Open Source Boob Project

The Open Source Boob Project (OSBP) was a brief project held at Penguicon (an open source/SF/geek con) in April of 2008, stemming from an even smaller experiment among friends that preceded it at ConFusion. It was followed by a short-lived online proposal by one of the male participants (TheFerrett) for other people to repeat and promote the project at other conventions. The project involved men and women wearing buttons: either a green button that read "Yes you may", or a red button saying "No you may not", referring to whether or not the button-wearer was giving permission for other people to ask if they may touch their breasts or butt. (The original proposal as written by TheFerrett focused on women's breasts.) At Penguicon, it was a small project involving perhaps 20 people out of a 1000+-person con. Anyone who took a button, green or red, got to put on a ribbon saying "I participated in SCIENCE!", celebrating the originators' view of it as a social science experiment.

TheFerrett's proposal for the project to spread was aptly described as "an aborted convention meme purporting to be a movement towards increased sexual liberation". Furor ensued; poster recanted in the name of con safety.

Interesting discussions that came out of the furor:

• sexism and male privilege and whether or not women can truly consent to things in the face of male privilege (of course) - many, many posts
• geek male psychology - many posts
• geek female psychology - some posts
• con safety > see LJ community bellwether_talk about con safety (established in the wake of Harlan-gate)

> Project Back Up: Women Defending Women (vito_excalibur @ Livejournal)

> BackUpProject community @ Livejournal

> Project Backup website

• definitions of feminism - some posts

A history in links

The proposal and much of the initial blogstorm happened on LiveJournal, so some links may have been originally or subsequently closed to the public. If a posted link here is to an private/unpublic post, please feel free to note that it's closed, or remove it as appropriate.

The proposal (4/21) and original incident

April 21, TheFerrett proposes repetitions of the "Open Source Boob Project" based on an experience he had at Penguicon and the experiment that started it all at ConFusion. At ConFusion, they had an impromptu exploration of what various women's breasts felt like after a discussion about the fact that it was not polite to vocally appreciate or ask to touch breasts resulted in one woman declaring "You can touch mine" and another woman's taking her up on her offer, followed by a cascading effect and more people getting involved; they thought this was such a good idea that they made buttons to institute it at Penguicon. Men and women involved in the OSBP wore the buttons and explained the project to people who asked about them, giving out buttons to people who inquired, seemed to understand, and wanted to be part of it.

• The Open-Source Boob Project, theferrett @ Livejournal, 4/21 8:58am: TheFerrett puts his foot in it. (Original post is below the cut. And there are lengthy, lengthy, really really lengthy comment threads to go with it.)

TheFerrett's description of the project:

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?"

Some of the choice excerpts from his write-up and proposal include:

[T]he women retained their right to say no, of course[.]

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.

And then the real magic happened. Because a beautiful girl in an incredibly skimpy blue Princess outfit strode down the hallway, obviously putting her assets on display (the thin strips of her clothing had to be taped to her body to stay on), and we stopped her. "Excuse me," the first, very brave girl asked. "You're very beautiful. I'd like to touch your breasts. Would you mind if I did?" We held our breath. We didn't want to offend. This could go wrong, collapsing and turning us into cruel lechers who'd make her feel uncomfortable and shamed of who she was.... She thought for a heartbeat, sizing us up. But there must have been something honest and trustworthy in our eyes that promised that we wouldn't get out of hand... Because after a moment, she smiled and said, "Sure!"

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.

"My breasts," they asked shyly, having heard about the project. "Are they... are they good enough to be touched?" And lo, we showed them how beautiful their bodies were without turning it into something tawdry."

Original incident: Other voices

Most of the outrage was over the concept of the "project" as TheFerrett expressed it: a concept that could or should be exported to other Cons, carrying the baggage of the way he described it. However, some of the outrage spilled over into comments on the original incidents, the original participants, cons, and TheFerrett himself.

In particular, some of the outrage also focused on the fact that, whatever this incident was at the time, the export-proposal was packaged by TheFerrett, as was the description of the original incident. TheFerrett, in one of his comment threads, explained that he did not attempt to represent the female participants' views, or any view other than his own. (It was pointed out to him that his description was not, in fact, so carefully worded to be clear that it was only his perspective, and that the way he described the event, he universalized his (straight male) experience to all participants.

Thus, we include here below a selection of links to the comments and descriptions of other participants. Many (or most) of the participants reframed the original incident, while qualifying its exportability to general cons or distinguishing their experience of the original incident from TheFerrett's proposal.

Other voices:

• NovaPsyche, 4/22 1:43pm
• Anne, 4/23 11:50am
• Dawn, 4/23 10:28pm
• Dawn, 4/24 12:07am
• Ellalthea, 4/24 10:23am

Outrage quickly follows (4/21)

• A few grotesque things for your Monday. , classic_cats @ Livejournal, 4/21 11:49am: I'm done with elephants and clowns.
• Is this truly the only world I can live in?, the_red_shoes @ Livejournal, 4/21 7:05pm
• some mature non directly sexual content WRT touching and consent, sinboy @ Livejournal, 4/21 8:54pm:

comment threads elucidate the way that the proposal frames women only as potential touchees who are either prudish or have an unhealthy desire for attention; difference between touching by men and by women; notice that this is in a public space & is nonconsensual to observers

• open source male assholes , springheel_jack @ Livejournal, 4/21 10:56pm -- the basic libertarian fallacy

The ferrett wonders why a man’s asking, out of the blue, if he can feel up a woman's boobs shouldn’t be understood as "a way of saying that I may not yet know your mind, but your body is beautiful." But this is simply to ask why he shouldn't be able to continue to treat women as they have always been treated. Body first, sexual delectation to men first, as object first, "mind" - i.e. as a human subject - very firmly second. It’s simply to intensify the condition of patriarchal gender relations that already existed - or, to put it more simply, it’s a frustrated man’s fantasy of putting women back in their place.

And here we have the usual libertarian solution to everything - in the name of a false individuality, itself the product of an illegitimate reification and universalization of the social conditions of propertied white men - we have a retreat into the worst of the dark days of gender relations before feminism, offered as a so-called “advance” into a “more honest” and “freer” world. This is pernicious masculine ideology at its most pure and most insufferable. In the name of “empowering” women, we have…more of the same poison that women have been trying to free themselves of for all this time.

• PSA., glvalentine @ Livejournal, 4/21 11:19pm:

I finally found the shortest way to sum up my feelings that don't involve punching someone: My body does not exist in the binary of SOME GUY'S ACCESS TO IT.

... including on TheFerrett's LJ thread

Lots of the very interesting discussion across all the days occurred on TheFerrett's LJ thread itself, which was at one point briefly disappeared, then reappeared but closed to further comment. Below are selections of comments from the threads:

• tablesaw

A close reading in three parts of TheFerrett's original post that point out

(a) how the description of the event created the impression of a Tailhook-like situation: the implied domination of the scene by multiple men, the highly sexualized language, and the descriptions of multiple (impliedly) men accosting random women;

(b) how the male gaze was used throughout TheFerrett's descriptions of the event;

(c) how the objectification placed women and men in traditional sexist patterns of the object and the subject, the observed/acted upon and the observer/actor.

(d) appropriation of the voice of women such that only one voice (assent) was heard from women, and only one reaction was depicted; (ed.: Note in passing that this was also a universalization of individual women's experience.).

TheFerrett responds and that response, too, is fisked:

This isn't the language you used, which means that it may have been what you intended, but it isn't what you said. Part of the purpose of long exercise was to show how a lot of little mistakes, a lot of tone-deaf phrases, on top of a whole bunch of privilege combine to turn a reader away from giving you the benefit of the doubt.

and:

Could you have written it in a way that was ideally feminist? Probably not. That's really frickin' hard, especially for us as men. But could you have described this progressive, body-positive movement in a way that didn't keep me choked with rage all day and make my fiancee cry? Yes, I think you fucking could have.'

• mswyrr

I'm not trying to be adversarial here, I'm just confused. Many people seem to be upset by this, but if you were uncomfortable with the idea wouldn't it be refreshing to be able to just put on a red button to keep the annoying men away?

Sometimes, I like to enjoy the delusion of living in a world where what a woman has on her chest isn't the primarily important thing about her, whether it be buttons or shirts or what-have-you. I'd like to live in a society where my bodily autonomy is the default and not something I or any other woman is required to indicate by a pin, or drive myself crazy trying to make the "right" clothing choices to indicate.

• tablesaw, 4/22:

Women's breasts are not magical devices for healing straight men's psyches. Women's bodies do not exist to make straight men feel better about themselves. Women have their own shit to deal with, and a lot of the time, that shit is us, even (sometimes especially) when we're trying to do better. And trying to be the spokesperson for a movement without acknowledging, accepting, and fucking dealing with your position of power is just working at crosspurposes to that same movement.

... and continues (4/22)

• pir_anha @ Livejournal, 4/21 8:30pm
• On asking to touch the breasts of a stranger, kate_nepveu @ Livejournal, 4/22 7:41am:

If you are a stranger, especially a man, perhaps especially in a group of other strangers who are men, and you come up to me and say, "You're very beautiful. I'd like to touch your breasts. Would you mind if I did?": You will put me in fear.

• coffeeandink @ Livejournal, 4/22 8:48am:

Because the way to an egalitarian and less body-conscious utopia is for women's bodies to default to public space. We just don't have enough sexualized treatment of women as bodies instead of whole social persons in public spaces!

• Comment thread: Inhammer (4/22) rechristens it the "public domain boob project".

• Just what I needed for a rage-honing morning jolt..., Cynthia1960, 4/22 8:54am - Great threaded discussion
• The OSKSP, hahathor, 4/22 9:14am: "The Open Source Knuckle Sandwich Project":

The idea behind the OSKSP is to break down the societal barriers against punching strangers in the face. It's something many of us want to do - it's an empowering and liberating act. I wish this was the kind of world where say, 'Wow, I'd like to punch you in the face,' and people would understand that it's not a way of reducing you to a set of bruises and ignoring the rest of you, but rather a way of saying that I may not yet know your mind, but your face inspires passion.

• A proposal to crush the button-enabled sexual harassment proposal, Rachel Manija, 4/22 09:23:

if I hear that this button scheme is likely to go on at any con I would like to attend, I will contact the management for the hotel in which it takes place, inform them of it, point out the danger of sexual harassment lawsuits, and further inform them that if they do not get the con organizers to ban the buttons from public spaces at the con, and someone gropes me, I will sue the hotel and call the police. And that I will also encourage anyone else who is groped without their consent to sue the hotel and call the police.

• Welcome to the Harlan Ellison Memorial Personal Boundaries Club, James Nicoll, 4/22, 10:34:

Originally linked to the initial proposal with "Sad male fan invents way to be even more creepy to female fans." Eventually corrected by enough people that it was invented by other people, mainly women that author changed link to "Sad male fan capitalizes on way to be even more creepy to female fans."

and

I have to say there's a clear consensus on the idea of treating women's bodies as public commons and it's not heading in the direction of commutarian touching.

• Steaming bowl of hot mess (4/22 11:14am), ladyjax
• You Can Not HAZ!, No No Ojou-chan!, 4/22 11:36:

Notes the pressure placed by requests from celebrities; body issues and con culture; male gaze and privilege.

• Open source WHAT??? (or, a policy statement that should not be necessary), cooler by the lake, 4/22 11:46:

For the record: my boobies--like the rest of my body parts--are proprietary.

The clarification (4/22)

• Clarification, theferrett: TheFerrett tries to explain (4/22 12:21)

Yeah, that didn't help.

... discussion continues (4/22)

• Open Source Boobs, John Scalzi, 4/22 1:33pm

Contextualizing it as an attempt to demystify breasts to help eliminate objectification of women. Also, noting that "context is extremely important for something like this."

• My brief thoughts on the Open Source Boob Project, The Eye of Nova's Mind, 4/22 1:43pm:

A woman who participated notes that 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. ... 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.

• A Modest Proposal, aka the Open Source Swift Kick in the Balls Project, misia, 4/22 13:58
• coffeeandink (4/22 14:10):

What people are saying is: Women spend THEIR ENTIRE LIVES IN SEXUALIZED SPACES. All of us. ...What you're suggesting is that instead of the default being "No, you may not touch my body", you want to turn cons -- large public spaces -- into spaces where women have to repeatedly and loudly say no in order to be heard.

• A proposal, LadyJax, Subtle, Yet Effective Mood Adjustment, 4/22 3:10pm:

Touch your own damn self.

• The Open Source...HAAIIIII-YAH!, Rose Embolism LJ, 4/22 3:40pm
• I find it highly amusing that his username is "ferret.", MysticKeeper, 4/22 5:11pm

Summary with good quotes and excerpts.

• OH JOHN RINGO NO, melannen in unfunnybusiness JournalFen community, 4/22 17:40
• The open source groper project, badgerbag, 4/22 6:24pm:

How about some buttons to pass out for men to wear, buttons that say "GROPER", "CREEP", or "OGLER"? I'd love to know who to stay the hell away from.

Also, ruminations on the hanky code.

• Invizbel soshul contrakt, 4/22 8:16pm, oursin: It's Always More Complicated
• Wank Report (4/22 8:52pm), JournalFen.net
• wrapping up (4/22 21:13) vito_excalibur explains how he succeeded in his goal in bringing all of fandom together united with a common purpose.
• Tuesday Quick Post/Rage: Open-Source Boob Project, really? REALLY?!?, Naamen / Words from the Center, Words from the Edge, 4/22 :

DAMN! This is some privileged BULLSHIT! ... Let me say it loud so that it might -might- penetrate your skull: WOMYN’S BODIES ARE NOT A PUBLIC SPACE!

The apology

TheFerrett sort of apologizes: (4/22):

• The Open-Source Boob Project, theferrett: TheFerrett recants on his original post with a long preface at the top. TheFerrett removes the 1300 comments, then puts them back. This was deemed a fauxpology or heidipology by some.

...discussion still continues (4/22)

fandom outrage continues apace

• The Internets work how they’re supposed to, Liz Henry, 4/22, Feminist SF blog

Describing her process through the day, with key links, and an analysis of the apologies and their intent and how they did and did not measure up.

...and continues (4/23)

• The right of making available, Rivkat, 4/23 9:43am:

A patent/trademark/copyright lawyer explains how "Open Source" is a fallacy in this case.

• Why women need mace at cons., VulgarCriminal, 4/23 9:42am
• Oh Boob Grab, We’ll Miss Thee (actually, we won’t, but…), K. Tempest Bradford, 4/23 9:10am
• This is not a joke., vito_excalibur, 4/23 10:21am:

Vito proposes the "Open Source Women Back Each Other Up Program":

Here's my pledge: if I see somebody groping you in public, and you're not moaning Yes! Yes! Yes!, I will break through your Somebody Else's Problem invisibility field and come over and ask if you're okay. If your situation looks dangerous enough I can't help on my own, I will call over friends or, if it's a situation in which I think the cops would be on your side, I will call the cops. If you're being harassed by a guy, you can say so to me, even if you don't know me. I pledge I will distract him so you can get away, or I will tell him that he needs to leave, or whatever I can do to the best of my ability. I pledge that yes, actually, because you are a woman I will give you the benefit of the doubt. If you tell me that a guy just did something shitty to you I will not refuse to look at any evidence and tell you that I know him and he's a great guy and you must have been imagining things. I have great loyalty to my male friends but I will not allow that to blind me to the fact that none of us are saints and even my best friends can screw up and may need to be called on it. I pledge that I will walk you to your car if you don't feel safe walking alone at night, and then you can drive me to mine.

Yes, even at Wiscon. I pledge that even if I don't know you, if there is a creepy guy following you around, you can say so, and I will not say to you go hide in your room; I will say to him go find another party, or if necessary, go home. I will come with you if you need to talk to the con organizers. I will not make you feel like your right to control over your own body is not a big deal.

And I will do this whether or not I like you, or even know you. It's not about liking you. It's about the fact that we need to back each other up, and I will need you to do this for me some day.

• Closed Source Misogyny, Designated Sidekick at Girl-Wonder.org (4/23 4:40pm):

Extending the "open source" metaphor to "closed source misogyny" and suggesting Let’s put our male entitled view of women’s bodies as our property to use, modify, open source and otherwise interact with into a neatly closed source wrapper, bundle it in DRM, load it on an iPod and repeatedly strike our narrow minded selves in the face until the bleeding starts, and continue until the ability to stand upright stops. (Ed: Hear, hear.)

• Men and Women in Public Space, Timmi Duchamp, Ambling Along the Aqueduct (4/23 5:50pm)

The outrage du jour is tired, tedious, and old-fashioned, however dressed-up it might be in new language. The "Open Source Boob Project," for all its claim to hipness, once again figures women's bodies as property (a practice commonly known as sexual objectification). The point is not sex--it never is--but the terms on which women negotiate (or are allowed to negotiate) public space. It's the same issue that arose when the POTUS put his hands on the German Chancellor at a high-level public function. Do white men figure themselves as property? The thought never even crosses their minds. ... Rage is the appropriate response to outrageous beahvior.

• Previous Entry Boob project?! YOU'RE a boob project!, Perpetual Lent, 4/23 20:54:

The ... proposer (or, perhaps, propositioner) describes it as a utopian dream: "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." Nevermind, of course, that wanting to grope someone's boobies despite not knowing them is the exact process by which the person is reduced to a set of nipples. - Analysis of the controversy, some analysis from a religious viewpoint, and pointing out that it would be nice to have some non-sexualized environments. (Ed: Word. But then, that's what we feminists have been arguing for: When we're not having sex, treat us like people who have purposes and value other than sex.)

• SF_Drama (4/23 9:02pm) highlights TheFerrett's apology, then this thread highlights some of TheFerrett's other writings. Commenters were not impressed.
• Breast drama!, emmelinemay, 4/23 2:56pm:

Geek guy suggests an 'Open Source Boob Project¹, based on the premise that women like to have their boobs touched as a compliment, and therefore it will be empowering for the women if men go up and ask if they can touch their boobs at geek conventions. In a totally non creepy, non sexual way, of course. It's spiritual.

It's NOT a compliment. It's CREEPY. It's not a compliment when people whistle at me in the street, slap my arse when I'm cycling, yell 'OI DARLING' as I'm walking home, try to chat me up on the night bus. ...

Women are not going to throw off the shackles of media-influenced low self-esteem, body issues and centuries of sexual repression by having a bunch of desperate geeks ask to grab their knockers.

• May I grope your breasts? It's liberating!, rowanberries, otf_wank community on JournalFen, 4/23 12:52am
• A bit more on OSB, John Scalzi, 4/23 12:23pm
• The Open Source Boob Project and subsequent stoning, netmouse, 4/23 11:50am

NetMouse (one of the female participants) found the original incidents at the Con feminist: 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. ...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 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.

• The internet is a stupid place, Andrew Swann, 4/23:

Struck by the out-of-proportionality (and decontextualization) of the Internet.

• groping vainly for a clue, Charlie Bebattica, Get Off the Internet, 4/23

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.

...hits the mainstream (4/23)...

and the whole thing breaks the fandom atmospheric barriers on 4/23

• The Open Source Boob Project, Hildegarde @ MetaFilter, 4/23 5:25am

• Pastabagel's comment, 811am

For a moment, everything that was awkward about high school would fade away and you could just say what was on your mind.

Nerds have to take responsibility for their own lives. I was a nerd in high school, and high school for me sucked in every way imaginable. But once you are in college, there are no more cliques that exclude you, no more baggage, no more parents etc. You are on your own. If two months into college you are still alienated and ostracized, it is your fault, not society's. You are lacking in some social skills that others have, and that deficiency is holding you back.

For some reason, it became socially acceptable for nerds to retreat into computers and wallow in their alienation, instead of trying to improve themselves. The inability to talk to girls, strangers, and adults became a source of pride. Nerds have built a sub-culture for themselves that so insular that they have managed to convince each other that the rest of society is backwards, and that they are the smart and enlightened.

Truth be told, it is very easy to talk to women if you realize that they are people with a mind who have something interesting to say. Women aren't a collection of sex parts behind a security system that needs to be bypassed before you can access them. If you are thirty and can't talk to women, you need to see a psychologist, because you have serious problems. Acknowledging this to be the case is part of the solution, but not the entire solution.

On to the articles: the idea of these buttons came about because this guy and his friends were lamenting that groping a woman's breasts wasn't a trivial. They can't talk to women, which actually is trivial, so they want the entirely of interpersonal interaction that extends beyond conversation collapsed down to the level of a polite greeting. That is insane.

(bold added)

• Pastabagel's comment, 847am

By the end of the evening, women were coming up to us. "My breasts," they asked shyly, having heard about the project. "Are they... are they good enough to be touched?" And lo, we showed them how beautiful their bodies were without turning it into something tawdry.

... But there it is again, we showed them how beautiful their bodies were. They were the arbiters of beauty, and it depended on first touching their breasts. See how he tries to sound magnanimous in the act of judging her? Because at the core level, this is about power and control for these guys. He's so happy he had some power over women for once, he can't contain himself.

And Scalzi's take is, I'm sorry to say, preposterous:

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.

What's the benefit that the geeks can gain from this? How does creating an environment where it's socially acceptable for men to ask to touch a woman's breasts help them to see that breasts are a component of the whole woman? They aren't asking to hold their hand or touch their hair. You know what would actually help these geeks?

Notice that the commentary is from the standpoint of the guys. Why does he assume that geeks=men. Weren't the women there also geeks? What is the lesson that women learned? They learn that men can change the social order at their whim into an one where their refusal to have strangers violate their personal space nonetheless attracts undue attention to their bodies. Men of course do not have to submit.

You know what I'm going to do for the next Penguincon? I'm going to hire five or six nearby college football teams to show up in full uniform and just walk around through the entire convention, mingling and saying and doing whatever they want. You want high school, motherfucker? I'll give you high school.

• turaho responds to one of the original stated intentions (12:46pm):

I’m for the idea of demystifying breasts to young men who fetishize them to the extent of not being able to process the fact there is an actual person that they are part of, yes.

Yes, the best way to stop the fetishization of breasts is to come up with a game that allows men to reduce every encounter with a woman into an opportunity to touch her breasts. Why look a woman in the eye when it's so much easier to look at her button?

• JScalzi's comment, 2:10pm

I do think there's an underlying assumption that the people who were doing this are idiots/oversexed dweebs/socially horribly maladapted/variously clueless, and alternately, that Penguicon was a nipple flash away from becoming some horrible spring break scenario in which howling bands of boys terrorized unsuspecting women. The reality of the situation is that neither of these is the case: The women I know who participated are accomplished and intelligent women who had a point they wanted to make about touching and intimacy, and who have been regular attendees of Penguicon over the years; the vast majority of Penguicon attendees, as far as I could see, were extremely well-behaved. The male Penguicon attendees might be geeks, but they're generally not dicks. There's a lot of arrogation of perspective going on, and people having a hard time imagining a brace of smart, well-adapted and, yes, feminist women doing something like this. Well, guess what: Smart, well-adapted and, yes, feminist women did something like this, and did it in a place where it could work like they wanted it to.

• FelliniBlank comment, 2:24pm:

I just don't get why they didn't just stroll around in public at a crowded con wearing giant buttons that said:

I WOULD LIKE TO TOUCH THE BREASTS OF RANDOM WOMEN I DON'T KNOW but I am a feminist, baby, so don't punch me in the face

Oh, wait, that might have been humiliating and uncomfortable for the poor fellows, and we can't have that.

• penguinliz comment, 4:22pm

Part of the problem is that the actual reality of the project (small group of people, all linked in a network of friends, across both genders, not approaching any unconnected individuals, and just for the one convention) is totally at odd with theferrett's account, which gives the impression of a group of heterosexual men propositioning women they had never met because they thought their skimpy outfits were an invitation, and letting women know their breasts were worthy of groping. And goes on and on about how this was a wonderful, transcendent experience we should totally spread to other cons, and just screams of drooling fanboy finding a way to cop a feel and generally invokes my OH JOHN RINGO NO sense. I do find it hard to reconcile the smart, feminist women I know taking part in anything like that, and while the clarifications help, they don't negate the creepy vibe of the first post and many of theferett's replies to comments.

• Women's bodies: Just like open-source software!, Feministing, 4/23 1:29pm

Comment by Roni, 4/23 6:02pm, attempting to shed some light on apparent and likely intentions of the project, and experiences at the original cons:

This was a completely bone-headed, offensive, objectifying thing to post, but from what I gather, the reality was far less alarming. ... When Ferrett wrote it up in his blog he imposed a very het male, very sexualized, very privileged perspective on it. ... His write up made the whole experience sound much more prevalent, creepy, entitled and objectifying then what seems most people involved took as a warm fuzzy experience. To be clear, his post described a terrible, ill-conceived, solipsistic, misogynistic idea and I argued with him vehemently in half a dozen comments. I think initially they really did mean well. In my experience, Ferrett's not good at looking at things from the perspectives of others and is rather oblivious to male privlege. I'm sure he had no idea his post would paint such a sinister and alarming picture of something he thought was positive, and wouldn't in his wildest dreams predict the shitstorm this has caused. However, while this was a horrendous idea, it's not an actively malicious one. There were never any hordes of drooling booby-grabbing nerds.

Comment by Loriet, 4/23 6:50pm:

It's a little ironic that this debacle cropped up during Sexual Assault Awareness month...very timely, if you ask me.'

Commenter Dawn, participant in the original "mini-event", weighs in: 4/23 10:28pm and 4/24 12:07am

This is just what Ferrett said it was - an attempt to take, even if for a brief moment, some of the shame and politics out of sexuality and attraction. While his description may have been clumsy, I stand behind him and the whole "mini-event." ... [S]o far, the only virulent complaints I've read or heard regarding this have been from people who weren't even there. That's the part that angers me, because it feels as though those posters are judging me and my experience. How dare someone say she is ashamed of me for "allowing" this to happen, as though I lacked the judgment to make this decision for myself? ... Now, was Ferrett's public post a bad idea? Definitely. In other words, you're absolutely right - this kind of thing is Not Good as a public activity, precisely because of all of the sexism - and the understandable backlash to it - in our screwed up, poor excuse for a Western culture.

Vodalus comments (4/24 12:05am) on the "My breasts ... are they good enough to be touched" quote that bugged a lot of people:

Women "willing[ly]" participate in many sexist, misogynistic activities. It is fairly common for insecure (socially, financially, etc.) women to be consensually exploited. That does not alter the nature of the act. ("ly" added by ed. for clarity)

Anna comments (4/24 8:08am), quoted in full below:

Sapian, if it were as simple as touching, then it wouldn't either need to be breasts, or need to be written up by theferret as either using the power of teh_boobies to heal his teenaged-angst or as his mastubatory fantasy.

Touching and being touched is great. Why don't we start with all the guys at Cons who want to break down sexual taboos start encouraging and participating in non-sexual touching between men?

When theferret argues that having folks who are willing to do the touching wear buttons indicating their willingness (instead of having folks who are willing to be touched indicate *theirs*) as "a passive system" instead of an "active" one... well, he's showing his hand.

This, for him, was about being the active touching person, going up to women whose breasts he found attractive and "groping" them. ("Grope" is not a word without conotation. I've been groped in public more than once. It is gross. I have no doubt theferret is aware of the conotation of the word because I do not doubt his intelligence.)

Going up to a guy and saying "Hey, I have breasts, wanna touch them!" would be an *active* thing for me, and a passive thing for theferret - and theferret doesn't want to be in the passive role.

Or, more likely to me, he doesn't want women he finds unattractive approaching him, asking him to touch them, and being put in the position of saying "no".

Either way, he frames this as being all about him, his comfort levels, his sexual-healing, his wants.

When folks come out and say "But that's not what it was!" I don't doubt them - I do not think for a moment that Dawn is lying about her experiences.

But Dawn wasn't the one who wrote up the original post, and she wasn't the one whose words are now being used to champion or denegrade this stuff around the internet.

Theferret's are.

Words matter.

Ed.: Damn. Yeah, they do.

Commenter Pengo suggests there are more important things to be bothered about ("Um, yeah, there's this election and this war... I'm not saying your reactions are unwarranted so much as... Come ON, it's a stupid idea, right from the get-go. Ain't like this shit has legs. If anything I'm in a much better to be pissed off position because douchebags like this make respectable progressive chick-positive meganerds like myself have to do an awful-lot of apologizing." 4/24 1:45pm), to which exelizabeth kindly takes time and cogently explains where he has fucked up (4/24 2:45pm):

Pengo, you are not a respectable progressive chick-positive meganerd if you deign to tell women what should and should not matter to them. It is a huge anti-feminist straw-man to say, "You shouldn't care about X issue because Y and Z exists!" You're trying to impose your opinion of what is most important on us. That's anti-feminist. Also, and this might be hard to understand, but we can care about more than one issue at once. THIS thread is about this issue. Shall we direct you to other threads about the war and the economy? If you took two second to look through this site, you would find them.

• Open Source Boob Project: The True Story Of One Epic Day Nerds Groped Free, Jezebel

-- and now another perspective, with commentary about "booth babes"

• Feminism and Two Trainwrecks on the Interwebs, BlogSisters, 4/23:

[W]hen random men start championing these kinds of things, I can't help but feel a little skeeved about it all. Do men only sit up and notice if there are breasts involved?

• Open Source is not Always the Answer, Sloganeering, 4/23
• “Open Source Boob Project”: Around the blogs, Hoyden About Town, 4/24
• Open Source Boob Project, Sabotabby / Punkassblog @ Alternet, 4/24
• “Women’s bodies: Just like open-source software!”, Ann Bartow, Feminist Law Professors, 4/25
• The open source boob project, Thordis, Snopes.com discussion board > SLC Central > Soapbox Derby, 4/25 5:46pm

Comment #18 by PallasAthena 4/25 7:12pm:

The sad (and disgusting) thing is, the "ferret" seems to think he's somehow honoring women by groping them. A lot of the high school techy-types I knew would have had similar misguided ideas. How sad that a male might think he's doing a woman a favor by feeling her up.

Comment #20 by TurquoiseGirl 4/25 7:29pm:

I have mainly been around science geeks most of my life, but there is this underlying theme that glamorous women who do not flock to them because of their amazing brains, it is proof that women are shallow. At the same time, they evaluate women solely on their appearance. Evidently having an amazing brain is not an attractor to them. This is depsite the fact that these men have personal care/hygeine issues what would automatically disqualify any woman having the same issues as being considered ogle worthy. There is just this sense of entitlement that somehow they are owed women that drives me up the wall.

...fandom keeps on churning (4/24 and on)

• What I have to say about the whole Open Source Brouhaha Thing...., 4/24 1:37 am
• one last thing., delux-vivens, 4/24 8:41

You know what? I cant begin to get worked up over the Open Source Boob mess.

Not because its not annoying, but because (1) it seems like everything worthwhile has already been said and (2) I have a hard time seeing a lot of people get so worked up over something that a lot of women of color have to deal with every day. ...

From utter strangers feeling entitled to grab at our hair to men propositioning us for prostitution under any circumstances (waiting for the subway, heading to the office), plenty of women have to deal with the idea that we are already 'open source' or whatever the hell and have to suffer in silence to boot.

• Update on gross con guys feeling breasts posts, Vulgar Criminal (4/24 9:49)
• More Very Important Things To Think About With Respect To Boobs, vito_excalibur, 4/24 17:13

• Fanboys making women feel unsafe, WildCherryGal's LJ Indeterminate Nature, 4/26 4:00pm

Summaries, wrap-ups, and linkfests

• Liz Henry, 4/22, Feminist SF blog - Summary of the blogstorm at 36 hours
• journalfen massive link roundup
• Selective and Arbitrary: - "Open Source Boob Project": Around the blogs, lauredhel's journal, 4/24
• hell, people got rich selling itty bitty pieces of the Berlin Wall...., Red Shoes, 4/23 -- An awesome collection of t-shirt-worthy soundbites from the blogospheric outrage.
• “Open Source Boob Project”: Around the blogs, Hoyden About Town, 4/24
• More intelligent links on this stupid project, sophy LJ, 4/25 5:01
• Open Source Boob Project, Lorem Ipsum, 4/28

assorted unsorted links

• metafandom
• nonscience - poll about unwanted sexual contact
• Don't Be That Guy., synecdochic, 4/26:

I keep thinking about the discussions that have come up in the comments to my post about sex-positivism and performative sexuality and the concept of bystander consent, and I keep thinking about all the subtle little cues and clues I personally use to separate Okay from Skeevy when people approach me. Talking in the comments there made me realize that I do have a list. It's my list, and it's not the be-all and end-all of everyone's list. Most everyone has a different subset of The List.

• Amazingly, an Unlocked Post- A Straight Geek Male's Guide to Interaction with Females, timjr Your Sadly Atypical Male, 4/24:

With all the latest LJ hoopla over the "Open-Source Boob Project", and the issues therein, I have decided to write up a very simple guide as to what sort of boundaries a geek male has to maintain in person-to-person contact with the opposite sex. ... And now, we present... A Straight Geek Male's Guide to Interaction with Females

Here are the Basic Principles:

1. R-E-S-P-E-C-T

2. Thou Shalt Keep Thy Hands to Thyself

3. Stop, Collaborate, and Listen.

4. Staring is Not Caring (a.k.a Her Eyes Really Are Up There)

5. No. Means. No.

6. The Three H's. ... Humility Humor Hygiene

• Thoughts on Men and Rape, 4/21 Jim C Hines

Outcomes

• TheFerrett says he won't be going back to these cons; he acknowledges the Project is a Bad Idea and apologizes for putting women in fear; he closes some threads.

• Back Up, rachelmanija, 4/24:

It makes me sad to see that a venue that is already male-dominated will now become even more male-dominated, when I would like to see more women get involved and so make it more friendly to women. But I also can't dismiss their concerns, or promise them that nothing will happen. For one thing, people are already posting to the Dragon Con comm under the assumption that now that public button-enabled sexual harrassment has been described and advocated, it will happen as a matter of course. ...But I hope that what will come out of this is a movement to make cons more safe and fun for everyone except those who want to grope freely in public spaces, sorry guys; room parties only. One is that we press conventions and the venues that host them to create and enforce sexual harassment policies. The other is the brilliant plan invented by vito_excalibur, Back Up: Women Defending Women. Yes, there is a gentleman's auxiliary. Project Back Up I intend to wear my Back Up badge to A-Kon and every other con I go to in the future. If you need assistance of any kind, I pledge to help you out as you wish and to the best of my ability. (bold added)

See also

• Project Backup
• Harlan Ellison Breast Grab Incident (2006) - seriously, what is it with guys & women's breasts?
• The Great Blowjob Wars of 2006 on feminist blogs (not originating in fandom)