Not Anonymous

... Until somebody pees in the sandbox"

An apt metaphor.

The whole situation regarding SurveyFail (see my previous post and more links on the matter) has been a matter of frustration to Fen.
As is evident by the amount of links collected, it is just an issue that touches us where it hurts the most.

To have our passions, desires and identities reduced in such a callous manner just will not fly.

Mainly due to a lack of time and differences in time-zones I did not participate actively in the actual discourse with ogi_ogas; not on his journal, which reading it left me feeling quite unclean due to having my eyes skim over the kind of entitlement I've grown to expect from men who think they deserve to see me kiss other women and not on threads on other journals which left me apoplectic and wanting to gouge my eyes out with my knitting needles.
An example at shaggirl's journal:

why are you focusing on slash in your survey and not just relationships in general for fanfic without regard to who the pairings are?

Thank you for your questions!

Well, slash is kind of the female equivalent of the straight male interest in transsexuals. That is, the opposite of what culture would predict. So it probably reflects a more direct subcortical effect. Also, there's already data out there about romance novels we can use, which probably overlaps with relationships in fan fic, but we do have a few questions that aren't specific to slash. Maybe we'll have more in the next round.

Emphasis mine.

That, friends, was the moment I could not for the life of me find the words to comment coherently, because the only thing I could hear was the blood rushing to my head and trying to find ways to spill out of the cavities in my face!
Yes, my head was pounding and I actually felt nauseous.
Read the thread... it's special.

One of the things I learnt over my years of living where I do, being who I am and being visible in practically ever facet of my identity to a certain extent is that you cannot get rid of your biases.
Everything is coloured by your preconceived notion of what is Right, what is Wrong, what is Good and what is Bad.
It takes a lot for your view to shift in any real way.
One of the things that does help regarding the issue of bias, is the acknowledgement that the things you seek in other people (be it knowledge, relationships or simple curiosity about how others think), are the things that exist within you as well.
There is no research, certainly not when it comes to the brain (read this succinct overview of what we know when it comes to Psychology) or any kind of human mechanism, that does not include self research.

Thus, when a couple of dudes come to fandom with the notion that they will show the world at large (for a good sum of money) how it is that Other People Get Off on Internet Porn, they are assuming that there is behaviour that is Normal and behaviour that is Different and they do not even bother to unpack what this Normal stuff is and why other stuff is Different from it.

I suppose it's redundant to mention that while the Fandom Backlash did its best to set this SurveyFail on fire, these researchers showed their true colours by locking up the journal upon which the majority of backlash occurred, they contacted one of the people that helped promote the survey and officially showed their true colours.
It is primarily yellow, btw.

[..]He [Ogi] defends is comparison of women liking slash to straight men liking transsexuals because "some deep sense of pleasure or satisfaction ultimately rooted in subcortical circuits" compels us to seek out slash/transsexuals despite fearing exposure to society at large. He asks for my feedback on this theory. He suggests they were working on the point-by-point post I suggested above, requesting my suggestions, and explains to me again why their methods are not faulty, that they actually planned to change the phrasing of questions as they went along. He is quite certain that his values align with those of the bulk of fandom, and crows a bit about still having contacts in slash fandom who are apparently "blissfully unaware" of SurveyFail. He has nothing but goodwill for fandom, but dismisses the criticisms of "anonymous, purported academics". And on and on. On second read-through I'm kind of gobsmacked.

Emphasis mine

If you read the whole post, you will find that it was far more malicious that first thought, though possibly still clueless regarding where the fail actually lies.

I feel this issue will continue to create waves in fandom, as it is not just these few individuals who created a shit-storm, because the assumption of Otherness when it comes to women's desires, queer desires, the reality of gender expression and identity and the intersection it has with race, class and ability is not something to be dismissed.
It is our lives.
What went on here.
That was just a symptom.

I'm curious to see and participate in the discussion that comes out of the ashes of this very hot bushfire.