The Open-Source Boob Project
Apr. 22nd, 2008 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmWhen I was 15-years-old I spent a sumer taking classes at Yale and dyed my hair black.
When my father found out we got into an argument in which I eventually said, "it's my hair!"
"No, it's not," he replied and gave me inadvertant confirmation of what I had always known: that as a woman my body is not my own.
I exist in fandom both personally and professionally because it has loved me as much as I have loved it. I have found joy there, but perhaps more importantly, healing, repentence and absolution. In my defense of fandom, I have had to learn a lack of shame.
Which is why I have a certain amount of sympathy for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theferrett and his argument for the Open Source Boob Project despite how woefully misguided and steeped in unnoticed privilege it is. But to explain why I so strenuously object, I first have to tell you why I don't.
In my heart I truly believe one of the worst sins that can be committed against another person emotionally is to have contempt for their desire, their affection, their longing. You can denigrate what moves a person, but to denigrate the fact that they are moved - it seems foolish and unnecessary and distracts from the place the intellectual and ethical debate should be occuring. It belittles and implies all hearts share shape and size and nature.
So I get whattheferrett is saying when he talks about a scenario in which people could casually express desire towards one another and acknowledge it affirmatively or negatively, but without judgement. Wouldn't it be nice if people could make passes at people without expectations? Or if people could decline such offers without being appalled at their source? And wouldn't it, finally, be nice if people took no for an answer, graciously and with cheer?
Unfortunately, the world doesn't work like that. And we can't make it work like that. And the first clue to those facts is thattheferrett made it about men asking things of women.
One key problem with the Open Source Boob Project (and that is the stupidest thing I have had to type in a long time -- couldn't you have come up with a better name?) is its structure somehow makes it incumbent upon women to salve the ego wounds of men, as if we created desire and therefore must assuage it.
If that weren't offensive enough, the problem is also that this does not acknowledge the ego wounds on the fields of sexuality and desire that women also bear. And it certainly doesn't even begin to acknowledge violence -- and not just the violence of abuse and rape (which has also affected men, of course), but the casual violence that comes of a life lived as a woman: people who grope, being viewed as the crazy one when you confront an attacker in public, a push or a shove when you take up too much space, the constant demands that you fill a shape you were not made for.
The Open Source Boob Project has another problem that irks me as well, and that is the increasing dissolution of the idea of personal space both in America in general and in the fannish community in particular. I will never forget a woman I knew choosing to tell people I was mentally ill because I do not kiss and hug people hello in greeting and adieu. This is something I do with a few people I am very close to now, but that has been an earned intimacy.
My reasons for this are many.
For one thing, I like the formal world because the formal world makes more small things beautiful, startling and intimate: the brush of fingers, an accidentally revealed crescent of skin, the sound of breath, the fall of hair. I think the loss of certain formalities robs us of the ability to easily see small beauty.
For another, I am, despite being a very public and performative person, an introvert. Human contact exhausts me and this extends to physical contact with those I do not consider my good friends. I am profoundly tactilely sensitive, and, if I am worn down, touch can be upsetting. This is not the legacy of any terrible experience, but the legacy of the way I'm wired: some of it surely related to the nerve pain, tingling and misfiring that comes with my celiac disease.
But the reasons ultimately don't matter. I don't like strangers touching me, and I shouldn't be obligated to even address physical contact with people not my intimates beyond a handshake: not because of my gender, not because of how I'm dressed, not because I'm speaking on a panel, not because of who I know, not because of what I do for a living, not because of how many people I've had sex with, and not because of something you read on the Internet (and yes, every single one of these things has been used as an excuse to me about why I should let someone touch me and/or hug me and/or kiss me and/or have sex with me).
I've learnt to be gracious about it: it's in everybody's best interests, and it conforms to my own ethical code mentioned at the beginning of this. Sometimes, I even push through it and do the hug thing, because in some circumstances the cost is smaller to me on a given day than another.
I love my body, and I am lucky to. It has tried to betray me often. I have been the most beautiful girl in the world and the least. I've made a poor man and a dashing boy. And I have trained this flesh brutally to heed my commands against all odds and at times poor skill.
I dress to serve my flesh so that my flesh may serve me. When I fence every inch of me is covered except for my right hand and the back of my head, but I have also walked naked through a major motion picture.
I have no interest in wearing a sign giving or forbidding you permission to desire me. I am offended by the idea that succumbing to some random social pressure to do so will make the world a better place. I think I have finally learned enough in life to take well-meant desire kindly and to refuse politely (and all the gods know I've been a huge clod about such matters in the past); if you trust me with a question, I will trust you with an answer.
But fuck you and the horse you rode in on if you ever try to tell me that I or anyone else is obligated to heal you (medical and counselling professionals, clergy and even some gods, however, are appropriately obligated to try in logical contexts). The hardest, most brutal, grief-filled lesson I have ever had to learn is that only I could make myself finer with fire, only I could salve my wounds, only I could grant myself peace.
For me, fandom was a big part of the right place for me to do those things, because there was (all my complaints about personal space aside) space there for me to do what I needed to do how I needed to do it. That people were kind and gracious to me and saw beauty in my layers of clothes and sadness and loss was a gift. But it was not one they were obligated to give or even address the possibility of.
So while I get wheretheferrett is coming from, I think he's misguided; I think his ideas were put forward in an inherently misogynistic way; and I think he is sadly missing both the beauty of the worlds around him and the potential of his own power.
I was 15-years-old when my dad flipped out about my dyed hair. And you know what? He had a right to do that, because he's my dad and that's what parents do. But this flesh was never his, and I'm grateful that he taught me that through such a stupid, nasty accident of a remark. With any luck some good will also come out of the Open Source Boob Project, if only in the form of private lessons in self-possession.
When my father found out we got into an argument in which I eventually said, "it's my hair!"
"No, it's not," he replied and gave me inadvertant confirmation of what I had always known: that as a woman my body is not my own.
I exist in fandom both personally and professionally because it has loved me as much as I have loved it. I have found joy there, but perhaps more importantly, healing, repentence and absolution. In my defense of fandom, I have had to learn a lack of shame.
Which is why I have a certain amount of sympathy for
theferrett and his argument for the Open Source Boob Project despite how woefully misguided and steeped in unnoticed privilege it is. But to explain why I so strenuously object, I first have to tell you why I don't.In my heart I truly believe one of the worst sins that can be committed against another person emotionally is to have contempt for their desire, their affection, their longing. You can denigrate what moves a person, but to denigrate the fact that they are moved - it seems foolish and unnecessary and distracts from the place the intellectual and ethical debate should be occuring. It belittles and implies all hearts share shape and size and nature.
So I get what
theferrett is saying when he talks about a scenario in which people could casually express desire towards one another and acknowledge it affirmatively or negatively, but without judgement. Wouldn't it be nice if people could make passes at people without expectations? Or if people could decline such offers without being appalled at their source? And wouldn't it, finally, be nice if people took no for an answer, graciously and with cheer?Unfortunately, the world doesn't work like that. And we can't make it work like that. And the first clue to those facts is that
theferrett made it about men asking things of women.One key problem with the Open Source Boob Project (and that is the stupidest thing I have had to type in a long time -- couldn't you have come up with a better name?) is its structure somehow makes it incumbent upon women to salve the ego wounds of men, as if we created desire and therefore must assuage it.
If that weren't offensive enough, the problem is also that this does not acknowledge the ego wounds on the fields of sexuality and desire that women also bear. And it certainly doesn't even begin to acknowledge violence -- and not just the violence of abuse and rape (which has also affected men, of course), but the casual violence that comes of a life lived as a woman: people who grope, being viewed as the crazy one when you confront an attacker in public, a push or a shove when you take up too much space, the constant demands that you fill a shape you were not made for.
The Open Source Boob Project has another problem that irks me as well, and that is the increasing dissolution of the idea of personal space both in America in general and in the fannish community in particular. I will never forget a woman I knew choosing to tell people I was mentally ill because I do not kiss and hug people hello in greeting and adieu. This is something I do with a few people I am very close to now, but that has been an earned intimacy.
My reasons for this are many.
For one thing, I like the formal world because the formal world makes more small things beautiful, startling and intimate: the brush of fingers, an accidentally revealed crescent of skin, the sound of breath, the fall of hair. I think the loss of certain formalities robs us of the ability to easily see small beauty.
For another, I am, despite being a very public and performative person, an introvert. Human contact exhausts me and this extends to physical contact with those I do not consider my good friends. I am profoundly tactilely sensitive, and, if I am worn down, touch can be upsetting. This is not the legacy of any terrible experience, but the legacy of the way I'm wired: some of it surely related to the nerve pain, tingling and misfiring that comes with my celiac disease.
But the reasons ultimately don't matter. I don't like strangers touching me, and I shouldn't be obligated to even address physical contact with people not my intimates beyond a handshake: not because of my gender, not because of how I'm dressed, not because I'm speaking on a panel, not because of who I know, not because of what I do for a living, not because of how many people I've had sex with, and not because of something you read on the Internet (and yes, every single one of these things has been used as an excuse to me about why I should let someone touch me and/or hug me and/or kiss me and/or have sex with me).
I've learnt to be gracious about it: it's in everybody's best interests, and it conforms to my own ethical code mentioned at the beginning of this. Sometimes, I even push through it and do the hug thing, because in some circumstances the cost is smaller to me on a given day than another.
I love my body, and I am lucky to. It has tried to betray me often. I have been the most beautiful girl in the world and the least. I've made a poor man and a dashing boy. And I have trained this flesh brutally to heed my commands against all odds and at times poor skill.
I dress to serve my flesh so that my flesh may serve me. When I fence every inch of me is covered except for my right hand and the back of my head, but I have also walked naked through a major motion picture.
I have no interest in wearing a sign giving or forbidding you permission to desire me. I am offended by the idea that succumbing to some random social pressure to do so will make the world a better place. I think I have finally learned enough in life to take well-meant desire kindly and to refuse politely (and all the gods know I've been a huge clod about such matters in the past); if you trust me with a question, I will trust you with an answer.
But fuck you and the horse you rode in on if you ever try to tell me that I or anyone else is obligated to heal you (medical and counselling professionals, clergy and even some gods, however, are appropriately obligated to try in logical contexts). The hardest, most brutal, grief-filled lesson I have ever had to learn is that only I could make myself finer with fire, only I could salve my wounds, only I could grant myself peace.
For me, fandom was a big part of the right place for me to do those things, because there was (all my complaints about personal space aside) space there for me to do what I needed to do how I needed to do it. That people were kind and gracious to me and saw beauty in my layers of clothes and sadness and loss was a gift. But it was not one they were obligated to give or even address the possibility of.
So while I get where
theferrett is coming from, I think he's misguided; I think his ideas were put forward in an inherently misogynistic way; and I think he is sadly missing both the beauty of the worlds around him and the potential of his own power.I was 15-years-old when my dad flipped out about my dyed hair. And you know what? He had a right to do that, because he's my dad and that's what parents do. But this flesh was never his, and I'm grateful that he taught me that through such a stupid, nasty accident of a remark. With any luck some good will also come out of the Open Source Boob Project, if only in the form of private lessons in self-possession.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 11:56 am (UTC)My only defense is that men Just Don't Get It.
I know this because *I* just don't get it.
I guess I'm just defective, or stupid, or an idealistic hippie, but I -like to be touched-. To me intimacy is something that is enjoyable, that is ... pleasurable. When I actually go so far as to have sex, it's enjoyable times 1,000. But even the little intimacies, a quick caress of the cheek, or when a woman puts her hand on your shoulder to lean in close and whisper you a secret? That's just magical to me. And it's not that any time a female comes within breathing distance of me I suddenly forget that she's a human and start thinking of her as a walking hole to stick something in. I fall in LOVE with that person. Yes, I know that it's not REAL love. It's some kind of stupid fantasy of an evolutionary impetus to reproduce with as many different people as possible. But what it is NOT, is a dreadful, fearful thing. I don't get terrified at the very suggestion of intimacy. That just sounds so much like a societal throwback to some kind of puritan anti-sex theology.
Just about every year at my job, we're required to re-take a sexual harassment awareness test and send the certificate to human resources. The test always bothers me because it seems to treat women as a bunch of insecure teenagers who must not even be made aware that sex exists. If two men tell a dirty joke at the water cooler, that's fine. Because apparently men are mature enough to accept the humor of a dirty joke without being offended. But if a woman is near, both men must immediately silence themselves or be guilty of harassment. That just seems so ... SEXIST to me. Worse than that, it seems to undermine the impact of ACTUAL harassment, such as when a male supervisor refuses to promote or even threatens a woman for failing to put out. Men like that really do deserve a kick in the balls. And it still happens. But when men have frank discussions of sex and sexuality around each other, there's no malice intended. Guys never ask each other: "Is it okay if I talk about this TV show I saw last night? It had some sex in it..." because it's ALWAYS okay.
Perhaps a better analogy would be to start a kind of Open Source Gay Project. A lot of guys absolutely WOULD object to having another male come up to them and say: "Hey bro! Is it okay if I grab your dick? No sex, just a quick feel". Some guys would get their teeth knocked out for asking that. But I don't agree. I am totally okay with a guy grabbing my crotch, as long as I always have the option of saying NO. Some guys are nervous even KNOWING that another guy is checking them out, as if the other guy's "Gay rays" are going to force him to suddenly start listening to Barbara Streisand and wearing gold lamme hot pants. It's ridiculous, but I've seen it happen. I am always okay with being seen as a sexual object, whether it's by a guy, a girl, or a monkey. As long as I always have the option of saying no, and as long as that declaration is respected.
I just think that that's what this silly-named project was doing.
Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 12:05 pm (UTC)I guess I'm just defective, or stupid, or an idealistic hippie, but I -like to be touched-. To me intimacy is something that is enjoyable, that is ... pleasurable. When I actually go so far as to have sex, it's enjoyable times 1,000.
Did you really read what I wrote and then decide that I hate being touched and hate sex? By sarcasticially noting that maybe it's weird that you like to be touched, you imply that I'm weird because I prefer to limit whom I have physical and sexual contact with. This was rude, and offensive. It doesn't take into account the specifics I offered: introversion and an unsettling nerve condition and practically obligates me to tell you about how sexual my partner and I am. Rude and dismissive.
Just about every year at my job, we're required to re-take a sexual harassment awareness test and send the certificate to human resources. The test always bothers me because it seems to treat women as a bunch of insecure teenagers who must not even be made aware that sex exists. If two men tell a dirty joke at the water cooler, that's fine. Because apparently men are mature enough to accept the humor of a dirty joke without being offended. But if a woman is near, both men must immediately silence themselves or be guilty of harassment. That just seems so ... SEXIST to me. Worse than that, it seems to undermine the impact of ACTUAL harassment, such as when a male supervisor refuses to promote or even threatens a woman for failing to put out. Men like that really do deserve a kick in the balls. And it still happens. But when men have frank discussions of sex and sexuality around each other, there's no malice intended. Guys never ask each other: "Is it okay if I talk about this TV show I saw last night? It had some sex in it..." because it's ALWAYS okay.
Again with the apples and oranges. Can you not see the difference between sexual harassment laws about what you can and can't say in front of a woman (or a man and btw, women aren't allowed to say those things in front of men or other women either) and a guy who intially seemed to feel that the world would be a better place and men would be happier if all women were ready and prepared to salve the male ego with their flesh?
Perhaps a better analogy would be to start a kind of Open Source Gay Project. A lot of guys absolutely WOULD object to having another male come up to them and say: "Hey bro! Is it okay if I grab your dick? No sex, just a quick feel". Some guys would get their teeth knocked out for asking that. But I don't agree. I am totally okay with a guy grabbing my crotch, as long as I always have the option of saying NO.
This statement comes from privilege. You know if you say NO your NO will probably be met with a limited number of consequences. A woman doesn't. A woman's experience tells her she may face social ostracism, public humiliation or violence she does not have the pphysical strength to respond effectively to.
Some guys are nervous even KNOWING that another guy is checking them out, as if the other guy's "Gay rays" are going to force him to suddenly start listening to Barbara Streisand and wearing gold lamme hot pants. It's ridiculous, but I've seen it happen. I am always okay with being seen as a sexual object, whether it's by a guy, a girl, or a monkey. As long as I always have the option of saying no, and as long as that declaration is respected.
Do I need to do an unscienfitic poll on my journal to see howman y women here have been touched in ways they didn't want by strangers, acquaintences and even those they thought were friends for you to grok your privilege. My NO may mean NO, but your NO is more likely to be respected.
Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 12:25 pm (UTC)And again, I'm really sorry to have caused offense. I just thought that the whole point of the project was that if you opted-in, it was okay to ask, and furthermore that your NO would be respected. If women were being asked if this were okay, and then guys went ahead and groped them anyway, then those guys really need to have their balls slammed in a car door. Unquestionably. But to me, asking is always okay.
Again, I'm really sorry to have made you angry. :(
Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 07:02 pm (UTC)Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 12:48 pm (UTC)That's also one of the unspoken parameters of the original process that bothered me. It was made clear in the Ferrett post that even if someone wore a green button, they might say No if asked, but that means the whole concept of the buttons becomes merely suggestion, not a firm stance. If a woman wore a green button and when asked said no, an aggressive desirer could extrapolate that a woman wearing a red No button might say Yes if asked, and at that point the whole convention is a construction worker zone of catcalls that, hey, might pay off for the aggressive at best and at worst lead nowhere.
Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 12:57 pm (UTC)And thanks to yet another respondent on a similar thread, I can now understand how, if someone HAD been raped, or genuinely feared being raped, that even the question would be scary and squicksome. I just thought that the original intent of the project was that it's okay to ask for consent and that that consent should always be respected. I'm sorry. :(
Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 12:59 pm (UTC)Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 01:17 pm (UTC)Again, I'm really sorry.
I'm tempted to make a post of my own about how a lot of men are actually intimidated by other men as well. I'm never really afraid of being raped or molested, but if I'm in a bar and a guy in a biker jacket sits near me, I'll be a little nervous. Because in the same way that women are expected to be okay with being sex objects, men are almost always expected to "be able to take care of themselves". If some guy thinks that you were checking out "his" girl, or that you brushed too close to him when getting your girly-umbrella-drink at the bar, it could easily escalate into a fistfight. Men are expected to be able to handle this, and many of them incorrectly assume that they COULD take on a 260 lb biker, just because they're small and quicker. But the threat is always there, even in relatively "safe" situations.
I'm sure that I'm comparing apples and oranges again, but in this context, some guy coming up to me and asking: "How about I kick your little pansy ass?" would not be a question that it'd be okay to ask. :(
Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 07:25 pm (UTC)Men are generally supported in policing their own safety-boundaries. Women generally aren't.
If a strange guy at a bar behaves physically agressively towards a man (given that physically agressive behavior from a stranger is too often a prelude to a beat-down), and that man acts to enforce a boundary against the stranger, he is generally rewarded for being "manly" and "taking care of it himself."
If a strange guy at a bar behaves sexually agressively towards a woman (given that sexual agression from a stranger is too often a prelude to attempted rape), and that woman acts to enforce a boundary against the stranger, she is generally punished for being "rude" or "prudish."
This is the contextual reality the OSBP ignored, and this is why ignoring it is dangerous.
Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 07:28 pm (UTC)Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 07:31 pm (UTC)Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 07:45 pm (UTC)... and this DOES make sense to me. If a strange guy starts acting aggressive towards me at a bar, and I enforce my own boundaries, I'm generally rewarded for being a man and sticking up for myself.
But if I were to flinch away from the guy and say: "Don't hurt me, mister! You can have my chair, just don't hit me!", I would be generally punished for being a "pussy". The guy might still kick my ass, even using my flinchy attitude to justify his aggression. "Whatsamatter, pansy? Can't stick up for yourself? Too scared to fight me?".
Personally, this is exactly the attitude that I would have taken if I'd been present at the OSBP and discovered that there were people who DIDN'T respect the women's boundaries. If some guy asked a girl if he could touch her boob, and then went ahead and groped her anyway after she said "no", I'd take that as an assumption that it's perfectly okay for me to ram my foot up his ass whether he was okay with it or not.
But then, that would probably be another example of me being sexist, since I'd assume that a woman needed to "protected" by me. :(
I don't MEAN to sound like an insensitive jerk, it just keeps coming OUT that way!! :(
Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 07:57 pm (UTC)Not to worry, that's a correctable condition. It starts with listening to yourself and hearing yourself as others hear you.
I'd take that as an assumption that it's perfectly okay for me to ram my foot up his ass whether he was okay with it or not.
That's a tricky one to answer. Obviously, if more men took other men to task for their sexist behavior, we'd all be better off. On the other hand, going all Rambo on someone rarely does more than escalate the situation.
Saying, loudly, "Dude. That's not cool!" would probably work better.
I mean, what's being served here? Your need to be a Man, or the desire to create a respectful space?
Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 09:00 pm (UTC)See, now I don't know anymore.
One point that keeps coming up in this argument is that men who force themselves on women are seldom taken to task for it. That men can get away with raping a woman because: "Hey, did you see how she was dressed? She totally wanted it". I've read news stories (in absolute horror) in which this actually happens. Someone rapes a woman, but then it turns out that she's not a pure virgin who was wearing a burkha, so obviously she was just begging for it. Women are apparently "sex objects", so they must submit, or face consequences.
I want to live in a world in which men talk in hushed tones about that one guy three years ago who didn't take no for an answer and was found beaten and bloodied hanging from a tree branch the next day.
Is that my male "violence as solution" coming to play here? Probably. But I don't want there ever to be "no consequences" for breaking consent. I want there to be ULTIMATE consequences.
(although, that wouldn't entirely work either, because then you could argue that any woman could just arrange to have any guy beaten and killed just by claiming that she was raped)
Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-23 09:16 pm (UTC)I am not saying there should be no consequenes. I am saying that the agression level of the intervention should be matched to the danger level of the situation. I am saying that one should not escalate a situation one is attempting to defuse. I am saying that one's response should not make one seen as just as dangerous as the original situation.
Consider this: if the lech groping the unwilling woman does not realize that what he is doing is offensive, or thinks that it's not a big deal, then he won't connect a seriously agressive response with the inciting act. He'll just assume that his attacker was agressive and overreacting.
Violent justice should be left in the comic books, westerns, and cheap action flicks. In the real world, it just causes more problems than it solves.
Re: Feel free to delete this comment for asshattery
Date: 2008-04-28 08:19 pm (UTC)The argument "it's OK to ask as long as the person being asked has the option of saying no" is misguided because the very act of making a request--for anything, not just for breast-touching--is communicating something on two levels. There's the overt message "I would like X" where "X" might be "to touch your breast" or "to marry you" or "you to tell me when you think the next train might be arriving". And then there's the covert declaration of your own status to your audience--not just to the person to whom you made the request, but to anyone else who may be overhearing.
And you can't send the overt message while totally disclaiming the covert one. It's not enough to hold up a little flag saying "When I say X, you should be assured that I am not a Y kind of person, really, trust me." At best, a group of people who trust one another can agree to follow certain alternative standards of behavior among one another and in private, and see how that all plays out. Once you're asking people outside that circle to tolerate your alternative standards, though, you're effectively asking everyone to rewire their "this is how I assess my standing with respect to other people" subconscious module that was trained by a lifetime being raised in a culture with some given set of sexual mores plus millions of years of primate evolution.