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EMCP – You Want Girls to What?

Eugene Manning of EMCP and Eugene Manning Photography attempts to pressure young female cosplayers into nude/boudoir shoots and dates.

By Cosplay ChroniclePublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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It looks like there's some distress out in the world of cosplay photography this morning after the re-circulation of screenshots from 2015-2016 of Eugene Manning attempting to pressure his female clients into shoots they were not comfortable with. Manning owns and operates EMCP and Eugene Manning Photography which are based in New York.

Harassment

Manning trying to pressure a female cosplayer into a nude shoot.

Many of the women that have come forward have made claims similar to one another. Manning had messaged the women repeatedly asking for nude or boudoir shoots, when they responded that they didn't want to he still persisted stating "I gotta press you about dis tho". For many people, no means no and its very clear that the victim here wants nothing to do with his advances, I would go so far as to call this sexual harassment as it is unwanted sexual attention. This is where I feel it is necessary to remind everyone that "Cosplay Is Not Consent" just because you are dressed in a costume it does not give people license to sexually harass you or touch you in unwanted ways on the show floor. Manning has violated the trust of this poor woman who went to him, paid him for his services, and wanted to work with him to further her career only to receive these messages that are not only unprofessional but seem somewhat snarky.

Manning attempting to get a woman to do a boudoir shoot she clearly says she does not want to do.

This is not the only time he does this. As seen in this image he is trying to convince yet another young woman into doing a shoot she is not comfortable with. When a client of yours does not want to do something that is their prerogative, it is not your place to harass them into doing it. It's very clear that the victim in this screenshot has had to tell him no on multiple occasions and doesn't want to deal with his antics any longer. The Victim stated " I don't feel comfortable doing that, I'm trying to get my PHD, I can't have that kinda stuff on my resume." I find that to be a viable concern as potential employers can look up your internet usage very easily. She even brings this point up to him when he pushes her again saying "You wouldn't ACTUALLY PUT BOUDOIR SHOOT WITH EUGENE --7/17 ON YOUR RESUME THOUGH". Sorry Manning but it can and will be found if its on the internet, making the argument you pose invalid. Using poorly thought out arguments to harass clients into doing something they aren't comfortable with is extremely unprofessional.

Openly Anti LGBTQ+

Messages to BlerdCon

Here we have yet another example of Manning being less than courteous to potential customers, especially those that fall into the LGBTQ+ community. A fellow cosplayer reached out to the proprietor of BlerdCon, whom Manning was working with, with this message and captured where Manning states "I do my best to address people with the pronouns they prefer, especially if I know them well and care about them. But if I just met them, or don't know them well enough to know what they prefer, I'll address them as they present themselves to me. I don't have time to poll people for things like that". You have plenty of time to harass these women for Boudoir and Nude shoots but not take the time to get to know your client?

Another Victim said " He personally told me my gender identity was a fib and that I was only looking for attention." This person identifies outside of the standard Male/Female genders.Manning even went so far as to take these complaints and try to victimize himself to save face claiming there was "Man-Hate" on his Facebook wall. Promptly saying "If you don't like men, why not be a lesbian?" When these women just, truthfully, don't like him. Manning behaves as though these women should accept the unwanted attention because they owe him something when they don't.

This would also be the point in which Manning thinks sexual preference is a choice. Your sexual preference is not something you just wake up and decide ' Oh I'm gay today!' when you've been straight your entire life. That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works. further more, he says " I'm so implementing a 'no lesbians' rule in 2017" upon the realization that his photography subjects were lesbians because he can't coax them the way he had been trying to coax the other victims in the other segments of this article. Manning is certainly not a safe photographer for the LGBTQ+ Community in cosplay let alone out of cosplay.

Date Coaxing?

As noted here Manning is trying to get one of his clients to date him and even persists despite her being clear she's not okay with a relationship at the moment due to a recent break up making her emotional. This is a classic manipulation tactic, attempting to make the situation seem like it can be better by dating him then getting aggressive when there's not an immediate response. While Manning has not touched anyone, yet, his actions set off several red flags to anyone that's been abused or manipulated by a significant other. He goes so far as to tell her what she should say, while she pushes it off and is trying to be nice about it one can only imagine how uncomfortable she feels behind the computer especially as his comments come off as very pushy.

Sexual Assault a Job Hazard?

Claiming he might kiss her and its a job hazard

Sexual Assault is a strong term but as defined by the United States Department of Justice"Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient." That's exactly what is implied in this conversation. The person here must interact with her mother when it comes to costumed shoots but even with this he still states this and is rather unapologetic to the fact that he made a joke of potentially assaulting her. No matter the circumstance if you do not have permission to touch someone don't: its called consent. If you have a hard time understanding consent please, please, please watch Tea Consent it's a wonderful video made by Blue Seat Studios.

Scamming Cosplayers

A different photographer helping some cosplayers getting their money back

As if the sexual harassment wasn't enough Manning has also managed to not give cosplayers product they paid for. In this instance they paid for the shoot and he never showed up or messaged them when they were waiting for him on site so another photographer was kind enough to help them. This photographer deserves a lot of love. Not only did he take the shoot for cosplayers free of charge but he also helped them get a refund from Manning.

another person not getting what they paid for.

Then Earlier this week yet another person came forward stating that they hadn't been given what they paid for ( as seen in the image). She settled for proofs because she no longer wanted to fight with him or deal with the continuous messages for boudoir shoots. There was also another Cosplayer that dealt with Manning that had yet to receive photos as well. Manning reportedly made excuses and said he was just about to get to them on multiple occasions despite focusing on other, more recent shoots. The woman said "He's owed me photos for ten months" she continued in the dialogue with her friend. "I'm just planning to redo the shoot with someone else at this point because he's promised me about five times the last ten months he's just about to get to them and then posts progress from more recent cons". The amount of money taken from these cosplayers might not be very much in retrospect but they are paying for a service. Should they not be refunded if they aren't to receive the product?

His Response?

Manning's response to date.

While some of the information is old, dating back to 2015, some of it is new dating November of this year. The person known as Shane that he references here had made a master post back in April of this year as the individual posts people had put up sharing their experiences were being silenced. Manning says of a shared post " I don't even know that troll looking bitch" followed up with "Tell her to go **** herself, and cry more about photographers ignoring her at cons". Upon being called out for his unprofessional and all around atrocious behavior he responds just as creatively likening those that would not be silenced to "herpes".

When I tried contacting Manning through his EMCP Facebook page he did not respond, and by that chose not to respond to these screen shots and allegations professionally. I would like to personally thank Shane Washington and her friend Alice for letting me use some of the content they gathered from the various victims of EMCP. If you would like to comment on the situation and stay updated with any of the stories that continue to come out Click Here. If you have anything to add to this story please let Miss.Washington know in the comments or share this article or her master post with your story. The cosplay community is no place for sexual harassment and remember Cosplay is Not Consent!

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