Goes to LJ on account of being fandom-related.

[seiberwing]

Just when I think the fanboy community can't get any skeezier, they come up with the Open-Source Boob Project Warnings for descriptions of breasts that border on the ludicrous and extremely disturbed interpretations of 'taking control of your sexuality'.

Fandom_wank's less funny cousin has a listing of various comments and rebuttals to the project, most of which consist of tl;dr versions of WHAT THE FUCKING HELL NO.

I tend to agree.

Comments

[dogbite12.livejournal.com]

I went to those links and I am just speechless.

And I thought I was strange.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Strange is accepted. Creepy is not.

[dogbite12.livejournal.com]

That dude didn't even think he was creepy. I'll think twice about going to a sci-fi con.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Well, after 1000+ comments and spreading over the internet he may be reconsidering.

[dogbite12.livejournal.com]

Really? He'll be famous now for being the most clueless dork ever.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

On the internet?

Not even close.

[dogbite12.livejournal.com]

Open-Source Boob Project is up there although I'm sure there's much worse.

Way worse.

[newagelink.livejournal.com]

that's pretty funny.

people are dorks.

if i was a girl ... answer would be no. in our society, boobs are regarded as sexual things, so i'd really have to know the person to ascertain perversion-level ... and even then, it's weird: they're just mammary glands and fat; men have them, too. to be so fixated on a body part is weird, and i wouldn't want to encourage it.

[stace-s.livejournal.com]

The levels of utter FRICKEN CREEPY are only multiplied by how old and fugly this guy is. *shudder*

"Hey, I'm plenty old enough to be your dad, let me feel you up as a sign of non-objectifying appreciation of your beauty"

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

And he's married. You'd think his wife would do womankind a favor and slap him upside the head instead of encouraging the creepy.

[stace-s.livejournal.com]

That woman must either have the IQ of a stick of butter or seriously hate herself... Or both. >

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking a little of both.

[navigatorsghost.livejournal.com]

Last I saw, he'd already posted a huge fricken "oh shit what've I done" apology-slash-retraction and promised that he wouldn't go to the next two cons he'd been intending to be at. He's noticed what's wrong with the picture, I think, with hindsight.

The thing is, I can almost, almost see what he was getting at, because I think it's not dissimilar to what the free love contingent were getting at in the sixties - that sex, sexuality and beauty shouldn't necessarily be walled in on all sides with psychological complications. I don't think his intentions were bad, I think he just ran into the brick-wall fact that our society DOES have a huge array of taboos and hangups around sex, and you can't break something like that wide open in a day.

I mean, I'd never go for something like this, mostly because the kind of validation it seems set up to offer means nothing to me. My breasts are my breasts. Nature gave them to me and all I have to do is take vague care of my body and they'll stay much as they are. Given that I put no effort into them, why should someone admiring them make me feel empowered or flattered? Tell me you love my tattoos or the way I wear my hair, that's a compliment. You like my breasts? Cool, but if I'm not actually attracted to you, I have no use for that piece of information whatsoever and in fact, I'd kinda prefer you kept it to yourself. (Unless you're one of my female friends helping me shop for bras, but that's a special case.)

So yeah. I don't think this whole thing set out to be skeevy. I just think that it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments that happen outside the general run of normality, and trying to capture or systemise it was a terrible mistake...

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

The problem is, he's taken the idea of opening sexuality and decided 'hey, free gropefest' with no attention paid to current gender-related power structures and other bricabrac,

And what makes my skin crawl a bit more is the way he says it, liek the touching of breasts is somehow a holy and pure thing and they're honoring the woman by groping them when, by general societal rule, the man enjoys it far more than the woman. Add that to the idea that they think of self-esteem as based on whether her physical body is approved of by men and the whole thing takes a trip down Disturbed Street.

I mean, if this was a private party and arranged beforehand, it would be fine. Doing this in the middle of a 'con, in public view and allowing everyone to participate, is bad.

[navigatorsghost.livejournal.com]

by general societal rule, the man enjoys it far more than the woman

That's not so much a societal rule, that's the fact that most men are really bad at groping breasts. They do not rise if kneaded, and no matter how hard you twiddle, you will not pick up Radio Luxembourg on my nipples.

If you happen to have good neural linkages there, having your breasts competently groped is great. I just can't imagine that that's what was happening here.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

They do not rise if kneaded, and no matter how hard you twiddle, you will not pick up Radio Luxembourg on my nipples.

*sporfleded* Well, I haven't had enough any experience with competant gropage, so I'll take your word for it.

[tarajcl.livejournal.com]

I love progressive people. They're awesome. Sadly, the rest of the mundane world just isn't ready for their oh screw it I cannot keep this up. Let's put his head on a stick. (Dig me, I'm being radical. Oooh.)

Why do people think they're being progressive when they're just reverting to Neanderthalism and using flowery words?

As far as having 'control of your sexuality' goes... I would say ANY woman walking into ANY room ANYWHERE ON EARTH has more control of her sexuality than ANYONE who comes up to her and asks for a fondle. Hey, asshole, here a notion; what if I don't WANT a sexuality? What if I'd maybe kinda sorta like you to notice something ELSE the first time we meet?

Yeah, it's what everyone says. And whenever they say it, people laugh, because EVERYONE knows that tits are ALWAYS the first thing that gets noticed, heh, amIright, guys? High five.

Can't decide if I like them more or less than the pseudo-progressive people, actually.

[navigatorsghost.livejournal.com]

In the interests of fairness, apparently they were allowing guys to be asked as well, and there were male asses being grabbed as well as boobs. He just wasn't posting about that so much. Also, it was made explicit that they weren't trying to pressure anyone into agreeing to anything, and were trying hard to guess who they could ask without causing offence. I don't think it was indiscriminate.

The problem is that as soon as the internet at large got hold of the idea it would become indiscriminate, and women who'd had nothing to do with the original idea would be finding themselves sharked on and scared and offended, and that's not cool at all....

[tarajcl.livejournal.com]

Argh, I got lengthy. Sorry.

Different implications in asking if you can grab a guy's ass. Firstly, they were in male-dominated territory at the time. Secondly, men do not get propositioned/sexualised like that every other day of their lives the way a good number of women do- or at least, they don't here, and as far as I'm aware it's the same across the water too. Thirdly, he wasn't rhapsodising about the feel of a man's ass under his sweaty little hand, and how much he felt it improved him as a human being. ('I feel the homophobia falling off me! Ah, the liberation!')

He bases his argument on the notion that sexuality is demonised and dirty these days. He then proceeds to 'solve' it by a process that concentrates on the heterosexual male enjoyment of sex. The majority movies, adverts, games, etc. all cater specifically to heterosexual males; theirs is, arguably, the least demonised of sexulaities. Why didn't he walk around asking guys if he could give them a kiss? It would still have been skeevy, but at least it would have crossed some borders of proprietry that haven't already been crossed a billion billion times. A day.

I am fascinated as to how they would choose someone who wouldn't take offense. The fat one, because she should be glad of the attention? The pretty one, because she was probably used to it? The one who was asking for it because she dressed like a slut? The ones that looked stupid enough to not take offense, or the ones who looked insecure enough not to object? Or just the ones with the nicest tits? Really, how did they choose?

From what I can gather of his post, several women who had nothing to do with the original project did get asked to participate. Frankly, if I came in to find a girl in front of a herd of other people asking if she could grope me, I'd freeze up no matter how much she was trying not to pressure me into it.

Also:

-Now, you have to understand the way she said that, because it's the key to the whole project. The spirit of everything was formed within those nine words - and if she'd said them shyly, as though having her breasts touched by people was something to be endured or afraid of, the Open-Source Boob Project would have died aborning. -

So...because one girl who was a friend of yours said you could touch her tits, you thought every other woman would be okay with it too? That's exactly the sort of logic my brother would have used when he was six.

It's all kind of juvenile, as if asking a girl if you can cop a feel is a revolutionary concept. I can see the guy's intentions, and they were good, and if his innocence is really genuine, then it's even a little bit sweet (if a little disturbing as well.). But good intentions will get you ten rand and a bus ride to KZN if you don't think them through. He made a fucking ugly mistake, and probably terrified a few women out of ever going to cons again in the process. Golf claps, sirrah.

Yikes, I'm a ray of sunshine today. I'll give him points for the apology, though. It's a goodun.

[chibikaijuu.livejournal.com]

I am really amazed at how much some people Just Don't Get It. And the amount of defensiveness and "people are being abusive and it's really hurt me! Deeply!" without any backing up of claims in links.

And, just - did you read his other skeevy-ass posts? How can people continue to back this guy up as a feminist?

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

The whole internet seems to have loled at him by now.

[sonofwolf.livejournal.com]

If a stranger walked up to me and asked that they'd get decked. Treat people with respect, ffs.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

...aren't you a guy?