My brief thoughts on the Open Source Boob Project

[novapsyche]

At a private room party at this year's PenguiCon, I overheard someone talking in very general terms about the Open Source Boob Project, and I exclaimed that I would totally do something like that. The woman who had been talking brought out the "YES, you may" pin and the "I participated, for Science" ribbon, which pleased me because I'd only garnered three ribbons by then. Before she turned back to her group of folks, she asked if she could touch my breasts, and considering that I'd just said I would and had donned the pin, I said yes. She did, complimented me, and that was that.

No one else felt me up. This was a bit to be expected, as I didn't get the pin until around 3 a.m. Saturday night, and my ride and I packed up and left just after noon Sunday.

I do have to say, however, that if I'd read theferrett's post about OSBP before someone offered me the pin, I would have turned it down, and perhaps gone into feminist reasons why I was declining. His post was extremely heterosexist, and I was dismayed that he got defensive to the point of not listening to others who pointed this out to him. I have to say that I didn't feel honored to be part of the group once my body had been reduced to "gropes". Sorry, but word choice matters.

And for him and a few others to proclaim, without qualifier, that "no one felt any peer pressure to participate" is disingenuous at best. I can say that even I felt a bit of peer pressure to do it once I had "opted in" (in theferrett's terminology)--no one explained to me that I had the option to turn away those who'd requested. Besides, how would it look if I let one person do it and then, when their friends asked, to climb up on my high horse and reject them? I mean, really, the whole thing smacks of social peer pressure, and I say that again as someone who is not modest about her body.

theferrett's post might have been excusable but for a few choice phrases and paragraphs, which really soured me to the entire enterprise.

So, no more OSBP for me.

Other posts about OSBP: The Ferrett clarifies his earlier post
scalzi writes about OSBP in his blog Whatever
James Nicoll lists his opinion (thanks, supergee)
pleonastic's take
springheel_jack adds commentary, including a very apt description of how privilege turns into -isms
pnkrokhockeymom has something to say
netmouse speaks
ojouchan breaks things down
coffeeandink has quite a bit to say
delux_vivens digs a little deeper

Comments

[atdt1991.livejournal.com]

The woman who handed you the pin is the only person handing out pins, as she created them.

It is a shame she didn't mention the "rules" as we discussed them, because the issue of whether it meant "touch" or "ask" came up frequently, and it was always "ask only", at that party or anywhere else.

The 'groping in the hallway' was immediately after the lingerie party, in the 3rd floor hallway just outside, at one in the morning Saturday night, by a guy dressed as Frank N Furter who had been whipped in the hallway just a minute prior. It seems to me that scenario has similar social barriers, though I admit that's my own perspective, not certain to be standard.

For what it is worth, I would have been surprised to see the pin on you, if I had, as I would not have thought you would be comfortable with it in the first place, and I'm surprised you were, at the time, comfortable with it having meant "yes you may do" vs "yes you may ask".

Personally, I do not grab my friend's boobs without explicit immediate permission, no matter how close we are, and would not have participated if I thought the pin meant "you may touch me, no matter who you are, without asking." Even amongst those who started the pins, they still asked each time, as a courtesy.

It was an experimental concept intended to make people feel good about their bodies and feel good about asking to touch other people - it wasn't something intended to be done on the street, around children, in public, in someone's home, or otherwise away from this one weekend.

It was clearly a mistake, despite the fact that no one who was there complained or expressed any negative comment about it until you. I am absolutely certain that it will not be happening again.

I just think it's a shame that people are insisting that those who decided it was a fun idea, asked for a pin, and participated were not in control of their bodies or their decisions, and were thus abused by the patriarchy. I can't think of a better way to insult someone than to tell them they have no right to feel the way they do, or that someone else controls their behavior. Poor them.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I want to say that I wouldn't have even posted about it (it was such a minor experience, compressed in such a short time frame) if it hadn't taken off like wildfire online (especially on LJ).

I want to be clear that the experience itself was a positive one. Again, the party I attended had quite a relaxed atmosphere where we knew that normal social boundaries were going to be left by the wayside.

For what it is worth, I would have been surprised to see the pin on you, if I had, as I would not have thought you would be comfortable with it in the first place, and I'm surprised you were, at the time, comfortable with it having meant "yes you may do" vs "yes you may ask".

Perhaps I have changed more since college than I would like to admit. ;)

I just think it's a shame that people are insisting that those who decided it was a fun idea, asked for a pin, and participated were not in control of their bodies or their decisions, and were thus abused by the patriarchy.

I'm not saying that it wasn't fun for those who participated, nor am I positing that those who did weren't in control of their bodies. However, I think it's instructive to deconstruct what happened after the fact.

Someone else in the comments of the original post noted that if the touching had been a non-standard sexualized part of the body, then it wouldn't have raised so many red flags. I think it would have been even more interesting and intimate if the buttons referred to kissing another person's inner wrist, for example.

[atdt1991.livejournal.com]

We discussed what it would have been like if it had been kissing, and that was a no-go. Many of us found that a far less comfortable idea. It is a shame it was called "boob", but "Open Source Secondary Sexual Characteristic Project" just doesn't have that 'ring' to it.

Open Source Butt Project would have been fun. Sounds a bit unintentionally anal, though.