Open Source Boob Project

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The Open Source Boob Project was a short-lived proposal for women at cons to wear buttons signaling "yes you can ask (to grope my breasts)" or "no you can't ask (to grope my breasts)". Also aptly described as "an aborted convention meme purporting to be a movement towards increased sexual liberation".[1] Furor ensued; poster recanted in the name of con safety.

Interesting discussions that came out of the furor:

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 and original incident

April 21, TheFerrett proposes the "Open Source Boob Project" based on an experience at Penguicon (an open source/SF/geek con):

  • The Open-Source Boob Project, theferrett (4/21): Ferrett 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.)
Some choice excerpts 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.
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.

Outrage quickly follows:

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
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.


April 22
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.
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"
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.
Notes the pressure placed by requests from celebrities; body issues and con culture; male gaze and privilege.
For the record: my boobies--like the rest of my body parts--are proprietary.
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."
Summary with good quotes and excerpts.
  • OH JOHN RINGO NO, melannen in unfunnybusiness JournalFen community, 4/22 17:40
  • The OSKSP, hahathor, 4/22: "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 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.
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.
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!

Including some excellent ones on TheFerrett's LJ thread:

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.'
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.

the clarification

Ferrett tries to explain (4/22):


Discussion continues

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.
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.
  • pleonastic, 4/22
  • wrapping up (4/22) vito excalibur explains how he succeeded in his goal in bringing all of fandom together united with a common purpose.
  • Wank Report (4/22), JournalFen.net

the apology

Ferrett sort of apologizes: (4/22):

discussion still continues

fandom outrage continues apace
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 into april 23
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.
A patent/trademark/copyright lawyer explains how "Open Source" is a fallacy in this case, 4/23
NetMouse found the project 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.
Struck by the out-of-proportionality (and decontextualization) of the Internet.
  • SF_Drama (4/23) highlights Ferrett's apology, then this thread highlights some of TheFerrett's other writings. Commenters were not impressed.
  • Breast drama!, 4/23, Adventures of the Dread Pirate Emmeline May!
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.


and the whole thing breaks the fandom atmospheric barriers on 4/23
-- and now another perspective, with commentary about "booth babes"
[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?


and discussion continues on april 24
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.)
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.)

outcomes

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)

Summaries, wrap-ups, and linkfests

References

  1. ↑ Boob Project?! YOU'RE a Boob Project!, Perpetual Lent, 4/23 (linked and discussed with other posts in the general summary).

See also

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