someone needs to tell him it's Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

[fickle]

Heard of the Open Source Boobie Project?

If you haven't, you should probably know straight off the bat that the name's a misnomer. Open Source has nothing to do with this because breasts are not publicly shareable bits of property. Breasts belong to the person they are attached to. They do not belong to anyone else -- not the doctor, not the plastic surgeon, not the boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other of the moment and not the hungry baby. My breasts, my uterus, my vagina, my body.

And if you try to act otherwise, I will most likely oppose your viewpoint either firmly or violently depending on your level of stupidity.

That said, what exactly am I so snarly about this? Multiple reasons.

1. For a moment, everything that was awkward about high school would fade away and you could just say what was on your mind. It was as though parts of me were being healed whenever I did it, and I touched at least fifteen sets of boobs at Penguicon. It never got old, surprisingly. Women are not responsible for your sexual healing. If you had a hard time picking up girls in high school or getting to touch their breasts, dressing up wanting to touch a lot of breasts at a con as 'sexual healing' does not make it look less sleazy. Like someone else said, my breasts do not have magical healing powers.
   
   
2. Like brown_betty said, "apparently there is a deeply felt conviction among some subset of men that the problem with today's society is that they do not have enough access to women's bodies."
   
   Of all the things that are wrong with society, I really don't think that's one of them.
   
   
3. We went around the con, asking those who we thought might be amenable - you didn't just ask anyone, but rather the ones who'd dressed to impress - and generally, people responded.
   
   Right. How exactly is this person defining 'dress to impress'? And apart from that, dressing in skimpy clothing doesn't necessarily mean you want to do anything. There's a motto I remember hearing a lot as a teenager "Being sexy doesn't mean you have to be sexual", and I think that applies perfectly here. Looking good, baring skin -- none of that is a signal that it's okay to ask to touch private areas. For me, that's skating down the dangerous slope of 'girls who wear short skirts are asking to be raped'.
   
   
4. They understood how this worked instinctively, and it worked.
   
   Instinctively, they knew a request to have their breasts felt was not a sleazy come-on but instead, part of a sexist project to revolutionize culture by having women's breasts become public space? Women's bodies don't need to become even more a part of the 'public space' than they already are! And I really don't think that my first reaction to someone asking to touch my breasts would be to think that they're holding a social revolution, so I'm very curious as to where these mind-reading girls are coming from.
   
   
5. By the end of the evening, women were coming up to us. "My breasts," they asked shyly, having heard about the project. "Are they... are they good enough to be touched?" And lo, we showed them how beautiful their bodies were without turning it into something tawdry.
   
   This part especially disturbs me. Women do NOT need their bodies to be validated by men. They have enough body issues already without thinking that there is some sort of standard that they need to pass -- a standard that is judged by random men -- in order to have breasts that are 'good enough'.
   
   
6. "I may not yet know your mind, but your body is beautiful." How is this revolutionary? This is what's happening right now. You make your initial assumptions about a person's attractiveness based on how they look. Guys stare at girls' breasts all the time; this is just taking it to another extreme of having them actually touch the breasts in question instead of just leering. They're hardly overthrowing the system; they're just opening it up for even more discomfort and possible harassment on the part of the women.

More reactions, many much more articulate, can be found here.

Comments

[lunarwhirl.livejournal.com]

I just...

Sheer, blinding rage. I can't even be coherent about it.

[inuyatta.livejournal.com]

Like I said in White Rain's journal--I welcome these fools to try and ask if they can feel me up. It'll be an interesting race between me and my boyfriend as to who gets their fist through the pervert's face first.

The fact that this creep's wife not only acknowledges this tripe as a social experiment, but AGREES and SUPPORTS him...gah. No words. At least, none that would quite express my disbelief and rage.

[brownie-utonium.livejournal.com]

I find it funny that he's trying to liken it to some kind of religious epiphany. While I think that this idea is really stupid, I don't think it's really all as horrifying as people are making it out to be.

He's said that they aren't going to go harass ask people anymore, so the only ones who will be involved are those who go buy the damn buttons. I can see where it might still be a problem if some guys try to grope girls wearing the "green" pins without permission, but... seriously, how can you NOT expect that? It's just sad that girls will even involve themselves with it.

Hey, why don't we start an "Open Source Testicle Project?"

...On second thought, NO. NO NO NO NO, GOD NO.

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

Everything you said. Yes.

[horntotingmania.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. God. That was one of the most vile things I've ever seen on the internet. The last thing that freaked me out this much was learning about bug chasers.

I haaated the way he phrased the whole thing. '"My breasts," they asked shyly, having heard about the project. "Are they... are they good enough to be touched?" And lo, we showed them how beautiful their bodies were without turning it into something tawdry.' And then defenders kept saying that it wasn't sexual, it was sensual. WELL THAT MAKES IT OK THEN LAWL! I like how he thinks he has the right to ask if he can touch women's boobs. Does he know what sexual harassment is? He'd probably define it as a man expressing his senshuall and totally not sekshuall appreciation of a woman's body.

And then I scrolled up and saw his picture in his icon. And lo, it all made sense.

[princessjessia.livejournal.com]

I can't read it. I saw it on mlleelizabeth's recent entry and I couldn't get past the first (of what I think was his original post) paragraph before my head exploded with rage. I mean, seriously, WHAT?

I can't bring myself to look and see if he's an equal opportunity pervert and thus all cool with his ass or package being grabbed, or if he's a blatant sexist hypocrite on top of it. My brain can't take it.

[harmonybunny114.livejournal.com]

I think the internet is being very silly about this. Of course, I understand why, but I do feel sorry for him. This would not have been a problem AT ALL if it weren't for the fact that we live in a male-dominated world and women feel overly sexualised and objectified as it is. Big if, naturally, which is why I still come down on the side of those saying it was inappropriate. Except I would say more...ill-advised.

Reading what the guy wrote, I really don't think he is the creepy depraved pervert everyone else is making him out to be. In fact, I rather like his microcosm world of prodding at social norms (no pun intended). I've been in groups of friends where we've randomly touched each others' breasts - I've been in crowds (ie marches, protests) where people came up to me with a 'Free hugs' sign and I'd hug them. Now the first case differs because it is among friends, and the second is different because it is decidedly less sexual and gender-specific. However, the linking theme between these scenarios is how much fun it was to feel a little bit less restricted, to challenge the assumption of reservation, prudence, and semi-isolation. And it sounds like he was feeling the same things, too, and enjoying the giddy silly newness of it all.

HOWEVER, when taking this tiny bohemia into a larger context, and turning it into a social experiment and creating buttons, I think he was clearly just not thinking about how others might take it. I don't think it was misogynistic, just daft. Perhaps his main crime of condescension was assuming that women could just let go of the negative reminders of assault and harassment in the name of free-love bonding - maybe he trivialised that, or simply didn't stop to think?

I don't think women should be hypersensitive about this. But I really, really understand why they are. If someone asked to touch my boobs, my first thought would be that they were a creep, and potentially dangerous - I would be angry and scared, and it would have to be a very special scenario for me to feel comfortable saying 'yes'.