I’ve seen this circulated around tumblr, facebook, and even Imgur. If you haven’t seen it, it’s the post that gives a list of fake phone numbers to give to someone who is bothering you for your phone number, whether it be if you aren’t interested, or they aren’t taking no for an answer. 

There’s a “loser” rejection number, the fucking KKK hotline (cmon people…) and some other stuff that is either “funny” or directs them to  something that tells them flat out that they were given a fake. I know it was made for women mostly, but this is for anyone- Please DON’T do it. Don’t give out those numbers to someone. 

First of all, a few are 1-800 or 1-866 numbers. 

Secondly, in every situation where I couldn’t shake someone, I would give my number and they would immediately stand there and call it, or ask if I can call them. If you give them one of these fakes and they call or text it, they are going to see that the phone didn’t ring or go off, and even if it’s in your purse or pocket, they might listen to the call to make sure it goes through. 

This can become extremely dangerous if they realize you gave them one of those numbers while they are standing right there, and can go from docile and annoying, to mean and even furious in a matter of seconds. God forbid you used the “loser rejection” one, or another mean one. 

Instead of these, if you must give a number, please know there is an app called “Mr. Number” and it allows free blocking. If you have to give yours out, immediately block the number as soon as you leave and are safely away. The app has the option that if they call, it won’t even allow them to leave a voicemail, so no angry horrible voicemails from them, and all their texts to you will also be blocked. 

Please be careful. I used one of these lines from years ago, and it was a polite one, too. The guy saw my phone didn’t do anything (it was too late to put it away and it was sitting on the bar), tried again, heard it, went from 0-60 and threw a shotglass down on the ground smashing it while screaming and calling me a cunt and a bitch and all kinds of shit. 

Most of those lines are provoking, so please don’t use them. You’ll probably see me say this a few times on different media, but it’s a safety issue and I feel strongly about it.

I’m so glad that our lemon tree finally grew and sprouted fruitful lemony lemons. I mean, imagine, we can make lemonade, key lemon pie, lemon merengue pie. I think it’s the most valuable of property that we have. I think we should go to the bank and get a loan, actually I think we should just get lemon tree insurance and then get a loan and use the lemon tree as collateral because it is now insured. I truly do love our lemon tree. Just imagine a life full of lemon trees, and all our beautiful lemons, endless possibilities. They’re so beautiful, I wish I was a lemon. You wish you were a lemon? If you were a lemon I would put you on my shelf and cherish you like I cherish all our lemons. That’s so beautiful, like I only hope that the whores aren’t stealing our lemons you know those naughty whores always steal lemons. we do have a couple lemon whores in this community, those damn lemon-stealing whores I hate them no one will take our prized lemons from us. Hey, has it been about 10 seconds since we looked at our lemon tree? It has been about 10 seconds till we looked at our lemon tree. Hey what the fuck

someone: hey u wanna read this fic that ruined me 

me, at high volume: IM ALWAYS A SLUT FOR SUFFERING 

Disclaimer (since they’re so fucking important): I speak here as an individual, not a representative of any company, industry, species, or whatever. Also, Chuck Wendig’s got a great piece on this. You should read it. Don’t, on the other hand, read the comments on the Tor piece, unless you have a strong stomach. 

Coming from the video game industry, with its overt, reactionary, enthusiastic, and proudly violent misogyny, I tend to think of the publishing industry as more genteel. I tend to think its intentions are better, and that the endemic sexism in SFF is a relic of earlier times, spurred by remembered love for pulp novels with sexy ladies on their covers. A soft sexism, if you will, in which women are prizes to be won and damsels to be rescued, and are thereafter expected to reciprocate with nights of grateful passion, but not the enemy. Not things to be ground under boots, punished for existing, battered into silence.  

Of course, that’s not true. SFF has its own slate of ardent misogynists and enthusiastic racists, and fairly recently, they decided that including women and people of color with, like, agency and main character roles and everything was just a bridge too far. So two groups of them, the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies, came up with their own slate of Hugo Award nominees, and mobilized social media to vote for those nominees, hoping to shut out anyone who wrote books with any sort of dreaded progressive agenda. 

Here’s what you need to know. The Rabid Puppies were started by Theodore Beale, aka Vox Day. 

Here’s a glimpse into how Vox Day feels about women: 

According to him, “female equalitarianism” is a greater threat to science than religion.^[15][16] In response to a blog posting by PZ Myers questioning how, exactly, many of the unsavoury aspects of religion benefited women, Beale suggested that honor killings, throwing acid in women’s faces and even genital mutilation benefited women because they prevent female independence and promiscuity, which he repeatedly referred to as social ills.

That’s right. This is a guy who advocates for honor killings and acid attacks to keep uppity women in their places. 

He’s also an open white supremacist:

He calls for the formation of a independence party to slow the “infestation” by non-whites, because there is no geographic escape from them anymore. 

This is the guy who called author N.K. Jemisin, who is black, an “ignorant half-savage.”

The Sad Puppies are a slightly less overtly bigoted counterpart. 

So, Irene Gallo, the creative director at Tor, posted the following on her Facebook page:

There are two extreme right-wing to neo-nazi groups, called the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies respectively, that are calling for the end of social justice in science fiction and fantasy. They are unrepentantly racist, sexist and homophobic. A noisy few but they’ve been able to gather some Gamergate folks around them and elect a slate of bad-to-reprehensible works on this year’s Hugo ballot.

And Tom Doherty, founder of Tor, felt the need to post a piece on Tor’s site. In it, he talks about how the Puppies aren’t really that bad, and how Irene Gallo’s views don’t represent Tor’s, and how she’s been reprimanded for her post. 

Just to be clear:

1. A woman speaks up against a racist and misogynist hate movement.
   
2. Her male boss shuts her up.
3. Her male boss then goes public, reassuring everyone he’s shut her up and that he has no issues with the hate movement.
4. He also makes sure to call her out by name.

I don’t know if you’ve been on the internet lately, but in the current Gamergate climate, a man calling out a woman for talking about misogyny is a fucking bat signal to the worst elements of the internet. It’s basically painting a giant target on her back for harassment, threats, doxxing, and all the other methods misogynist mobs use to attempt to shut up women they don’t like. 

I didn’t expect that the publishing industry would have any more spine than the videogame industry did in standing up to this crap, but I didn’t expect to see them cheerfully throw a female employee to the wolves. (The ass-covering could have been done without naming her.)

HERE SHE IS, BOYS! THIS WOMAN, RIGHT HERE! GO GET HER!

You don’t get to pretend, Tom Doherty, that you don’t know what the potential consequences are for her. None of you men in games, tech, SFF do. 

You don’t get to pretend after like the 900th news piece about women getting harassed for being Industry Women Who Talk that you don’t know. 

I’m done with guys being all, oh, women in geekdom get harassed and doxxed and threatened when they speak up about sexism? I HAD NO IDEA. 

I don’t believe your ignorance any more. You are lying. You are lying because you don’t want to be bothered. Because the serial harasser you employed was a guy you kinda liked. Because, well, bitches be crazy, amirite? 

You don’t get to pretend you don’t know what will happen when, as a man, you call a woman out for speaking up about sexism. 

You are lying because part of you kinda thinks she deserves it. 

I mean, it’s great that you feel the need to reassure your readers who kinda agree with Vox Day that you have taken care of the woman who said critical things about them. 

I note you didn’t feel the need to reassure any of the people who were harassed by your editor, James Frenkel, or to anyone who felt uncomfortable or unwelcome because of how long the SFF publishing community protected him.

You’ll publicly reprimand Irene Gallo for calling a hate group what it is, but a serial harasser?

James Frenkel is no longer associated with Tor Books. We wish him the best. (1/5)

— P Nielsen Hayden (@pnh)

July 11, 2013

He gets a polite and discreet send-off. 

Your message is clear:

Women and people of color aren’t really part of the SFF community. Women can hang around the edges as long as we’re demurely quiet, as long as we prop up the men or hang admiringly on their arms like all those ladies on the pulp covers do. People of color can come through the door as long as they don’t make any trouble. But when it comes down to it, the guys who are really part of the community will always choose their own. 

There’s a saying in Spanish: dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres. Tell me who you hang out with, and I’ll tell you who you are. If you want to stand with Vox Day, so be it. 

I’ll be standing with Irene Gallo. 

- Sneak up behind them
- Wrap your arms around their waist gently
- Smile as you tighten your grip around them
- Pick them up and toss them over your head
- Suplex City, bitch

like the number of people reblogging that shitty post about “why the xkit guy left” makes me fucking sick.

you can criticize people for immediately sending him hate without invalidating potential victims and suggesting that “bitches lie so who cares, he obviously didn’t do anything”

because hey, guess what? you’re also jumping to a conclusion! the conclusion that it didn’t happen and was an entirely made-up story.

and you know what kind of people jump to that conclusion?

abuse apologists!

i cannot fucking believe that i am seeing this bullshit from self-identified feminists. you should damn well know better.

My issue is that?? No one Came forward. Like 0 people.One person said “I think he’s maybe an abuser” and they asked for proof or other testemonies of people he allegedly abused and then- nothing. Zip. No one came forward.

one person spoke to the predators-exposed blog about an altercation while they were underage and he was of age. this person did not feel comfortable identifying themselves, which is why the blog made the initial post asking for other testimonies. so actually, someone did “come forward,” but because we live in a world that treats victims like shit, we’ll never know who it was or exactly what happened. this post goes into more detail.

so yeah, if you could stop being wrong on my post that’d be swell.

but really guys

tampons/pads marketed to young kids who just started getting their periods

should be a thing

wrappers with dinosaurs and planets and glitter and cats and sea creatures 

make kids feel comfortable about something natural that happens to their bodies. 

and for goodness sake

don’t sexualize it

No. Actually. Why do you need this? You don’t. Getting your period means you are starting to mature, which means you need to drive them AWAY from needless things like that. Also, you all bitch enough as it is about paying for these things, imagine how much more money companies will charge for those things? Or, maybe EDUCATE them, so they will already feel comfortable about it. Jesus fucking christ. 

Tell that to ten-year-old me, who still hadn’t had the period talk yet in school. I was crying and freaking out because I thought I was dying. Then my mother comes up to me and says with a smile “You’re becoming a woman!” I didn’t want to grow up yet. I was ten. Fucking ten and was told to start to grow up. My mom wanted me to get away from silly little kids things because I’m fucking bleeding out my goddamn vagina.

Also some people are children at heart and like to be silly and having a dinosaur-patterned maxi-pad would be pretty fuckin’ hilarious and I’m sure there’d be a huge market for that.

Not all people with vaginas are stoic and serious and want the same frilly, swirly boring-ass pads and tampons.

Not to mention that when I got my first period, putting a tampon in the first time HURT because I was still a little kid. Tampons with smaller circumferences that still had high absorbency would also be good, and the cool designs would help kids transition into and get used to the scary fact that they’re growing up. Let’s make this a thing!