Eymen ( 10 years ago )
In all seriousness if they grepod, grabbed, or made otherwise unwanted and inappropriate physical contact, or spoke in a sexually explicit way about what they wanted to do, et alia, then yeah, fine, tell them to fuck off. I would, if they persisted after I told them  no  or made my disinterest clear.If they just said they were swingers, and handed me a card just in case I was interested and wanted to get in touch for some fun, I wouldn't tell them to fuck off. I most likely would just say,  Thanks, but I'm not interested,  and leave it at that. If they persisted, I'd tell them to fuck off and/or get hotel security and definitely inform con management.It's all in the nuance.Look, I'm not saying it's 100% OK to be propositioning people for 3-ways or saying you're obligated to join if asked. But at the same time, treating being offered a card as tantamount to sexual assault, or in your obvious case, as a mortal offense to yourself and/or besmirching your wife's honor or whatever, is to my mind a severe overreaction and unnecessarily melodramatic and histrionic.Not every faux pas has to be handled with vicious blog posts and/or screaming at people to fuck off. Sometimes a firm  No thank you  and a stern expression are all you need. And there are other times when simply ignoring the wrongdoer and/or walking away is all that's necessary.But getting on the drama llama because someone offered your wife a card they didn't grab or grope her, they didn't obscenely proposition her, just offered her a card says to me that you have  no god damn sense of proportion  yourself. Really, just what is so mortally offensive about offering your wife a card?And for completeness' sake I never said it was OK at TAM. You must have misunderstood me; perhaps I wasn't clear. The thrust of my comments is that TAM IS A CONVENTION AND THESE THINGS HAPPEN AT CONVENTIONS, whether they're OK or not. It's best to prepare one's self and be able to handle it with nuance and grace. It's the unfortunate nature of the beast, and as I said in an earlier comment, unless we strap everyone over puberty in a chastity belt, or put everyone on libido-deadening drugs, this isn't going to simply go away because we want it to.And really, how do you know  this never happens to beardos giving talks about super-symmetry at an APS conference ? Or are you indulging in sweeping generalizations and hyperbole? Tut, tut, most unskeptical and illogical, old chap.