groping vainly for a clue
by Charlie Bebattica
- Published:April 23rd, 2008
- Comments:24 Comments
- Category:Fandom, The Crazy
There is no shortage of stupidity and cluelessness on the internet, but occasionally one stumbles across something that is above and beyond the usual OTC-grade fan entitlement rants or casual homophobia. I’m talking about idiocy so transcendent and pure that it threatens to create a vortex of despair capable of extinguishing any scrap of faith in humanity one has left.
I’m talking about The Open-Source Boob Project, as explained by “theferret.” The narrative has since been cluttered with all manner of backpedaling and qualifiers, some added since I started work on this post, but it began with this:
“This should be a better world,” a friend of mine said. “A more honest one, where sex isn’t shameful or degrading. I wish this was the kind of world where say, ‘Wow, I’d like to touch your breasts,’ and people would understand that it’s not a way of reducing you to a set of nipples and ignoring the rest of you, but rather a way of saying that I may not yet know your mind, but your body is beautiful.”
In other words, it’s not about objectification…it’s about objectification with the opportunity to cop a feel. Theory turns into (a quite fanfic-ish) reality when one of author’s female acquaintances lets him touch her dirty pillows:
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.
And life seemed so much simpler.
And, lo, a movement was born! A proud movement where groping becomes an act of empowerment:
And my God! We all reached out like zombies trying to break through a door to get to those breasts. And it wasn’t getting any worse! We weren’t degenerating into an orgy, but rather exploring the amazement of how beautiful this body was and how wonderful it was to have access to them. Nobody was trying to pull off a bra or suck on a nipple; we’d been given access to a very special place that only lovers usually touched, and why would you be so crude as to try to push the boundaries of that?
And every girl in that hallway was then asked the question: “May I touch your breasts?” They considered, and said yes. And we all did.
Of course, it’s not really a movement unless there’s buttons:
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?”
And if you weren’t a total lout - the women retained their right to say no, of course - they would push their chests out, and you would be allowed into the sanctity of it. That exchange of happiness where one person are told with gropes and touches that they are desirable and the other is someone who’s allowed to desire.
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.
So what we’re really talking about is simply an elaborate scheme to steal second base dressed up with copious amounts of Reichean cosmobabble. It takes a dedicated individual to create such an elaborate justification for frat boy behavior.
“theferret” mentions “high school” a few times in his purplish recounting of events, suggesting some past tragedy worthy of Jay Gatsby — only instead of reaching for the green light across the bay, he’s reaching for what’s under the green button.
Lost in all the talk of lost inhibitions and discovered beauty is the lopsided power dynamic inherent in these, ahem, “transactions,” specifically whose “needs” are actually being met gratified. A simple working knowledge of group dynamics (and nerd culture) casts some doubt on the supposedly “opt-in,” “no pressure” consensual nature of the arrangement, as it leaves out questions of peer pressure and the need to belong, not to mention the host of associated issues involving a subculture where insecurities and feelings of isolation are commonly found. All high-falutin’ justifications aside, that shit can’t be exorcised by having a stranger feel you up, though there are plenty folks out there who’ll try to argue otherwise in exchange for the opportunity for a free grope.
The lopsided equation brings up other problems in terms of creating an uncomfortable atmosphere for female con attendees, who even if they choose not to participate in the grope-a-rama have to deal with an atmosphere of semi-sanctioned objectification. A female friend of mine who is a frequent con-attendee found the whole idea to be crude and sophomoric, and said she would categorically refuse to attend an event where such practices occurred. “That shit is bad enough without further encouraging the knuckledraggers,” she added.
As the The Open-Source Boob Project’s mission statement appeared in a LiveJournal post, the comments (seven pages worth before being locked down) were the expected mix of echo-chamber words of encouragement and bombastic outrage, leading to this defensive remark by “theferret”:
It would also lessen the intimacy of straight marriages if gay folks were allowed to get together. That would be sad. Because you know, your definition of what “intimacy” is should be the same as mine, and if mine differs then yours should override me. Because you’re not wrong, of course.
Yes, because the struggle for equal rights and protection under the law is exactly the same as a fanboy’s convoluted plot to touch women’s boobs.
When it became clear that the crusade on behalf of free and easy gropery did not meet the expected public approval, the backpedaling began in earnest with a series of passive-aggressive updates and edits posited to suggest that he didn’t really mean what he clearly stated in the original text…
And the chances that the Project would get fucked up, making con spaces more amenable to hordes of stalkers and mouthbreathers who will grope and maul women, are pretty damn big. Hell, it’s already made women feel less safe by me mentioning it, and that makes me feel like shit. As it should.
The Project itself, at least as done at Penguicon, has been turned by the miracle of reposting into some nightmare of eternal groping, female hunting, and a constant stream of denigration. And while that’s not the way it happened - at least from the perspective of the folks who participated that I’ve heard from who have expressed positive opinions behind f-locked posts because they don’t want to endure the commentstreams that I’m getting…
…It doesn’t matter. Scalzi, as usual, got it right: It was highly context-specific. What happened to us, even if it was good, is not what will happen to you. The danger of it getting out of hand is too great – and already, people worry that they’re going to be press-ganged into a groping area if they don’t have a button, despite the fact that I (and others) have said that’s not what happened at all. But honestly? That easily could happen without proper supervision, male power being what it is…
To which I can only add, “No effing kidding, Einstein.” The Scalzi he mentions above refers to author John Scalzi, who offered some heavily qualified support for the idea behind the project, as well as this howler:
Now, how do I feel about it? Well, philosophically, I think it’s fine: I think it’s reasonable for folks to get used to breasts being a component of a whole human, not these strange, mystical entities there to entice and distract one, and if there’s any place where there are people who could benefit from this lesson, it’s a convention full of computer, science fiction and anime geeks, many of whom are very young men (temporally and/or socially). Hopefully some of them benefited from the experience, and not just because they got to touch a girl’s breasts.
So objectification equals demystification? If it’s simply about the theraputive power of human contact, than why breasts, and not, say, shoulders? Why should the burden of mammary-contact therapy fall upon the woman if the male participant is the one who reaps the (rather dubious) presumed benefits?
Most importantly, does anyone have any lye I can borrow? I suspect I’ll be needing some after finishing this post, though I’m unsure whether I’ll use it for cleaning or for culinary purposes.
