PORTLAND, OR — A long-simmering ideological divide within America’s small but passionate itch enthusiast community erupted into open conflict this week at the annual ItchCon convention, as scabies purists and crabs loyalists engaged in what one attendee described as “the ugliest weekend in the movement’s history.”
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The conflict, which had been building for years across message boards, subreddits, and a handful of aggressively unmoderated Discord servers, came to a head Saturday afternoon during a panel titled The Future Of American Itching, which devolved, sources confirmed, within eleven minutes.
“It got heated,” said convention organizer Dale Renfroe, 51, one of the founding members of the community and the only person in the room, sources noted, who was not visibly scratching. “There was shouting. There were accusations. Someone threw a lanyard. I have been doing this for fourteen years and I have never seen anything like it.”
The scabies faction, which considers itself the community’s traditionalist wing, has long maintained that scabies represents “the purest, most historically grounded” form of the American itch experience — one they describe, in their movement literature, as “sustained, systemic, deeply ancestral.” They point to scabies’ documented presence in human populations for over 10,000 years and its “consistent, honest, whole-body engagement” with the sufferer.
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The crabs loyalists, by contrast, argue that scabies is “generic,” “diffuse,” and “lacking in geographic commitment,” and that pubic lice offer what one loyalist described as “a more focused, more intentional, more locally rooted itch experience.”
“Scabies is fine,” said longtime crabs advocate Peter Yakov, 44, speaking from the convention floor while adjusting his stance in a way sources declined to describe further. “Scabies is fine. But scabies is everywhere. Scabies is on your arms, your legs, between your fingers. There’s no specificity. Crabs know where they live. Crabs commit.“
He was asked to elaborate on what he meant by commit.
“They stay in the neighborhood,” he said. “They build community. That’s not something you can say about scabies.”
The scabies contingent, when this framing was read to them, was reportedly enraged.
“That is revisionist,” said Marla Deshong, 39, a senior figure within the scabies wing and the author of the self-published 2019 book A Full-Body Itch: What The Ancients Knew. “Crabs are a convenience mite. They’re what you get when you don’t have the patience or the character for the real thing. Scabies takes weeks. Scabies transforms you. Crabs are fast food.“
She was asked whether she believed the two communities could ever reconcile.
She thought about it for a long time.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think we can. Not anymore.”
The tension between the factions has been building since 2019, when a widely shared blog post from within the scabies community accused the crabs loyalists of “diluting the itch space” with “shallow, geographically-limited content that appeals primarily to newcomers.” The crabs community responded with what they described as “a rigorous defense” of their approach — a 340-page PDF titled Precision Itching: A Manifesto — which the scabies wing dismissed, on publication, as “self-aggrandizing” and “structurally incoherent.”
Both documents remain, sources confirmed, in circulation.
A smaller third faction within the community — the poison ivy contingent — has, throughout the current conflict, quietly attempted to serve as mediators. Their efforts have been, by all accounts, unsuccessful.
“Both sides hate us,” said poison ivy representative Curtis Bardot, 46, standing alone by a folding table. “The scabies people think we’re not committed enough. The crabs people think we’re not focused enough. We just want everyone to get along. We’re the middle path. We’re seasonal. We’re natural. We’re outdoor. Nobody wants to hear it.”
Dale Renfroe, meanwhile, has now announced that next year’s ItchCon will be held in two separate venues.
“It’s what the community wants,” he said, sadly. “You can’t force people to itch together anymore. You have to let them itch apart. That’s where we are now.”
At press time, both wings of the community had begun independently planning their own splinter conferences for 2027. The scabies contingent has tentatively booked a resort in New Mexico. The crabs contingent is looking at somewhere in Miami.
Neither has spoken to the other since Sunday.
The poison ivy people are, sources confirmed, still around.