netmouse | The Open Source Boob Project and subsequent stoning

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The Open Source Boob Project and subsequent stoning

This morning I find myself asked in email both what my take on the OSBP is and (in a separate message) whether or not someone can quote a comment I made on it elsewhere. People are welcome to quote me, and in fact here I will quote myself.

To me this was really about gender-nonspecific personal connection and permission-granting (or not granting), not women caving to the male power or notions of body-rightness.

A lot of people are concluding it was a "You had to be there" kind of thing, but it's frustrating that people clearly don't understand.

Society has been telling us women all our lives that our breasts are not our own to make decisions about--that they are inherently only for certain approved purposes and we must otherwise cover them and protect them from detailed touch or inspection with things like bras and clothing and moats and lions and tigers, if necessary, because the only person who is allowed to see and touch them is YOUR MAN and you aren't allowed to assert a non-standard set of access permissions yourself.

This project stood that on its head. It was in fact a fine case of feminist rebellion, combined with general rebellion against socially defined rules and toward opt-in interpersonal intimacy and appreciation.

I am really sorry that at least one track of the widespread online discussion of this project was headlined with mean disdain and an association of it with the thousands of creepy, unsanctioned gropes and feels that many women have suffered over the years, especially at conventions. The way the people who started it have been attacked for the pure pleasure they found in opening themselves to this idea and in thinking that their thoughts and feelings about it could be shared with a larger group is nothing less than horrible. Clearly it isn't for everybody, but they never *said* it was for everybody. They also didn't claim it was without flaws, and obviously one issue with it is that people may have chosen to participate due to perceived peer pressure, and/or without understanding that the little buttons meant "I may say no" just as much as they meant "you may ask."

I also think the name of the project is not quite right, since "Open Source" traditionally means no barriers, anyone can play, and while anyone could join this project, it was about permissions and consensual contact, not about making your body a public resource or about taking away your right to control access. As I said above, it was rather the opposite.

And I think it was a good thing, and I admire my friends who started it, and I stand by them, and I am not ashamed that I was pleased to take part.

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Why am I not surprised that you have an intelligent opinion on this?

The thing that has angered me about the way this is being discussed is that so many people are treating this as "men sexually exploiting women" and refusing to even acknowledge the fact that it wasn't a project started by men, nor was it one dominated by men. That doesn't fit into their preconceived notions, so they just ignore it.

(By the way, while this does anger me, it doesn't surprise me in the least.)

I don't think everyone needs to express unconditional support for the idea or how it was implemented. After all, I chose not to take part.

But it isn't fair to any of the people who did participate - male or female - to turn this into some kind of Horrible Exploitation. That's not what happened.

Well, I agree that a lot of the comments on this that aren't positive take that "men exploiting women" line. But patriarchal privilege isn't just about men exploiting women, and I do believe that activites like this project can implicate male privilege and the "female as sexual" paradigm even when it's not a male dominated project, or a male started project, or a male conceived project. Does that make sense?

Of course, that's an "academic, let's explore the project's implications and people's reactions to it" point of view, rather than a "let's get pissed off and stone people participating" point of view. I don't ascribe to the latter. But I think it's completely legitimate to say, "This was your intent. Here are some of the unintentional ways the intent of the project might implicate privilege in a way that makes some women feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, or unsafe."

I mean, if you post a manifesto on the internet, it's fair game to point out, "Well, I don't think that's necessarily a good idea, and here's why, from my feminist perspective."

What I find a little disconcerting about the whole thing is the ratio of smart commenting and discussion to "out for blood" piling on. Because really, this is not rape in the Congo. It's an idea, one that I think was interesting but ultimately not great. YMMV.

Thing is, there was a lot of good discussion had. And obviously, my take on it changed as time went by in terms of how wide a space this sort of thing should occupy, thanks in part to that discussion.

But there was a lot of commenting that was dressed-up insult, not debate, as well. I tried to engage with everybody, though, for as long as I could.

And my take on it is still changing--particularly now that I'm thinking of it less in terms of "How would I feel if someone came up to me and asked me to wear this button?"--which was how I was addressing the idea of it as a movement--and started thinking of it as "What are the contradictory messages a project like this sends, and how could it be arranged to maximize the positive, gender-phukking and shame-reducing messages and minimize the patriarchal-norms enhancing, all-access-pass side effects?"

I think it's excellent that you're still doing so. I find it impressive.

Well, I'm pretty much out in terms of design. I'm a poisoned well. But I'm still hoping that other projects can help maximize the good bits."

Because there WERE good bits, dammit.

Meh. I think you should stand up for the good bits and just reassess.

You know, the thing is, that even if you designed a perfectly executed project like this, there will ALWAYS be some portion of feminist criticism that finds it invalid. I mean, I'm a radical feminist who believes that patriarchy is defined by male control of, access to, and fear of female sexuality. I believe in the power of art and discourse (as I would categorize the project) to undermine that and shake it up. But it can be problematic and contradictory. And I get shit for even imagining that there could be feminist porn or feminist sex work, even while I acknowledge that most of it's not and it's probably not going to be much of a feminist choice. Any time a feminist embraces sexuality there's heat from some certain specific PART of the feminist community.

Obviously you're the one taking teh internet heat, here (including from me, although I keep trying to re-post as my thinking evolves), and who could blame you for saying "I'm Out." But particularly where the controversy and much of the criticism seems to be so much one related to communication and how expansion would be managed rather than what occurred in practice at PenguiCon, I think the IDEA of it is salvageable. Or at least would benefit from further thought and discussion.

I hope you don't really mean it about not going to future cons. That seems to me to be an unnecessary step. I certainly don't think I'd see you and suddenly fear being accosted.

I'll refrain from these cons for at least the next year. After that, we'll see.

Feminism and sex is apparently the Third Rail. Had I known, I would have treated it entirely differently.

Well, I think that's too bad. Maybe you'll change your mind as they get closer.

I still don't think it makes sense to skip ConFusion. It's entirely unrelated.

Does that make sense?

I think so, but I'm not entirely clear with what you mean by "implicate male privilege".

But I think it's completely legitimate to say, "This was your intent. Here are some of the unintentional ways the intent of the project might implicate privilege in a way that makes some women feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, or unsafe."

I agree. In one of my comments on the original post, I mentioned my own concern about if I could have hurt someone by not asking them, since they didn't know I wasn't asking anyone.

I mean, if you post a manifesto on the internet, it's fair game to point out, "Well, I don't think that's necessarily a good idea, and here's why, from my feminist perspective."

Again, I agree. My problem is with people that are choosing to ignore the facts of what happened in order to make the case for stoning people.

I think there is also confusion--there are as many people responding to how it was presented as to how it was experienced by the folks who participated, and more responding to the idea of it as expanding into other spaces, how they would feel if they were approached, etc.

What I mean by "implicate male privilege" in that paragraph is simply that patriarchy isn't "men oppressing women," (although that's certainly a part of it), but simply the system that privileges men over women and anticipates access to the female body--and that women can "enact patriarchal norms" onto men and women as well as men can. So while it isn't fair to look at a project like this (conceived of and participated in jointly by men and women) and say "those men oppressed all of those women"--which is problematic for a number of reasons--it is still valid to say "this project has consequences because of (the general, everyday, in my face) the existence of male privilege, even while it's an attempt to mess with those norms."

I don't know if that's any more clear or not. *g*

I saw netmouse's post and your comments while at work, but couldn't really take the time to respond. I just wanted to say that you and netmouse both express some of my pro- and anti- feelings about OSB. Thanks.

Thanks very much!

I think one of the things that led to that was that it was posted about by a man, from a male perspective, with the idea that it should be made into a "Project" and expanded beyond the original group. Whether or not he was the originator, the "public face" of this was

theferrett and his posts, and the public perception was that the intent was to spread this far and wide.

That lent quite a bit of weight to those interpretations that made it into a pure "guys grab girls" situation, at which point retrospective "no, I really meant it this way" explanations start looking like "how can I dig myself out" justifications. From an external viewpoint, the two look exactly the same, and "good intent" is hard enough to demonstrate when you haven't framed the discussion badly already.

My early (possibly my earliest, I haven't checked) comment still mostly applies; the first paragraph was based on my interpretation of the original post, and I don't consider it an accurate reaction to the actual events as described by participants who've since discussed it.

Would I like there to be more touch in the world? Definitely. Would I like there to be more touch in the world, if getting there involved social pressure to conform to a very male-privileged and heteronormative model of behavior? Not just no but hell no, even though as Mr. McStraightypants I would be in the privileged position. I don't want the privileged position. I want mutuality, dammit.

netmouse says that her experience had that mutuality. I don't doubt her in the least. I don't have any reason to think that her experience was atypical among the people who participated at Penguicon. I don't think that there was Horrible Exploitation going on among the people who were involved. (As I've said, I wasn't involved and so have no direct evidence either way.)

However, to haul in a suitable Geek Analogy: "this solution does not scale". Just as you can't survive a slashdotting on your 384kbps DSL line, just as USENET's culture couldn't survive the massive influx of users from AOL in the Endless September, the good parts of something that worked among a group of friends couldn't survive becoming an Internet Project, and they didn't. Unfortunately, I think that the resulting fracas has added quite a bit of baggage to any effort to be more touch-positive, and that's a very sad thing.

Okay, let me take exception to the last bit there. You don't KNOW if this solution doesn't scale. You might theorize that it won't. You might hypothesize that it won't. You simply don't know.

I, personally, don't think it's a good idea to try on a larger scale. I think it would be damaging. But I don't try to express that as the certainty that it will fail, nor would I attempt to trip up those who try it. I might poke a demure "told ya so" out there if it does collapse under its own weight... but I wouldn't profess to know that it doesn't scale.

My modem is testable. I can see if it will support the traffic and make a reasoned scientific hypothesis that I'm going to get slashdotted. Society is not. We can guess, but we never do know what will happen when we introduce variables into the mix.

Sorry, but the "will not work" line sounds too much like "women will never integrate into corporate society" from decades ago.

At this point, we have pretty good evidence that making it an Internet "Project" in the way that was actually attempted won't work. Existence proof: thousands upon thousands of comments, much unhappiness on all sides, and severe breakdowns in communication.

I accept the correction that it cannot be proven that it cannot scale, and that my phrasing was more definite than the argument merited. I think that (by analogy to other cultural assimilation processes) it cannot scale without a significant change in the larger culture (fandom at a minimum, society as a whole more likely), except at the relatively slow growth rate that takes place through personal relationships.

I understand that, early in the discussion, people were only able to respond to

theferrett's original description. I still think some of those reactions were wildly over the top, but the picture was unclear at that point.

My problem is with the later generations of comments - the ones that have clearly come after exposure to the stated experiences of numerous participants and eyewitnesses.

You've taken that information and been willing to adjust your thinking about what happened. That's good, not that you need me to validate anything. A lot of people are just going forward with their preconceived agenda, and ignoring anything that might invalidate parts of it.

The thing that has angered me about the way this is being discussed is that so many people are treating this as "men sexually exploiting women" and refusing to even acknowledge the fact that it wasn't a project started by men, nor was it one dominated by men.

This doesn't really matter. As someone else on LJ said, which put into words something that had been percolating inchoate in my own mind, is that the men who were involved could have been using the women as access. Which, when you read theferrett's original post, sounds perfectly plausible.

Also, as someone else pointed out, this whole thing could have been "performative bisexuality" on the part of the women involved. Or, some of the women could have been truly bisexual, which means that the whole project could easily boil down to being sexual and not some "liberating touch" thing.

And while I have spoken out about this on my own journal, it's not just about what did happen, but what could happen. As someone who participated and was still confused, I could see this type of act unconsciously pressuring others into participating, especially if the group just went up to people and asked (as

theferrett said they did).

This doesn't really matter.

Yes, it does.

If people are claiming that this was *strictly* a case of men exploiting women, and there are people claiming that, then it does matter that this wasn't a bunch of guys deciding to come up with an excuse to grope women.

You're arguing that, even if it was a female-organized operation, men could use it to gain "access" to women. For that argument, I agree with your point that it doesn't matter who started it.

But that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about people that were claiming it was *entirely* about men getting access.

And while I have spoken out about this on my own journal, it's not just about what did happen, but what could happen.

You said that men could have used it to get access, that women could have taking part in "performative bisexuality" and that some of the women could have been truly bisexual, so it could all be about sex.

All of those statements are true. Those things could have happened. But did they? Because if we're going to start condemning activities because they *could* be turned into something exploitative, we're going to end up canceling a lot of con activities.

If people got the idea that the project was male-dominated, it was due to the poor description of the project in the first place. However, even if the project was mainly women but still had people (no gender prescribed) who took part in it from the perspective that was offered as definitive, then there is still a problem.

Right now, we're arguing about something that isn't going to take place in the future, so there's nothing to argue about. My point was that there definitely were aspects of potential social pressure that should be thought about, both in the feelees and the feelers.

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The Open Source Boob Project and subsequent stoning

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