Missed out, but learned something.
This was the first weekend that I lived vicariously through others for conventions experiences... and I have to admit that I didn't like it all that much.
Obviously the big convention was San Diego Comic Con (which at this point I feel that I should not have to explain). Thanks to online networking, I was able to keep track of what my friend Chandra (http://twitter.com/spookychan) was up too. I also received some interesting reports about the exploits of the Westboro Bapstist Church and a mis-reporting of a stabbing... which sparked up an interesting conversation about how news sites/shows will screw up the actual facts in favor of a sensational story.
The other convention that I was aware of taking place this weekend was MetroCon, which most of my friends had attended, but for some reason, the more that I heard about it, the happier I was that I didn't go... which is a very weird reaction to a convention for me and I can't really place why that was the case. In part it could be that something rather unpleasant was brought to my attention this weekend because of this show.
That would be the attitude towards pregnant women... or more specifically, pregnant women wanting to cosplay. The threads all started off helpful - with people suggesting what costumes they could do - but then would dwindle down into people telling them that they should not bother dressing up, to even calling them disgusting and fat.
How rude!
In both of the cases that I've seen, the women were in their prime and in happy relationships. Neither were fat and they weren't looking to cosplay anything outside of conservative. So why the hate?
This made me think about my own experiences with my pregnancy thus far and made me realize that most of the women of my generation are rather jaded against the idea of having a baby. It also made me realize that I was too until my husband started pushing for the idea.
For this I would like to blame those extracurricular abstinence classes that they force kids to go to during middle school and high school. I understand that they're meant to scare girls into avoiding teenage pregnancy, but the effect that they have is that instill a notion that pregnancy is a horrible disease that nobody wants to catch... Like an STD which they also happen to lump into those stupid classes.
They never say that there's a point in life where being pregnant is okay even though medical journals and whatnot will state that the best time for this would be the when one is in their late 20's or early 30's, which interestingly enough also happens to be about the ages of the "celebrity cosplayers" and the people that want to be them.
My only response to the nay-sayers here is to "grow up". Babies are cool and you know you love the cuteness that is little kid cosplayers - which you will see more of as cosplayers get older, have relationships, and ultimately have babies.
