SFWA Exposed For Their Lack Of Medical Help For Authors And Rape Fantasies Posted To Their Private Forums
SFWA has a creeper problem with Neil Gaiman allegations and now their forums exposed, one wonders what does the science fiction writers club actually do?
SFWA has been in a death spiral this last month, as multiple controversies emerged from the social club of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, exposing how corrupt and superficial it was. Now, matters are getting worse as tax documents reveal the help they give sci-fi writers is negligible, and their forum is used for strange men to fantasize about raping women.
Ever since Jeffe Kennedy stepped down as president in early July, SFWA has faced one problem after another. With the subsequent president, Chelsea Mueller, also resigning, the club's myriad problems, which have been stemming for years, were blown open.
Volunteers had allegedly been treated as second-rate citizens, and the board communicated poorly, leading to many hours of work being scrapped and frustration mounting. This led to several volunteers quitting, paid employees leaving, and board members giving up their posts because no one wanted to do any work for SFWA.
The problem, on the surface, appeared to be SFWA’s leadership using the sci-fi club as a high school-style clout structure. They would get elected via popularity contests and not merit and then subsequently not want to do any work that could benefit its members. It seemed most of these people wanted to use SFWA for speaking engagements at conventions instead of giving back to the writing community as intended.
As we’ve detailed on Fandom Pulse, when we got access to SFWA’s private forums, it emerged that SFWA might be in danger of lawsuits for the neglect of a disabled employee who was retaliated against by the board when she complained about accessibility issues. In conjunction with this, SFWA seemed to be funneling money to small publishers who had clout with the board to fund “charity anthologies” no one wanted rather than using the funds to help its membership as a whole.
Financial reports have now surfaced showing the SFWA really doesn’t even do much with the one mission they tout as one of their most important—the medical fund. The SFWA medical fund is supposed to help authors, who notoriously don’t always have good health insurance because they’re mostly self-employed, as medical expenses can mount up. A recent tax return shows SFWA only helped two members for a paltry amount.
The mask came off in a recent post from Adrienne Leigh, showing that SFWA doesn’t help independently self-published authors who are increasing the author membership at this juncture. She posted to BlueSky saying that their Griefcom almost solely exists to help trad pub authors, leading many self-published authors to wonder further what use the club is for their business.
But it gets worse for the social club, which is larping as a charitable endeavor to help science fiction writers. Author Kate Elliot exposed the club’s creepier elements with a BlueSky post stating, “Then there was a guy in the SFWA forums who went on about how the best reproductive strategy for men in ancient hunting/gathering days was to be a lone rapist traveling from band to band. I kid you not! Man alive, what a time.”
It begs the question as to why SFWA has a safe harbor for men fantasizing about rape in their forums. With the Neil Gaiman allegations at large, it seems that science fiction and fantasy professionals have a systematic problem in their ranks with creepy men acting terribly in a professional environment.
Oddly, SFWA has made no statement regarding Neil Gaiman, despite the man having won several of their Nebula Awards and receiving a nomination as recently as 2022. One would think that with an allegation that their forums are a safe space for posting rape fantasies, they would want to distance themselves from what appears to be a serial predator, given the seven women who have come forward to share their testimonies on the Sandman creator.
Regardless, SFWA is in massive trouble, and those troubles compound as more information is released about the club.
What do you think of SFWA’s inability to help writers and their forum being used for rape fantasies? Leave a comment and let us know.
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No one can take the lead and turn this nightmare org around. Burn it down, salt the earth, and build a new one that gatekeeps these freaks out of it.
“Then there was a guy in the SFWA forums who went on about how the best reproductive strategy for men in ancient hunting/gathering days was to be a lone rapist traveling from band to band. I kid you not! Man alive, what a time.”
Factually inaccurate. Hunter/gatherer groups were small. Guys like that would have been torn apart by the other males. Conquering other groups would have been the most likely avenue for rape.