The List is an Absolute Good

Wednesday, a post on facebook got some traction about The GLOMM. Specifically the boot list of people who were kicked out for being convicted of sex crimes.

A couple people had issues with the list. It wasn’t complete enough or it was meaningless because it was “anonymous” or whatever.

I wrote this reply and asked one of the people who had informed me about the discussion to post it.

Some background on the GLOMM can be found in this post on my site:

https://www.thejerx.com/.../9/14/the-future-of-the-glomm

Everyone on the list has been convicted of a sex crime. At the beginning I claimed I was going to throw people I didn't like on the list as well. But I was screwing around.

The list is not exhaustive because it's community generated. I'm not scouring the microfiche machine looking for magic pedophiles. But I update the list frequently with new names when people send them to me with the proper documentation.

By the way, if you have an issue with someone posting a list of magicians who have committed sex crimes (mostly against children), that's not a great look. You might want to keep it to yourself.

There used to be two rules to be in the GLOMM: Don’t be a sex criminal. Don’t be an asshole. Because the “asshole” thing can lead to some confusion—especially for the people who stumble over the GLOMM site and don’t get there from here—I’ve simplified the rules to just: don’t be a sex criminal.

Here is the GLOMM Code of Ethics from the GLOMM site, because some people in the Facebook thread seemed confused.

Code of Ethics

The ethics espoused by magic organizations can be full of complexities. The traditional magic organizations take a hard-line stance against "exposure" of magic methods. But where does teaching end and exposure begin? Surely exposure is most often a negative thing, but what if it is done so artfully it creates a greater love and respect for magic? Should we not ban bad performers from magic organizations if we're looking out for magic as an art? Don't they put it in a worse light than someone teaching the beauty of a method (something all magicians enjoy themselves)? These are thorny issues. And ones that are more a matter of personal conscience than something a magic organization can truly police.

For that reason there is one primary rule to be a member in good standing of the Global League of Magicians & Mentalists.

Don't be convicted of a sex crime. 

If you've been convicted of a sex crime, you're out of the Global League of Magicians & Mentalists. We're not talking about the consensual relationship between an 18-year old and a 16-year old, or getting caught peeing on the street, but those sex crimes which take advantage of the innocent and/or damage another human physically or mentally. (Shockingly, this doesn't seem to be in the Code of Ethics of other magic organizations. They're more concerned if a magic trick is taught on the back of a cereal box. Here at the GLOMM, we have our priorities in order.)

Of course it's impossible for our organization to know all potential sex criminals. So if you are looking for a magician you will need to do your own due diligence. 

Simple, right?

Well, not simple enough for some. So I’m going to further explain things for some of the commenters on Miss Perry’s post. People whose first instinct—when presented with a list of sexual predator magicians—is to take issue with the list. “That’s a strange impulse,” you might say. It sure is!

I’m not sure what I’m asked to do here.

No one asked you to do shit. If I thought the feckless magic community was going to do something I wouldn’t have started the list.

I don't know anyone on this anonymously written list. Of the names I recognize, none seem to have many friends left. […] If someone I don't know claim that someone else, that I don't know, have committed a crime against a third person, whom I don't know... what am I supposed to do?

I find this a bizarre attitude. “Hey, if I don’t personally know the toddler, the guy who raped the toddler, or the person reporting on the guy who raped the toddler, then—as Houdini once said—my hands are tied. What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know anyone on this list!” So fucking what? He seems disappointed by that. Tom, it’s a good thing you don’t know them. You don’t want to see a list of sex criminals and think, “Hey, it’s my Christmas card list!”

Holding our colleagues and communities to a higher standard... that sounds admirable, but how do I do that in practice?

How do you do that? Well, I’ll tell you how NOT to do it. If someone tries to broach the subject and your first inclination is to throw up your hands and say, “Nothing we can do about it,” while simultaneously trying to baselessly undermine the information they brought to the table—it doesn’t quite feel like you’re taking their concern or the issue seriously. So maybe avoid that.

Will you hold the arms of that person, while I cut their face with a broken bottle - while we assume that the first person actually got it right? Because vigilantism never gets it wrong, right?

Huh? I’m not sure that sentence quite turned out the way you were hoping. I appreciate the botched linguistic flourish… but you know we’re talking about a bunch of pedophiles and other creeps here, yes? Maybe not the group worthy of your weird metaphoric (?) defense.

And what exactly do you mean by “first person"? You think I’m the “first person” in this equation? No, I would guess the “first person” to identify these scumbags might be the 8-year old they’re fondling or the 14-year-old they’re sending pictures of their dick to or the person being filmed in the bathroom or the woman that got raped. I’m pretty sure in this equation they would be the “first person.” Then, I guess the next person would be a parent, spouse, or other loved one that they fortunately had the fortitude to tell about the situation, then the authorities would be the next person, a lawyer, a judge, maybe a jury (so 12 people there), then a news outlet, then whoever sent it to me, and finally me. So, I’m not quite the first person. I’m actually the very last person. All I did was throw their names on a list after they were convicted of a crime. My part comes pretty late in the game.

And vigilanteism? Gathering a list of sex criminal in our industry is vigilanteism? Okay, that’s one way to look at it (a fucking moronic way). Another way to look at is literally the least we could do to attempt to hold people accountable in this industry.

So that seemed to be a few people’s concern—that the list itself was flawed. Not the individuals whose actions got them on the list.

Okay… so each name should be an “active link” to a news story. Otherwise it’s just an “anonymous hit list.” Got it. But… why stop there? Why don’t I come to your house and gently whisper each news story into your ear? Apparently it’s up to me get the information into your thick skull. Is your Google broke, sweetie?

How would you handle someone posting a list of restaurants in your area that had been cited for having fecal matter in the food? Would you demand you know the name of the person who compiled the list? Would you march down to the closest restaurant on the list and start shoving an order of refried beans in your fat face because there wasn’t an “active link” to the health department report? Personally, I might google a couple of restaurants to verify the list’s legitimacy, but after that I wouldn’t complain about the list or the person who posted it to facebook. I’d probably be like, “Hey, is there anything that can be done so there’s not so much shit in our food?”

The back and forth continued on that post…

Look, I know this looks like Richard Kaufman is falling all over himself to let people know watching child porn isn’t the worst thing you can do. But I’m sure that can’t possibly be what he intended. We can all agree it’s not great to watch child porn, right? Okay, sure, if you feel the need to rank the levels of awfulness, there are more evil and destructive thing one can do. But as far as defenses go—”Hey, I didn’t rape that kid. I just jacked off to someone else raping the kid.”—is awfully weak. Yes, there’s a difference between the East Area Rapist and someone who got busted for watching kiddie porn. But I don’t think you want either of them showing their Hot Rod to your kids some Friday night at Fuddruckers.

I would like to explain why the list exists for anyone who can’t quite manage to wrap their head around it. As I’ve said in the past, I have no clue if there are a greater number of pedophiles and other creeps in magic’s ranks than there are in other professions. I’m sure there are plenty of shitty people who are plumbers too. But I’m not a plumber. And, more importantly, I haven’t heard too many stories of guys grooming kids for sexual abuse with their plumbing skills. I don’t think anyone ever said, “Hey, birthday boy, go sit on the plumber’s lap while he snakes the drain.”

I made the list for the sake of creating at least some accountability that doesn’t exist in the magic community otherwise. Why it’s up to this goofy bitch to do this, I don’t know. As I said, this seems like the very least we can do. I’m happy if someone wants to step up and do a better job than I’m doing. If something like this already existed, I wouldn’t have had to put it together.

The other big issue some seemed to have was that the list was anonymous. But, like, who gives a shit? The information in the list is easily verifiable if you take 1/10th of the time you put into posting about it on Facebook to do a simple google search. I didn’t say, “Here are some people I’m pretty sure are sexual predators.” I said, “Here is a list of convicted sex criminals,” and gave their name and city/country where the crime occurred. Obviously there’s going to be a paper trail. You can’t carry the ball into the end zone from there?

The fact of the matter is, old news articles often get deleted eventually, or may not even mention the perpetrator’s magic connection. I created the list so there is some accountability for these individuals who have inflicted damage on others, frequently using magic as part of the process of doing that damage. If you don’t particularly give a shit for the human toll of their actions, can you at least get behind the idea that this doesn’t look good for the art?

Since I launched the GLOMM five and a half years ago, I’ve heard from a few people on that list who are upset with me. Are they upset I kicked them out of made-up magic organization that they didn’t know they were in? No. They’re upset that someone searching their name in relation to magic might learn they were convicted of a sex crime. So…. good! My plan is working. You’re welcome.