#weehu

Reason 1:  The abuse hasn't stopped.

I learned recently of an incident this calendar year in which Headcrash negotiated a scene with someone and then proceeded to ignore negotiated limits and boundaries.  @panavatar interceded to try and prevent the abused person from going public, gaslight them into doubting their position, and essentially forced them to choose between being loyal to their long-term partner and being loyal to Headcrash and his group.  Yes, exactly what some in the community have come to call The Headcrash Pattern.

I happen to agree with @panavatar about the value of what's sometimes called "restorative justice" -- that is, finding a path for people who have offended or harmed others to make amends and earn their way back into the community.  Though sexual assault is not something I'd apply that to, the concept is reasonable for lesser offenses.  But an absolute, non-negotiable prerequisite for that has to be contrition and an immedate end to the problem behavior.  You don't get to keep harming people and expect to be forgiven.

Reason 2:  WEEHU is no longer a community event

While I was at WEEHU this year, @panavatar and others made remarks at the commencement referring to WEEHU as its own community, or family, and how wonderful it is to be part of that family.  There was no acknowledgement (other than a brief mention of NEEHU by Mephki) that any other events or community groups exist, despite the number of non-local attendees and new (first hypnocon) people.  I'm human, and therefore as subject to confirmation bias as anyone else, but to me it sounded eerily like cult language -- designed to create a strong exclusive attachment to the group and its leaders.  That made me uneasy at the very start.

During the con, the feeling among people with prior WEEHU experience was that while they were enjoying themselves, this WEEHU had an unsettling air about it.  Some described it as "circling the drain" or "siege mentality".  I felt some of that myself, as I noted how easy it was to walk through the main hallway during what should have been peak traffic periods, and how the play spaces went virtually unused during party hours.  And since I was quietly excluded from the tasks I had volunteered for -- before-con data processing help and DM duty -- I had plenty of free time to look around, count noses, chat with people about their con experience, and warn the newbies against playing with Headcrash.

After the con, one of the organizers approached me in the parking lot to discuss a personal matter and confirmed for me that yes, the WEEHU team's attitude toward the rest of the community is one of "Fuck them, they hate us anyway" rather than seeking to make amends and rejoin it.  That conversation finalized my decision for me and made a lot easier to compose this post.  

My loyalty has always been to the erotic hypnosis community, and WEEHU has deliberately chosen to secede from that community.  But if WEEHU isn't for the community anymore, what's its purpose?  

Reason 3:  WEEHU exists primarily to benefit Headcrash

@panavatar's remarks to @jukeboxemcsa earlier this month, which I finally read on the plane home, make it very clear that WEEHU's primary purpose is to give Headcrash an opportunity to present.  This is more important than getting high-quality, well-known presenters such as @ladyruetha.  Headcrash needs WEEHU for that because he's been banned from so many other hypnosis and BDSM groups for consent violations and worse that other opportunities are scarce. 

While the WEEHU team do an excellent job of providing for their attendees' needs -- snacks, group events, and emotional support "troubleshooters" in case something goes wrong -- @panavatar’s remarks suggest that the attendees are important mostly so that Headcrash can present to them.  Some have also suggested that Headcrash uses WEEHU as a honey pot to attract new play partners; I can't speak to that with any direct knowledge, but if it's true that also supports the idea that WEEHU exists to enable Headcrash.

We now have a full year until the next WEEHU.  As a community, we need to do everything we can to make sure people are aware that WEEHU is not affiliated with the greater erotic hypnosis community, exists to enable and legitimize a known predator, and is NOT the only way for people in the western US to learn about erotic hypnosis.  

-wg

The most obvious sign of this is the attendance.  No, I can't quote attendance figures for you because I'm not privy to them.  Nobody except the organizers knows how many people actually registered for the event, how many of those who registered actually paid, and how many of those showed up.  They did claim ahead of the con that they had sold out the hotel, but of course that merely means that the rooms were paid for, not necessarily occupied.  I, and quite a few of the con-goers that I talked with or who asked me if I knew the attendance figures, drew a very different conclusion based on observations like these:

It was eerily easy to negotiate the single hallway that separates the two pairs of classrooms (converted hotel suites), even during what should have been peak traffic times.

During the play parties, the designated play spaces were almost empty even at what should have been the busiest times.

Classes generally filled half or more of the available seats ... but there were only about 20 available seats per room.

The sign-up sheets for group events such as the Sunday night pizza dinner had far fewer names on them than available space to sign up

It was surprisingly easy to get a table for breakfast in a "sold out" hotel.

My guesstimate, based on observations and talking with people, is that there were about 80 to 90 attendees, rounding up.  The WEEHU organizers will undoubtedly present alternative facts to trumpet the amazing success of the con, but those who actually attended could tell that there were a lot fewer people in that hotel than there were last year, which in turn was less than 2015 (the last WEEHU before Headcrash's consent violations and abusive behavior became public knowledge). If there were really 150 people at WEEHU, which is a figure I heard tossed around, what were they doing?  They weren't going to classes; a few peeks into classrooms on my non-teaching periods told me that there were usually no more than 50-60 total people in classrooms at any given time during the day.  They weren't going to the play parties; I never saw more than 8-10 in a play space when I was free to look.  If that many people planned to spend the whole weekend playing privately in their rooms, why bother coming to the con? Another common theme among people I talked with about their con experience was the distinct shortage of available cis female subs.  Of the few who were in attendance, many either had existing partners or were not interested in play with straight cis men.  This led to a lot of grumbling from those straight cis men that they couldn't find people to play with.  I can't say with any authority what the reason for that is.  It's hard to believe, though, that the drastically reduced numbers of Headcrash's preferred type of play partner isn't in some way related to his earned reputation as a predator. And then there was the schedule.  The official WEEHU 2017 schedule lists 59 classes and 24 presenters, including evening activities and the unconference time block.  That's pretty light for an event in its fifth year, but that's not the whole story.  If you remove the evening activities (not classes), the people on the presenter list who didn't actually present (yes, there are several), the unconference block, and the classes/presenters that did not have any connection to hypnosis (at all -- I was generous here) you end up with 37 hypnosis-related classes taught by 14 presenters.  If you remove Headcrash and his entourage from that, along with presenters who are primarily BDSM who teach a little hypnosis on the side, you end up with 29 classes taught by 10 known names. This is not to slight the mainstream BDSM classes and presenters -- they add a lot of value -- but the fact that so much of the schedule at this hypnosis con had little or nothing to do with hypnosis is telling.  While I still disagree with some of the behavior that has helped to prompt it, WEEHU's difficulty in attracting top-tier hypnosis presenters is clearly having an impact.

What now?

There is a strong sentiment in the community that WEEHU must be killed off.  That's not realistic -- Headcrash can afford to keep subsidizing WEEHU as a vanity event for himself and his followers regardless of what the community might do.  But that's okay; we may not be able to kill WEEHU, but we don't have to save it.  

There are a few things we can do in that vein.  We can promote the heck out of alternatives to WEEHU and to Headcrash's munch.  There are many.  The Bay Area Hypnosis Collective sponsors several strong, safe munches that teach skills along with responsibility and ethics.  The new con

Mindquake

, with the support of this community, can easily surpass WEEHU as the con to go to for new people in the western US.  Promote and support these things, and local community groups wherever you are, and WEEHU will continue to wither.  The fewer people who attend WEEHU without knowing about the dangers, the less harm can be done.There are also a few things I want to respectfully ask all who read this to refrain from doing.  Please do NOT send angry, threatening, harassing messages to the WEEHU organizers and sponsor, no matter what they post anywhere.  Please do NOT spam the WEEHU FetLife group with hostile messages.  Please do NOT harass, threaten, or try to intimidate people into not attending future WEEHUs if they've made an informed choice to do so.  I'm serious about this.  I know some of you find this sort of activity tempting, acceptable, even justified, and I respect your opinion even while I disagree with it.  But there is a strategic reason as well as a personal one for my asking this of you.  Every hateful public message, every act of intimidation against a presenter or attendee, makes it that much easier for the WEEHU leaders to seduce new people into their cult-like group by pointing at this community and calling us haters and witch-hunters.  So disagree with WEEHU presenters and attendees respectfully and leave the door open for them to come to other events too.  Eventually they will figure out what a toxic environment WEEHU is and make their own decisions.  When they do, please welcome them back.Thank you for reading.

-wg

Tagging @girlfurniture @daja-the-hypnokitten @mrs-prism @ellaenchanting @hypno-sandwich @enscenic @meltinggoldanddippingthingsinit @hypnokinkwithmrdream @zanythoughts @the-perfect-monster