Aw, BOOGERSNOTS, those buttons were ALREADY at Arisia? I am very, very glad I was in staff den food prep all day.

I sincerely hope they won't be back next year.

Well, it was said in the post, there were women touching women. And said in the comments, there were men being touched as well. Also, there is an edit to the post, saying that after the initial bit, no one not wearing one or the other button was asked at all, for reasons of avoiding creepiness, so that takes care, I think, of the people who aren't interested being involved aspect. I suspect it's called the open source boob project because breasts are socially seen as an especially desirable yet prohibited object, and so they were what the project started with.

WORD. I'm a well-known pervert among my set, but hot damn! do I ever agree with you here.

Holy goddess, my first comment that's too long! Yay, I've achieved new LJ heights! So, my comment is in two parts.

You seem quite upset, and I am sorry for whatever part my comment played in it. I'll try and explain myself better.

My point with regards to women touching women was that your point there seemed to be 'the touching is all very heterosexual', which was not my impression. I got the impression that regardless of gender, the touching was roughly the same mixture of appreciation and sexuality. And, the only place men specifically weren't touched was the genitals, and women's genitals weren't touched either.

The peer pressure is a good point, but, everyone has to live with peer pressure in a million ways everywhere every day, including with regards to sex. In every interaction, it's present. I don't think making it explicit and less mystified and taboo is bad. Human beings have feelings, including sexual ones. Trying to say otherwise is unrealistic and impractical. Accepting biological realities and trying to alter, better, social constructs with regards to them is a lofty goal in my opinion.

I suspect that while you're reading the same words I am in the original post, you're not reading the same thing. I'd be curious as to where you're seeing things differently, I may well be missing something, it's certainly happened before.

For one thing, I saw quite a bit of acknowledgment, in the post and especially in the comments, that yes, here there be dragons, and I saw quite a bit of trying to address that. But, they clearly did feel something like magic, and, it seems, other people can see how it could be magic, and want to try and create that for themselves. I can certainly see how it could be amazing. I often feel physically unattractive, because I certainly don't meet societal standards for beauty, and having something that told me yes, people found me attractive would be great. Sure, it'd be ideal if society didn't tell me I'm unattractive, but it does, and I don't see it stopping any time soon, no matter how much work is done. So, I'd like things that helped me deal with that, and for me, I can see that this really could be such a thing. I can't always give myself all the affirmation I need, so, at those times, if I don't get it externally, I just won't have it. I'd rather have it externally than not at all.

As another point where I don't think we're reading the same thing, ferret does not in what I read 'clearly consider unenlightened prudes those who didn't want to take part'. He states repeatedly in the comments things such as 'you don't want to take part, don't, it's cool.', with further comments which I read as 'we just want people who this speaks to get a chance to take part'. Also, I see numerous comments from both ferret and others against those who are giving people shit about not wanting to take part, and against those who're giving those who did take part shit. So, there's clear pressure to be respectful all around, in what I read.

For yet another, while I see a number of people saying how they've found affirmation and personal growth through this or similar ways to express sexuality while avoiding some degree of the common social dangers of such, I don't see anyone saying that it will work like that for everyone, and if it doesn't, you're unhealthy.

No, it's not new for men to want to touch women's breasts in public. It's as old as the human sex drive. What is new is making it explicit, and putting a social stigma to it (because they did form a small sub culture, I'd say, from a sociological perspective), whereby the men are expected to ASK, the women have absolute power to refuse, and the men are expected to gracefully accept refusal.

Personally, as a woman who likes other women's breast, I'm rather insulted that you'd assume the women who touched other women's breasts did it for the sake of the HBB fantasies of the men present. Maybe they just WANTED to, and appreciated the chance to be able to Just Ask. I know I've gone half insane at times, wondering if some woman I was attracted to would be open to being approached in any way, and wishing there was some way I could tell, or at least know if I could ask without giving offense.

(Continued from above)

I read the entry as ferret ascribing the same motives to all parties, touching and touched. Yes, attention, but more so, connection, appreciation and recognition of it, and a search for some new paradigm of interaction for age old acts.

Breasts are awesome, to those who are sexually aroused by them. (Asses are equally awesome, and I was thrilled to read there was ass grabbing of both genders as well!) If people are willing to CONSIDER sharing themselves with those who find them attractive (it's said repeatedly that just cos one was willing to be asked didn't mean one had to say yes), then how is it bad to connect those who are willing to share, with whose who want to take part?

Yes, sexism exists, women's breasts are objectified, but, how else can it be overcome if not by exploring new avenues of expressing the human urges that aren't going away any time soon? Yes, sexism exists, and any new avenue explored will likely be tainted by sexism, especially initially, but does that mean one shouldn't explore new avenues?

women touching women non-sexually

I'm just curious--feel free not to answer--but why do you presume that all of the woman-touching-woman was non-sexual?

You qrote:

i am sorry, but women's breasts are not magical parts for healing con geeks' sex starvation. and this ferrett character who's apparently the spokesperson for this amazing movement for our new age in which sexism is magically dead doesn't even acknowledge, or *fuck*, REALIZE, that here be dragons.

YES! And thank you kindly.

I might be up for it if this were a deal where I get to walk up to random guyz and ask to grab their cocks, and talk about how that's part of my healing and empowerment to get random access to their bodies. Strangely, that doesn't seem to be something ferrett would be all right with.

I'm really upset by his post, he has managed to hit darn near every space on the sexism bingo card that reduces women to objects and providers of a thing called sex while men are agents who do things and make choices. This makes me sad.

Because I do like some of the more free swinging kinds of touch and gatherings where that can happen. But I don't do that or go there until I've built a structure in which there can be meaningful consent and meaningful yeses and noes. (And I've helped build one place where that does happen and I'm working on another now.) But what ferrett is talking about... isn't that at least not how I'm reading it.

Damn. I'd like that happy fun free swinging world. But it won't manifest till we deal with sexism. I wish we could make sexism vanish by pretending it has vanished, but that strategy doesn't seem to be working for anyone I know.

And serene, this is my reaction to ferret's post. I hope I am clear it's about his post and not about you. I don't want to be telling you what to do with your body, cos it doesn't beling to me. (I was there for that day in third grade...)

I want you to be able to do whatever you want with your body, same as I can do whatever I want with mine. But ferret's context... yeeech. I hadta say something.

he more i've gone back and re-read the original post, the more i am creeped out about the whole "it was magical, bambi danced and butterflies frolicked" attitude that does not, for a single moment, acknowledge that this sort of thing comes with mountains of baggage.

A very big ditto.

Quotes:

Beautiful, from fengi: "When it comes to my breasts, I'm proprietary software, asshole. My chest is the fucking Apple Computer of limited licensing for outside applications."

Hideous, from theferrett: "But that also involves an interview process, and the attitude that your body is a vested space that is, by nature, exclusive. That's fine. But that doesn't mean it's the only way to be, or that it's always healthy."