In which I ramble on about stuff and lose my train of thought.

Apr 23, 2008 18:40

So, I wasn’t going to say anything about the whole Open Source Boob project because, well, between grading papers and being a slacker, there isn’t a lot of time. But since starmind, tamyranev and an_sceal all said something, I figured why not chime in?



It all started with theferrett. Here’s the relevant part. (The whole thing is located Here for those who want to read it.

“At Penguicon, we had buttons to give away. There were two small buttons, one for each camp: A green button that said, "YES, you may" and a red button that said "NO, you may not." And anyone who had those buttons on, whether you knew them or not, was someone you could approach and ask:

"Excuse me, but may I touch your breasts?"”

There’s a whole story to go along with it, of course. These guys were sitting around, speculating on how wonderful it would be if they could just go up and ask people if they could touch their breasts. And apparently, a female in their circle said “you can touch mine.”

This apparently snowballed to the point where it was decided that color coded badges were needed. (Here is, of course, the problem with putting too many geeks in the room. Even something as simple as touching breasts becomes an elaborate exercise with “deeper meaning,” and overlaid with a queasy heap of misogyny. Clear indication these people need to get out more often than the annual con)

Everyone who knows me knows that you’re not likely to find a bigger fan of the breast than I am. And certainly, I’ve been to SDCC enough times to have walked past the duct tape girl more than once. (For those of you not in the know, her costume is a pair of pants, and then nothing more than two long strips of duct tape above the waist). And I’ve seen the women dressed up as Emma Frost, Catwoman, Slave Leia, and so many others

And yet, I’ve never, not even once, thought to myself, “I should walk up to her and ask if I can grope her.”

The problem is that ferret gets the entire thing backwards. It may be perfectly acceptable in a circle of friends (even platonic ones) to push boundaries. The things I say to females I am close with and I consider friends is WAY broader than things I’d say to women (or men for that matter) that I don’t know or have only known for a short period of time.

It may be that a female friend of mine shrugs her shoulders and says “sure, you can touch mine.” And the world continues on as it had been. But that’s because we are friends, and because there’s an intimacy that was created by other means that allowed us to get there.
In general, that kind of intimacy doesn’t exist between me and the duct tape girl as I pass her on the convention floor.

There’s a presumption there, that it would be “healthy” if we were all just free to act on our most immature impulses. That we’d all get over our hang-ups if I could just act on every whim that struck me. It seems to me that this is completely counter intuitive. Its far less healthy to project the intimacy I’ve spent time building with people I know onto complete strangers.

Note, when I say “intimacy” I don’t necessarily mean sexual intimacy. Among the people I am friends with, I am, logically, more comfortable around them than I am around strangers. That means boundaries are more elastic.

And yes, I know that participation was voluntary. I know that people were perfectly free to say “fuck off” and walk away. But here’s the thing. Why should it be necessary? Why would anyone in their right mind think its acceptable that people should be able to opt in or out of something that carries the weight of fondling?

And whatever the ferret says, there’s a clear sexual component. Look at the way he describes it:

“We all reached out in the hallway, hands and fingers extended, to get a handful. And lo, we touched her breasts - taking turns to put our hands on the creamy tops exposed through the sheer top she wore, cupping our palms to touch the clothed swell underneath, exploring thoroughly but briefly lest we cross the line from 'touching" to "unwanted heavy petting." They were awesome breasts, worthy of being touched.”

“We stood there afterwards, a little shocked. Then someone else spoke up in the same tone of voice:

"You can touch mine, too."

And my God! We all reached out like zombies trying to break through a door to get to those breasts.”

Yeah, if that doesn’t make your skin crawl, you’re made of sterner stuff than me.

Clearly, this is something sexual. And there’s nothing pure about this. Its all about the id taking over. “I see boobies and now I must touch them.” Hey, I can understand that impulse. But being a human, and thus capable of reason, I am also capable of restraining myself. There are, in fact, certain boundaries that exist for a reason. And its not because we’re all puritans. Hell, I don’t consider myself puritanical, but I recognize that there are boundaries, and they ought not be crossed.

Having touched a breast or two in my life (again, anyone who knows me knows that I am a fan), I can say that in every context, (well, aside from the time someone almost ran into me and I put my hands out to stop her and accidentally touched her. But in any context where the act was deliberate) there was some level of intimacy. Some context that required something more than two strangers meeting.

And that’s the thing. Stripping the act of its intimacy, making it no more than a handshake, doesn’t make it freer sexually, it actually strips the act of sexiness. It reduces people to parts, and it puts acts that have an intimate component on the same level as a sort of meaningless social gesture. Hell, I’ll shake anyone’s hand, and it means almost nothing.

The whole thing is dehumanizing. It takes an intimate act, and instead of freeing inhibitions, completely strips it of meaning. It doesn’t make us less repressed, it destroys the very thing its trying to promote.

Here’s the thing, people don’t go to cons in skimpy outfits because they’re hoping that random strangers will reduce them down to parts and ask if they can be touched. They do it because, well, maybe they want people to look, or maybe they just want to show off their hard work. Anyone who has tried to make a costume knows how much effort and money goes into the thing.

And maybe people do want to be seen. That doesn’t mean they want to be touched. And it doesn’t mean they should be put into a situation where they have to express a desire one way or the other. Its called personal space for a reason.

And sure, maybe people don’t have to participate at all. But its still created an atmosphere where the choice has to be made. You have to choose to participate or not. Suddenly, you need to be aware of being in a situation where you might be touched simple because you showed up. No one should have to make that choice. No matter where you’re wearing, you shouldn’t have to feel as if you’re in a situation where it suddenly becomes imperative that you’ve got to be thinking about being touched.

Hell, even in strip clubs, you’re not supposed to touch the dancers.

I think I’ve rambled enough. I’ve lost the thread of what I was trying to say, so I’ll just stop before I ramble more.
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