The following post contains discussion of alleged sexual assault, stalking, and predatory behavior. Most links are to conversations on Threads, some of which contain victim blaming and defense of assault.
Please exercise caution and look after yourself before clicking links.
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The con drama has been nonstop this year, as people try to launch weekend events and one, two, or nineteen things go wrong. The latest: Sinners & Stardust.
Sinners & Stardust is a weekend event that hosts an author signing and a Dark Romance Ball to celebrate the readers and authors of dark romance. At the ball, apparently many, many things went very, very wrong.
It was the top few trending topics on Threads, in fact.
Look at that! More posts on this topic than on Taylor Swift’s album and Jillian Michaels being a racist.
So, What Happened?
HD Carlton reported on Instagram that cosplayer Animus, who was in attendance, was allegedly groped to the point that their body paint was smeared with handprints. They were allegedly sexually assaulted, and had an Airtag placed somewhere near or on their person.
Animus has also posted their own statement about what happened, explaining that they are not pressing charges:
DanaLeeAnnAuthor posted, “I’d like to remind people that kissing an author is super uncomfortable.”
Other attendees have mentioned audiobook narrators and voiceover artists were also subjected to lewd and inappropriate comments.
One attendee, whose Threads name changed between Jilleeyreadss and jaayreadsss before they deleted their account, was allegedly a conference volunteer, and as part of their ball attire wore a strap on dildo and flashed people with it (NB: That link contains a picture of this person and their dildo). Reports from other attendees have included that they were asked “Do you want to see something,” or that this person was whipping it out on an elevator with no comment.
Jilleey/Jaay posted an apology on Threads before disappearing:
Stick a pin in the “teaching moment” idea because, boy, oh boy, you can bet we’re coming back to that.
What has the response been?
Mostly, horror and condemnation, which is reassuring. But also, as I noted in my initial warning, plenty of victim blaming.
There’s some “you normalized this in your dark romance books” rebuttal, which, please have many seats, and, no, you don’t get a snack while you wait.
We have been battling that same bullshit accusation under many different banners.
“Normalizing assault” is a cousin to “gives women unrealistic expectations.” No one, as Elliot Harlow says, runs up to George R.R. Martin and threatens him with a sword while folks shrug and go, “Well, he was asking for it.” We don’t say this crap much about men or about other genres.
But, whoo damn, do we say it about romance and romance readers. It happens to me, too, when I tell people that I write about romance fiction. I was asked about my sex life on live television. Outsiders are easily comfortable crossing boundaries of conversation to enquire about sex merely because I’ve mentioned romance novels.
And the crossing of boundaries continues. I do not want to accept the idea that some readers are too fucking stupid to reliably know the difference between reality and fiction, or are so deluded as to use their fiction to excuse their unacceptable behavior, but holy crap, look where we are.
“You normalized this” is a feeble attempt to deflect or defend terrible behavior choices, to blame the victims and to silence them because they ‘asked for it’ by writing dark romances or doing the performance they were paid to do.
As author Marie McKay said, “you’re not supposed to act like the MMCs in a dark romance. That’s why it’s in the dark romance section.”
Also, one more side note: dark romance isn’t the problem. Dark romance and its contents are in part a reflection of current reality, about how women feel right now: powerless, stalked, victimized, and subject to horrifying conduct.
Furthermore this behavior is already normalized, judging by the number of people who are sexually assaulted. (Per RAINN, that’s one person every 68 seconds according to current data.)
If someone wishes to read about those experiences within a fictional world in a genre where the ending is promised to be happy, please, for the love of all that is holy, leave them alone.
Sinners & Stardust released a statement on Instagram, and while I haven’t seen it on their website, I hope it is shared there, too.
It outlined some changes for the 2026 gathering, including:
Safety for our guests: Authors, narrators, vendors, their assistants, our influencers, and special guests will now have a secure, dedicated area during the ball, with their own security. They may move freely between areas, but attendees are not permitted in their area under any circumstances. If an attendee is caught trying to go into their secured space they will be immediately removed and banned from future events.
Smaller, safer events. We are decreasing the number of tickets available to ensure a more comfortable, safe, and respectful experience for everyone.
These rules are not suggestions. They are expectations. Violations, including harassment, non consensual touching, photos taken without permission, invasive questions, or any behavior that makes others feel unsafe WILL result in immediate removal and a permanent ban from ALL future Sinners & Stardust hosted events.
(NB: I’ve been to events that have private breakfast and meeting spaces for the speakers, and, wow, is it lovely.)
Sinners & Stardust’s statement is a good first step, but I think there clearly needs to be a lot more communication and oversight.
More specifically, attendees at events that feature sexually explicit events and potential performances will need explicit, specific instructions as to what boundaries are and how they will be enforced.
The kink community already knows how to host events like these, and I’m reminded of past events and discussions when romance was heavy into BDSM portrayals, but light on the full nuanced education thereof.
As the_prologue99 pointed out:
Unfortunately what happened at sinners and stardust, is the consequences of people entering kink spaces without being properly educated. These “dark” romances feature themes that seem non-consensual but in the real world scenes played out would require enthusiastic consent from all parties as well as check ins before and after a scene took place. This isn’t a playground made for people to commit actual sexual crimes. This was a FANTASY ball, not a dungeon/club….
And if you acted like that in a dungeon/club they would kick you out and ban you. My heart is with all the victims, I’m sorry for what happened you at the hands of others who you believed you were safe with.
The_prolouge99 is right: these are people engaging in explicit spaces without being properly educated on how to do so.
Regardless, this shouldn’t keep happening. It’s happened before. It’ll probably happen again. It’s fucking abhorrent and it needs to stop.
In the late 2000s/early 2010s, anime conventions had to explain clearly and explicitly that “Cosplay isn’t Consent.” Someone dressed as a sexually provocative character isn’t giving unspoken permission to be groped or assaulted. And that reminder still happens because assault still happens.
We’ve had obsessive-level parasocial relationships in romance before, too – Twilight fans were downright creepy to the actors in the movies, and to the author. I know you can think of other examples.
HD Carlton also echoed a statement made by Katee Robert, that they’ve scaled back their husband’s involvement in their social media and appearances due to extremely invasive and inappropriate conduct from readers. I also remember the number of people taking sneak pictures of Sarah J. Maas’s husband calling him a “real life Rhysand.”
And there’s the whole debacle last year with hockey romance, and readers sexually harassing players. Kayleigh Donaldson and I discussed this at length one year ago today in a podcast episode that covered the TikTok hockey romance trend, and the larger issue of parasocial relationships leading to deeply disturbing behavior. As Kayleigh said,
“I think you certainly notice the way that a lot of women thought that acting like a man was somehow like an empowering move on this front. I think that’s definitely like a very lazy, pseudo-feminist idea….”
Yup.
But the first thing I thought of when reading reports from Sinners & Stardust: the cover models at RT.
The Romantic Times BookLovers Convention used to have the Mr. Romance Pageant, which many of us called the “mangeant.” (I found pictures of the 2008 Mr. Romance Pageant, if you’d like a peek.) The cover models and the Mr. Romance pageant contestants endured a lot of the same treatment, and it was not as vocally condemned as it has been today.
Mr. Romance pageant contestants used to have to basically schmooze the attendees for their votes. Early descriptions of the event in the magazine call them “romance heroes come to life,” and they’d be expected to behave courteously and with great solicitation to the attendees. You can imagine how well that went. There are some very fortunate people who didn’t have their assaulting behavior filmed and shared on social media, because, wow, did it happen.
This environment was further complicated by publishers like Ellora’s Cave bringing their own “Ellora’s Cavemen” to RT (and BEA one time, omg) and the directives for their attendee interaction were very different. And because Ellora’s Cave published explicit material and was one of the earlier small presses to specialize in it, the presence of the Cavemen and their performances led to a mixed, often unfortunate, result in attendee behavior.
Again, we’ve been here before. It would be fucking fantastic if we could make different choices.
Why do we have to discuss boundaries over and over again? Because this is a problem with cis women, specifically cis women who, as Kayleigh said, think that adopting toxic “masculine” behaviors and inflicting them on others is somehow empowerment. It’s not.
Several people have expressed similar sentiments, including Georgina Kiersten (emphasis mine):
I just got caught up in the Sinners and Stardust convention, and I am horrified, but not surprised. I am a stealth trans man, and I have seen 1st hand in both Romancelandia and the fandom how cis women objectify men and think it’s okay.
There is big portion of women in the world who think liberation is having the privilege to get away with committing the same wrongs as men do without impunity. This is what it all boils down to.
Charlotte Stein pointed out that the larger issue isn’t just about fiction and reality, or parasocial relationships, or the material inside a book:
I’ve said this many times before and people refuse to accept it or they just strawman it. It’s not the books or the enjoyment of the books. It’s the trends.
It’s suppression of critical thinking about them, the vilification of anyone who does, and the culture that fosters.
It’s making the books your whole identity. It’s refusing to understand or accept how fiction and reality interact….
The reason this has happened in the past is not because the present is innocent and fine. It’s because the behaviour never really gets addressed. The culture around it never gets addressed. It gets shut down with “one bad apple” or “well it’s just the way things are”.
This particular line really grabbed me: “It’s suppression of critical thinking…the vilification of anyone who does, and the culture that fosters.”
On a larger scale, we’re surrounded by people admired, praised and enabled for being the absolute worst versions of humanity. We’re surrounded by people who are eager to mimic that behavior because that’s, according to them, what power and leadership look like.
And we’re part of a culture within romance that places authors and performers in a situation where to reject a “fan” could likely cause intense scrutiny and incur a high social cost should video or photos reach social media. People conducting business are forced to override their own discomfort for fear of being reported publicly as rude. Because you know right now that rumor would be all the way to Mars before the truth could unlock its phone.
Events like Sinners & Stardust are, despite the costumes and the revelry, the performances and the glitter, WORK EVENTS. This is a professional event for these people.
So, to recap:
Reading choices are not a cause nor a defense for assault.
This is not a “teaching moment.” We already know this is unacceptable. And yet it still happens.
This should be a revolutionary moment: we as a community need to be calling out other women the way we ask men to hold other men accountable. This is our community acting this way. And we need to hold our community accountable.
We now have to ensure that it is an unacceptable choice to engage in assault and objectification. That means more education, clear explicit rules of conduct, and consequences for violations thereof. It means more security – which will mean higher prices for cons that are often already expensive. It means being uncomfortable while telling someone that what they’re doing is not okay.
When I first went to Romantic Times in 2008, I definitely saw some of the same behavior. And I thought, “Well, I guess that’s how things are.” The difference was, it was 18 years ago, and I was the new person. I was the new blogger whose acceptance wasn’t guaranteed in the community (blogs were an outrage, if you can believe it, and I know that you can) and I was also 18 years younger.
I am now about the same age as the people I saw behaving this way. And I am here now as an elder member of the community to tell the younger, newer readers: This is not acceptable. I will speak up, and I will tell you you are out of line.
This has happened before. This is going to keep happening unless we as a community stop and address those who do it while it happens and afterward and before the next time occurs.
One more thing: a number of the people at the Sinners & Stardust Ball were aspiring and current book influencers of various platforms. And funny enough, my Chani horoscope today had something to say about influencers that I think folks should read:
Every now and again, my horoscope is rather precise, but this is next level ridiculous. But it is 100% true:
True influence isn’t about recognition. It’s about integrity and the people who feel safer because of you.
Be the safe person.
I remember the mangeant and thinking how weird it was at the time. I didn’t see anything horrible but attendees seemed so extra flirty and aggressive.
I’ve also attended anime conventions and remember when that logo came into effect. I didn’t get it at the time but that’s because I hadn’t known of the horror stories cosplayers had.
I’m probably naive, but I think you will always have some people who don’t get that their behavior is inappropriate. They’ll believe they are “just being fans”.
I like how Ilona Andrews repeatedly tries to keep their fans in check. They’ve mentioned not wanting to weaponizing their fans. They point out inappropriate behavior but in a way that, for the most part, isn’t done to make someone feel stupid or foolish.
I think communication skills have deteriorated so much that everything is a heated confrontation. Not sure what can be done to fix that, but definitely stopping behavior is a good start.
“Mr. Romance, blink twice if you need a rescue”.
This was an excellent post connecting a lot of different pieces of romance history. I was there for the Cavemen era but had no idea they’d ever been sent to BEA — that honestly made me chortle out loud.
I am one hundred percent with Charlotte Stein on the lack of critical thought and its connection to a culture that sees no distinction between wanting and grabbing. Unfortunately I see a lot of this tying into the way that violent power specifically is being fetishized in American culture, and people being encouraged to wield it selfishly and casually. Dark romance is not the problem the same way video games are not the problem — but the fandom’s toxic entitlement *absolutely* is the problem.
Thank you, Sarah, for speaking up.
This is absolutely terrible. We, as a reading community, have had SO MANY discussions about consent and boundaries and respect in the last 18 years. What the actual HECK, people?!
Animus went into a space with his friend, expecting to be safe, and he wasn’t. I hope he can make a full recovery. The women who did this to him need to take a very long look in the mirror. I know that’s an understatement, but I’m honestly at a loss for words to convey the level of awful.
It’s making the books your whole identity. Nailed it, Charlotte Stein.
I’m remembering the earlier days of message boards like Suzanne Brockman’s, or the start of JR Ward’s vampires. Social media has taken the problem from mean girl shenanigans to stalking and assault. Sadly, I doubt it is fixable.
Thank you for discussing this.
When I was doing outpatient clinics, I started discussing consent at the pre-kindergarten check-ups. I would say, you have the right to say who touches you. If your friend want to hug you or tickle you and you tell them no, they should not do it. And if you want to hug your friend and they say no, you don’t. They got it, they understood. They and their families would even bring it up in later visits. If five year olds can understand it, we should be able to, also.
What you and others have been saying here, among other things, that appearing at a con is not the same as giving consent and that consent always needs to be key, is so important. Consent should apply everywhere and to everyone. Thanks you so much for your discussion.
“I’m genuinely shocked that as women or women-presenting, some of y’all thought it was okay to act this way.”
I don’t mean this too harshly, because I liked the rest of that Instagram post, but it’s 2025, and there’s no reason to be shocked that–regardless of gender–human beings can, and do, commit sexual assault. That is not something that there’s any reason to be unaware of. (I’m aware that this was probably just a case of bad wording, but still.)
I feel that this kind of thinking is exactly why people often fail to recognize sexual assault and sexual harassment for what it is. We’ve got too limited an idea of what it looks like, and of who commits it.
So often, ignorance is (a part of) the problem, not malice.
A personal example: At a nerd club I used to go to, there was this person who now is open about being non-binary but identified and presented as a woman at the time. They used to flip up other women’s skirts as a sort of cheeky joke, and thought nothing of it.
There’s a happy ending, though: As soon as the woman in charge of the club made a public announcement that some things were not okay to do and needed to stop, they realized that their skirt-flipping was not acceptable, and stopped doing it. They just hadn’t realized that it was sexual harassment, because it didn’t fit their idea of it. It had just been a woman joking around with other women, not a gross old man at the subway.
Another example I read about in a newspaper column: A female boss, your stereotypical genuinely nice lady of around fifty, had given a friendly hug to a younger male worker. He seemed a bit uncomfortable with it, though. And she realized quickly that while it was just meant as a friendly gesture, she was still a boss non-consensually touching her employee, someone she had power over.
These are mild examples, but everyone gets my point, right?
I feel that the kind of behavior discussed in this post is one of those things a lot of people (regardless of their gender) theoretically understand should be just as bad as the dirty old man on the subway, but in practice they don’t feel that way. The feeling seems to be at best “Okay, so it’s sexual assault, but it’s not SEXUAL ASSAULT sexual assault” and at worst “I’m just playing around a little.”
It’s super hard to say this right, but I think we need to tell more people to say to themselves “I am in fact capable of sexual assaulting and harassing people. It doesn’t stop being either of those two things just because it’s me doing it and not a dirty old man at the subway.”
Oh, and lemme end with a disclaimer: If anything I’ve said here is stupid or wrong, I welcome corrections.
And therapy. They definitely need a therapist to tell them what they did is wrong, why it’s wrong, and even go so far as to publicly apologize for their harassment.
Thank you for this. Just, thank you.
Thank you for covering this.
Second and third everything you said above. Thank you for being a critical thinker willing to speak up about what’s right and what should be clearly not okay!
I’m a SF fan as well as a romance fan. I noticed at the conferences there are a number of people who act suddenly “free”, flirting, displaying and inappropriate or borderline inappropriate behavior. Part of it might because they are anonymous in a large group of people who don’t know them or their usual selves. They ape behaviors they’ve fantasized about. Add any alcohol to mass events and you get incidents.
Okay, I can’t read through much past the screenshots without wanting to blow a gasket and… crap, I hate saying this, but at this point, Sarah, I, too, am an elder and I need to watch my blood pressure.
For crap’s sake, women should know better. Why? Because we’re subjected to this shit. But of course, that’s asking too much of the human race, I guess.
I was there at the godawful RT and broke off friendships after it, too.
People need to learn some damn empathy.
[…] At the Sinners & Stardust dark romance convention this past weekend, the boundary between fantasy and reality cracked wide open, and what spilled out was horrifying. […]
I came across the topic through a video on youtube and was curious what the whole story behind was. Let me first please express how sorry I am for the people who had to suffer this unexcusably cross behaviour by those who obviously don’t respect boundaries and aren’t able to take NO for an answer.
Someone said “well, if you go to such an event, what do you expect” which left me speechless. Just because the books this convention is about is some spicy stuff doesn’t give you the right to touch and molest people without their consent right?
My answer to those commenters would be:
Just imagine yourself as someone who loves to watch a horror movie in cinemas. Would you expect some random members of the audience to run around in said cinema to kill others in that audience? Obviously not, I guess, would be their answer.
Sorry for possibly appearing rude, but I was taken away…