the problem persists. Just like it persists in our society like
Ines’s group explain in their presentation.
These behaviours come mainly from the fandom, within cosplay conventions or via
online. They attack cosplayers by commenting harmfully on their sexuality, weight,
attractiveness and how different they look from the character that they are
representing. Which is quite disappointing and dreadful.

BULLYING
Being bullied is already painful for everyone, but is even more unbearable for
cosplayers, given the countless hours that a costume requires, the costs, the love and
so on. They are countless incidents that can lead to bullying.
One of the incidents is when a man or a women chooses to cross-play. In fact, women
who crossplay are harassed less, and man are usually less demanding and more
respectful (but Marta will explain it furthermore). Another example is what happens
with Andy Valentine a famous cosplay. He receives a handful of harmful comments on
his Instagram saying- ‘You’re a man. Men shouldn’t cosplay. Women look hot, you look
like a loser’. Other times bullying occurs if the person’s portraying the characters
physique isn’t exactly right. In which is impossible to look exactly like the character, its
anime, was created by a computer.
To stop bullying, cosplayer Mojo Jones, founded FoodandCosplay and started the
#notacosplayer campaign. Mojo was bullied by a friend, saying something like this- you
are not a cosplayer so you can’t cosplay-. By hearing this Jones lost her confidence and
she refused to go to conventions. This can ruin someone lives, cosplaying is not just a
hobby for many people, is their job.
This campaign consists in cosplayers writing down hurtful comments that they have
received along with the hashtag, #notacosplayer. Ex: “Too fat for latex”.

Sexual Harassment
While bullying is bad enough, sexual harassment is not only worse but far more
dangerous. Both cosplayers and fans seem to lack fundamental understanding of what
 Bárbara Pereira et al.
Línguas e Culturas Estrangeiras
ESE
3/5/2021
means consent. Some people are just unable to understand that just because someone
is dressed as their favourite character, or if it is dressed in sexier clothes. That isn’t an
invitation to touch or grab, to be impolite or taking photos without their consent.
Cosplayers are still people with rights.

 Survey analysis: The results of the survey that we did shows that 66.7% of
people are sexually harassed. Here is a testimony of a women who was
harassed. Since is anonymous I cannot revel her name. Well, when this women
was a teenager her privacy and her dignity were violated by a group of young
adults. They blow her cosplay skirt with an airzooka and then they laughed like
idiots of what they have done, without any guilty thought on their minds. She
said and I quote “It exposed my underwear and they all laughed once I realized
what was going on ran away feeling violated and uncomfortable.” This incident
happen in her very first convention. So as you can image this doesn’t ends here.
Throughout the years she experienced the same inappropriate behaviour. For
instance, people taking photos or videos, stalking her or complete strangers
grabbing and touching her without consent. She added and I quote “Someone's
even gone so far to bite me once”.

Sexual Harassment in Cosplay Conventions

 UK: It’s more common for women to report being harassed. Most of the
conventions in the UK, and especially the London Super Comic Con have the
best policies against harassment. Nevertheless, the world isn’t perfect, so there
are others conventions like the London MCM Expo that are against safety
policies. There excuse is that, the amount of people, too many people to
control they say.
 Indonesia : I came across with an information that said that the Cosplayers
conventions in Indonesia were the most dangerous. In Indonesia, most of the
harassment comes online. Pinky Lu Xun, is one of the many cosplayers that
received a vast sum of harassing comments on social media. Like for example:
"this person is just begging to be raped" or when men ask her how much it
costs to sleep with her.
It looks like many people don’t understand how bad sexual harassment is. People from
Indonesia think that if a women drees in a more provocative costume that means that
they can have an offensive behaviour. Unfortunately this happens even though when
women are wearing modest costumes.
The panorama, is so bad that some women learn martial arts to protect themselves
since the conventions don’t have system of protection against sexual harassment.
Basically being a women in Indonesia is pretty unsafe. The cosplayer Xun said that it’s
worse when a women report the harassment, because there safety might be in a
vulnerable position. In addition, some people even blame the victims, what’s new. To
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Línguas e Culturas Estrangeiras
ESE
3/5/2021
add to this mix predators in Indonesia easily walk away from their crimes and the
victims are unable to defend themselves.
Online Harassment
Sexual harassment doesn’t happen just face to face, it’s also happens online. This
phenomenon is called the anonymity. The people who do that, think that they are
protected. The internet for them works like a shield which hides them from
repercussions. Jennifer, Spacebabecosplay on Instagram said that the anonymity
encourage those who are less likely to harass someone face to face.
Here are some examples of online harassments. Most of them are in the shape of
meaningful comments on co-player’s social media. Jessica Nigri is known for her
handmade sexy cosplays, by being revelling and sexy, this triggers some unnecessary
comments like the ones you see here. Disharmonica a Russian cosplayer model also
receives the same stupid behaviour. It seems like cosplayers don’t have freedom to
express the way they like.

Movements
1. Cosplay Does Not Equal Consent

When the #MeToo movement explode, openly talking about sexual harassment, gave hope
and strength to cosplayers. Although this issue was never addressed within cosplay
community, cosplayers had enough. So, a movement called Cosplay Does Not Equal Consent
was born, which consist in address harassment at conventions, appealing for stronger
safeguards and raising fans’ awareness.

2. Geeks for consent

The motto “Cosplay is not consent” started to spread, and Rochelle Keyhan and Erin
Filson founded Geeks For CONsent. The plan was to assurance safety policies to
protect anyone in need. Keyhan even said and I quote “The people who were doing the
harassment (were) sexualizing the character the person was cosplaying, and then
forgetting that person playing the character was also a human.”
The group created a type of comic book to address the issue and were shocked by
people’s experiences with sexual harassment. Take as example Doomkitty a cosplayer
testimony, she said: “I’ve had incidents where people have grabbed my butt or women
have grabbed my boob like it’s no big deal.”
Geeks For CONsent decided to launch a petition to San Diego Comic-Con since is one
of the biggest conventions in the world, to train volunteers to help people with that
issue. Unfortunately, until this day the convention table declined to do it.
 Bárbara Pereira et al.
Línguas e Culturas Estrangeiras
ESE
3/5/2021
Conclusion
To sum up, cosplay conventions need zero-tolerance policies on harassment. Above
and beyond whenever someone is harassed, we can’t stay quiet. Staying quiet and
doing nothing knowing what is happening is as worse as the harassment itself. We
need to speak out and identify the predator to stop this silence culture.

Biography
[Link]
[Link]
dressing-comics-conventions-lead-bullying

[Link]

[Link]
and-the-cosplay-community

[Link]
the-world-of-cosplay/

[Link]
harassment-and-abuse-at-cons

[Link]
cosplayers-from-harassment-in-a-metoo-world/

[Link]

Media:

[Link] Cosplay is not Consent

[Link] MCM EXPO (testimony)

[Link] Conclusion (testimonies good one)

Metimeter: [Link]
 Bárbara Pereira et al.
Línguas e Culturas Estrangeiras
ESE
3/5/2021