Okay, who brought the dog?

PZ Myers-owned copy of Skepchick nude calendar now on eBay!

Copies of the now-infamous Skepchick nude calendar are hard to come by these days, but Skepchick fans can now get their hands on a copy previously owned by PZ Myers himself.

Myers, the celebrated evo-devo biologist and popular feminist blogger, is auctioning off his personal copy of the racy calendar as part of the The Pamper Initiative, a fundraiser created to send a dozen people to this year’s Free Thought Convention. The fundraiser aims to cover airfare, hotel and convention fees to the members-only event hosted by popular skeptic and atheist bloggers.

“It’s an item that has enormous sentimental value, obviously,” Myers told reporters. “I’ve always kept it as a reminder that women aren’t objects, and that the female form can be empowering, in this case as a way to raise money for a good cause.”

The original image of Rebecca Watson from the Skepchick nude calendar (left) and the PZ Myers-owned copy up for bid (right).

Bidding started at a modest $150, but by Tuesday — just a day after the auction went live — the highest bid had topped out at $3,216.43.

“Item is classified as fair to worn condition,” the auction description reads. “Cover is faded and scuffed from storage under mattress. The following months on the calendar are either worn, bent or stained: April (Rebecca Watson), June (Greta Christina), September (Amy Roth), and October (Melody Hensley). Pages for June (Greta Christina) and July (Jen McCreight) are joined in some places by organic adhesive. Buyers must agree to purchase calendar as-is, with the understanding that this is a used item. Refunds will not be granted based on item condition.”

More than 300 users posted bids to own PZ Myers’ personal copy of the infamous Skepchick nude calendar.

BronyCon: Female attendance plummets after Watson takes aim at convention policy

Call her Rebecca the Convention Slayer.

In a row that mirrored the TAM controversy of 2011, women are abandoning BronyCon in droves after Skepchick leader Rebecca Watson questioned the convention’s commitment to the safety of female attendees. In an angry missive on her website, Watson accused convention organizers of pandering to “bronies” — adult male fans of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic — at the expense of young girls and women, who are the target audience of the animated hit.

“The show preaches friendship, tolerance and respect, but Bronies have perverted conventions into hormone-fueled bacchanalias, replete with men cosplaying as hypersexualized versions of the program’s characters,” Watson said. “The sad truth is that Bronie conventions are no longer safe spaces for women. Some of them are straight up meat markets, with alpha Bronies mounting mares like Dothraki horselords on Viagra.”

Grolgoth the Brony King declares war on women.

The skeptic icon went on to quote extensively from a Livejournal entry posted in early 2014 by a female fan who had been accosted by bronies at Equestrian Dreamz, a Montreal-based convention that draws thousands of fans annually. The victim was stepping into an elevator to return to the hotel room she shared with her parents when a bearded, 30-something man cosplaying as Apple Bloom shouldered his way into the lift.

“I could tell he was excited by the festivities, and he wouldn’t stop talking about the Cutie Mark Crusaders,” the victim wrote.

She said she didn’t feel as if she was in danger until the elevator stopped and an enormous man in the pink and magenta hues of Twilight Sparkle waddled into the lift. Apple Bloom high-fived Twilight Sparkle, and as the elevator doors closed “my creep radar was off the charts,” the girl wrote in her Livejournal entry. She described the rest of the ride as “the longest 45 seconds of my life” as the two Bronies sheepishly asked her to join them for banana smoothies in their hotel room.

In the wake of those accusations — and other harrowing accounts detailed on dozens of Tumblrs — female attendance at MPL-related conventions has plummeted more than 40 percent in 2014. Or, as Watson put it, “Brony conventions are packed with more sausage than Abe Froman’s factories.” Tales abound of out-of-control Bronies walking about conventions with their testicles exposed and engaging in lube-fueled “pony rides” along Slip n’ Slides.

A Bronie is attended to by a bevy of female admirers before the Carnivalis Bacchus, the afterparty Bronie orgy that has become convention tradition.

Watson herself was a keynote speaker at last year’s SparkleFest in Munich, where she delivered a talk on My Little Pony’s feminist themes. She was hit on by 26 Bronies, a fact independently confirmed by lesser bloggers.

“I had just finished giving a talk about how it irks me when men hit on me,” Watson said, “when a guy cosplaying Prince Blueblood told me he’d make me neigh, whinny and nicker like a magnificent courser. Is this what My Little Pony fans have to deal with all the time?”

Through Skepchick, Watson issued a general fatwa against supporting My Little Pony or any of its associated conventions until organizers apologize, allow Watson to write convention harassment policies, grant exclusive control of after-parties to Skepchick Industries, and ban dissenters — with the exception of the odd contrarian, so attendees “can be reminded of how fucking stupid Bronies are,” Watson said.

Watson cosplaying as Princess Luna at HoofCon 2012.

Rebecca Watson vs Stef McGraw: Backbiting From the Depths of Obscurity

How well do any of us know Rebecca Watson?

This isn’t a mystique-building exercise or a trick question, nor do we need remind our readers of the millions who have apprenticed themselves to The Greatest Skeptical Mind of our generation.

It’s a genuine question. We count ourselves among the legions of Rebecca loyalists, we rush to Youtube every time Rebecca posts a new vlog, and we hold our collective breath during SGU, waiting for the moment when Steven Novella will finally shut the fuck up, drop the pretense, and hand the show over to the woman everyone wants to hear.

But really, how many of us can claim we know what it’s like to be Rebecca Watson? We skeptics are undoubtedly more considerate and empathetic, but could we ever know what it’s like to be the center of attention? The annoyance of being recognized in public? The creepy gaze of sexualizing men? The frustration of imparting knowledge to the retarded masses?

None of us have experienced a coattail-rider emerging from the murk of obscurity to nip at us in a misguided attempt to get attention.

Would you want this man's creepy sexualizing gaze sweeping over your body?

These are realities faced by Rebecca Watson every day, significant concerns piled on to a list that already includes worries about anti-rape footwear and the efficacy of discount pepper spray.

Simply put, when you have to contend with sleazy men constantly sexualizing you, it sucks to wake up every day to the jealousy and backbiting of lesser minds hatching ill-conceived plots to syphon your hard-earned fame. It must especially suck when you loathe drama, yet catty little college bitches won’t stop nipping at you.

And so it becomes clear why Rebecca Watson was curt and weary when she dismissed Stef McGraw, an unimportant blogger who bit off more than she could chew with her sloppy criticism of Ms. Watson. Viewed through the lens of a giant of the movement, it’s evident McGraw was just another tiresome leech with laughable blog traffic and all of 23 Twitter followers to speak of. (Rebecca has 17,461, more than twice the amount of people who follow Michio Kaku and Jim Parsons combined.)

In truth, Watson shouldn’t have dignified McGraw with a response. As diehard loyalists, we agree with those in the Watsonian Subculture who believe Rebecca gave this obscure nobody a gift by acknowledging her existence. The poor girl’s blog was probably Slashdotted from the millions of readers following the link from Skepchick.

But far be it from us to criticize Rebecca, because we’re well aware of the consequences. And that’s, ultimately, why McGraw’s ploy backfired. In a year, Rebecca Watson will vault to new heights, and McGraw’s 15 minutes will be a distant memory.

Lesson learned: You don’t fucks with Rebecca Watson.