Breast drama!

[emmelinemay]

Geek guy suggests an 'Open Source Boob Project¹, based on the premise that women like to have their boobs touched as a compliment, and therefore it will be empowering for the women if men go up and ask if they can touch their boobs at geek conventions. In a totally non creepy, non sexual way, of course. It's spiritual.

This is met with, well, you can probably imagine what it was met with. A handful of geek guys going, hey wow, great idea. A handful of girls going YOU CAN TOUCH MY BREAST! LOOK AT ME!! LOOK AT ME!!!! and then hundreds of ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? comments from everyone else.

Then a response is posted. Pretty much everyone goes YES. THIS. A handful of people can't understand that asking to touch someone's breasts might be considered a violation. After all, women like having their breasts touched, right? It's a compliment.

In my opinion, it is NOT OK to ask a woman if you can touch her breasts. It's not ok to ask women if it's ok to ask them if it's ok to touch her breasts.

Her breast are HER BREASTS and if she wants you to touch them, she'll let you know in an appropriate time, an appropriate place, and an appropriate context.

It's NOT a compliment. It's CREEPY. It's not a compliment when people whistle at me in the street, slap my arse when I'm cycling, yell 'OI DARLING' as I'm walking home, try to chat me up on the night bus.

It's CERTAINLY not a compliment to be verbally abused when I'm 'ungrateful' for the above.

If you're the sort of guy that feels he is unlikely to ever touch breasts legitimately, then the way to go about it is NOT to dress up some puerile lech-fest and dress it up as female empowerment. The way to go about it, to be honest, is to stop being the sort of guy that thinks it's ok to ask a total stranger if you can touch her breasts. That's a start anyway. If you need more help, allow me to direct you to this handy guide to talking to women you don't know.

Women are not going to throw off the shackles of media-influenced low self-esteem, body issues and centuries of sexual repression by having a bunch of desperate geeks ask to grab their knockers.

[1] The original 'proposal' is underneath the large edit which is a potent mix of back-pedalling, some desperate justification and claims of being 'misunderstood' with a dash of self-pity

Comments

[sera-squeak.livejournal.com]

I've not managed to properly negotiate the rambling and backpedalling to get to the meat and bones of the post but the general impression I get is "what an idiot, why did you think this was a good thing to say?"

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

It's something they actually DID at a con believe it or not.

And following that, they thought it might be a good idea to make it an organised/regular thing, and make badges for girls to wear that would show that it would be ok to go up to her and ask to see her breasts.

[sera-squeak.livejournal.com]

O_O

But why? Why would anyone subscribe to that model of behaviour?

Gah. I'm amazed that they didn't get beaten up. And slightly disappointed. No, make that a LOT disappointed.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

The only thing I can possibly think is that some girls that go to these sorts of things must be so low in the self-esteem department, and so needy for male attention, that they'll agree to being pawed at.

Or perhaps there's a peer pressure thing to it, being part of an elite 'gang'.

Or maybe there were women that really bought the throw of the shackles of gender crap.

I don't know. But the very fact there are people over thee trying to JUSTIFY asking a woman if you can touch her breasts? Words fail me.

Just yesterday I had a guy in a car wind down his window so he could say 'alright babe' as I was cycling past. This is NOT OK. It's NOT OK to treat women as things for you to look at and poke and grope and hassle.

It's CERTAINLY not ok to dress it up as some sort of empowerment issue - as if a women says no, there's something wrong with her :/

In this particular community

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

The gaming/goth/sci-fi/anime communities really attract people who otherwise feel like they can't get along in the rest of the world. Roleplay, in particular, seems to get an element of woman who looks to increase her self esteem via roleplay.

(We call them gorgeous x 5s due to a stat you can buy.)

At US conventions it's fairly common to have women behaving in a way that demands male validation. That isn't the problem though, the problem is the men, as a result, expect it and think everyone is out for the same.

I've dealt with some serious harassment at conventions before.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Not even just see, touch. It's worse than Girls Gone Wild!

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I meant touch! Damn typo!

[tintintin.livejournal.com]

What I would say to these social retards is how would they feel if their mum showed up with a "Yes, you may touch my boobs" badge? Or their sister, or girlfriend or whatever?

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

It's embarrassing, but you get used to it.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

They were pretty keen to point out that of the girls who said 'yes', one was 'with her boyfriend at the time' - as if this, somehow, validated it.

That just makes it worse though, as the implication is that the breasts being groped have some sort of dual ownership - SHE was ok with it and DO WAS HE!

That pisses me off just as much.

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

"Hi! not only have I never had a girlfriend, neither am I ever likely to! Make yourselves comfortable while I go into excrutiating detail into exactly why this is the case!"

Seriously, why would he ever have even considered thinking that that was a good idea that should be shared? WHY? gah!

[dan-lane.livejournal.com]

Men and women don't think alike, men like boobs but men learn in their teens that womankind does not appreciate mankind asking to see them. I guess sometimes they miss that lesson!

I'd like to say something clever like "I'm not interested in seeing the sort of boobs that get shown off in public" but nobody would believe me!

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

someone on my flist compared the boobies project to the free hugs campaign with "wrong way, meet better way". because SERIOUSLY, why would you think that was a good idea outside your little social circle? (the fact he called it the BOOBIES project just makes it seem even more immature.) maybe if he'd made equal allowance for going up to strange men and asking "may i touch your cock", or whatever the equivalent inappropriately intimate question would be....

have you seen misia's open source swift kick to the balls project?

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I've linked to that in the post you've just read...

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

oh my god i am a MORON. >.< i saw the link and thought it was someone else's response and if i'd just clicked it like a smart person.... oy.

[lupercal.livejournal.com]

Completely off-topic, but hello! Hope you don't mind random cyber-stalking/lj-addijge. Was great to meet you at the weekend. Does Mark have an LJ?

Yay! I'm Freeee!

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Mark = kafunked :)

Yay! I'm Freeee!

That makes me laugh everytime I think about it!!!

[britgirlsf.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine commented that Ferret's whiny ramblings sound like the self-justifications of a guy too cheap to pay for a lap dance. That about sums it up, really. Just add a layer of the idea that women are supposed to tend to men's emotional needs (but high school was so hard! all those boobies and he wasn't allowed to touch!) and you're right there.

It was the women who were for it who confused me the most. Just how low does your self esteem have to be to regard random geekboys grabbing your boobs as in some way validating?