Personal thoughts on some recent hue & cry. (If you haven't heard about it, doesn't really matter.)

[amanuensis1]

Why do nudists advocate nudism?

It's not, I hope, because that way they get to LOOK AT NEKKID PEOPLE ZOMG. It's because they think the cultural taboos on nudity are silly. Who decided what body parts we must cover up? Why are bare buttocks obscene, and bare feet are just feet? Why do some cultures think it's immodest to expose one's hair? Are certain parts sexual only because we've fetishized them to be so? Do we like it better because we have?

If these parts were not taboo, would it be taboo to touch them? To exist in a polite society we have a standard that people are generally not touched without their consent. But we seek that consent often. We extend our hands for others to take them and shake them. We open our arms and lean in for a hug. During meaningful conversation, we seek to deepen communication by reaching to touch one's arm, one's shoulder. We are a society that does touch and considers it acceptable to do so as long as the other person sees it coming, does not withdraw or speak against it, and as long as the touch is on a body part not considered taboo.

So what if we took the taboo off body parts?

If I were out in public with you and you were someone I knew and trusted and you ran your fingers through my hair, I would be in touch-related ecstasy. I would sigh, "Ooh, do that some more," and if you continued, no one would run over and arrest us. They might think we're odd, but because you are not touching a body part considered naughty or dirty, we could have a field day. Fondle my breast or buttock or genitals in public, however, even if they're covered with clothing, and there will be cries of, "Stop that! There are children here! You can't do that in public! Etc.!" Why is that obscene, but the other is not?

If I proposed that we do a social experiment where we treated the public touching of sexual body parts with the same politeness we do non-sexual body parts, would people think that was interesting? Refreshing, liberating? They might. Could there be disapproval? What about people who did not want to participate? Would they fear I might label them as "hopelessly stuck in society's arbitrary rules," and be unhappy at such negative labelling? Might people think I just wanted to get my hands on their naughty bits?

They might. I would be hesitant to propose such an experiment.

Comments

[florahart]

I haven't been willing to bear the wank potential in my LJ to talk about this, though I have said a few things in other people's comments. But yes, exactly this. I think the OP was either hopelessly naive or possibly of ill-intent (or possibly unknowingly having intentions that he didn't recognize in himself)--I can't know this--but I accept the possibility that he actually had in mind, truly, the somewhat poorly-informed notion that demystifying/detabooing boobs was a worthy goal (in the abstract, I pretty much agree with this), and that it never entered his head (again, I can't know why not) that this hue and cry would commence.

Also, I wish to pose a question. Wait, a question and an observation.

First, okay. A guy walks into a bar. He sees a pretty girl he has never met down at the other end. [this here example is a guy approaching a girl because of social norms and because the thing we are talking about mostly was, too] He walks over to her and says hey, can I buy you a drink? Now, I think this is a sort of standard. I don't really frequent bars of any kind, so I have to rely on the standardness of this on TV and whatnot, but I think socially we do not think this is skeevy. However, I also think the unstated intent of the guy is possibly just to chat with a pretty girl, but probably to learn, in the course of a short or long conversation, how she feels about the potential for intimate touching. It's true, he doesn't walk up and say this, but I think I understand this to be a high probability intent or hope. So here's the question: if it is true that both this behavior and the boob-touchy behavior are a guy asking a girl for touchings, why is one perceived as pretty much socially acceptable and the other pretty much definitely skeevy? Side note: the one involving a bar is less direct, certainly, but also tends to involve a mood-changer/judgment diminisher.

Second, I've been thinking about all this a lot as I've seen more and more people talk about their own unwanted touching experiences. Some of them seem quite certain my experience is impossible, which, as Celandine says, um, no. My experience is my experience. I have never experienced a situation which I perceived as unwanted sexual touching. I have, in years past, walked home in the dark not-infrequently. I used to take the bus home at nearly midnight. I have walked past groups of men making general rude conversation which I perceived to be amongst themselves. However, I have been wondering, today, whether my perception is because I experience, all the TIME, unwanted social expectations that everyone else finds totally fine. Because they are nonsexual, my objection is the abnormal part. If I say DO NOT WANT (about girl-bonding experiences like, say, shopping or spa-going or I can't think of other examples in the moment... chatting on the phone for half an hour? hugging on running into each other somewhere?), I am cajoled to stop being such a wet blanket, told I need to get out more, informed it's FUN, etc. However, I don't actually object to very much touching. I am aware of the social standard, but I find it arbitrary and odd, but in terms of someone else touching me, I am fairly unlikely to object, unless the situation is one in which I am expected to behave in some standardized way in return (so, hugging), in which case my objection is mostly about my anxiety about not doing it right. Anyway, my observation is this: it is possible that because I find so much of other people's social expectations to be pressureful and anxiety-inducing, that I have in fact been offered what most people would find inappropriate sexual advances, but I haven't perceived them because they are lost in the noise of all the other pressures. It is also possible that because touching doesn't feel threatening to me, my biggest social problem actually is the expectation of other kinds of interaction predating the touching.

I am still thinking about this. I'm aware I'm the odd one, here.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

My experience is my experience.

There's one hell of a truth there, isn't it--similar to what I said about my experience at SF cons making me feel less objectified because I'm female, rather than more, in the way it sometimes is in other, non-nerd venues. My experience is not quite the same as yours, but I too can't remember any experience of sexually threatening touching, personally. Sometimes there are people who get in my personal space, what with breath or body odor or distance or an occasional, "They're touching my arm a lot, aren't they. Look, I get it, you don't need to win me over." But not threatening.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Oh god the arm touching. Only the fact that I KNOW the social conventions that say that's an OK touch keep me from hitting people who do that,

And I'm still likely to flinch, or back up, or give a funny look.

REALLY, PEOPLE. JUST HANDS OFF ALREADY.

[phantomminuet.livejournal.com]

So here's the question: if it is true that both this behavior and the boob-touchy behavior are a guy asking a girl for touchings, why is one perceived as pretty much socially acceptable and the other pretty much definitely skeevy?

The difference is the fact that the bar example generally requires actual human interaction...conversation, an exchange of ideas, an opportunity for both parties to decide whether how far they wish to interact.

"Whoever you are, can I touch your boobies?" is rather impersonal and a lot more objectifying. IMHO, of course. :-)

[florahart]

I do understand the difference in level of directness; my point is, the basic interaction is probably something on the order of "Hi, we haven't met; here in a little bit I'm hoping to touch you somewhat intimately," and in the bar interaction, most of the time it also involves an attempt to lower your defenses (by feeding you alcohol), which I think sort of levels the two interactions somewhat. I'm saying they are similar in type and perhaps not entirely different in degree, though clearly they are not identical, and noting that still, there is relatively little outrage about the bar approach except in situations where the woman says no and the man doesn't go away.

Also, as originally posted (and not as many people interpreted--I saw LOTS of people on my flist point to the OP basically saying "this guy thinks he has the right to come up and grab your tits unless you are wearing a sign that says not to," which is not what I read, and then I saw other people pointing at THOSE posts apparently without reading the OP), the option for both parties to determine interaction still exists, though under what many women would find to be a different (and unacceptable) level of pressure. I'm not arguing here that that different level of pressure is irrelevant; I'm merely pointing out because of what I saw in the second wave of rant that the guy never suggested he ought to be allowed to grab unless otherwise noted.

[jamoche]

The bar situation is "hi, I'd like to get to know you, and sometime later there might be more than that." The OSBP (more accurately Open Access than Open Source) explicitly claims to be operating on the grounds of "I don't know your mind, but I'd like to touch your body."

Now, guy in the bar could just be faking interest in the girl's mind, but at least he's doing that much.

[florahart]

I'm pasting part of what I said to the commenter above because I am lazy. I said:

I do understand the difference in level of directness; my point is, the basic interaction is probably something on the order of "Hi, we haven't met; here in a little bit I'm hoping to touch you somewhat intimately," and in the bar interaction, most of the time it also involves an attempt to lower your defenses (by feeding you alcohol), which I think sort of levels the two interactions somewhat. I'm saying they are similar in type and perhaps not entirely different in degree, though clearly they are not identical, and noting that still, there is relatively little outrage about the bar approach except in situations where the woman says no and the man doesn't go away.

Also, I realize I haven't spent much time in bars as a real adult, so my direct experience is, you know, a bit out of date, but at least in the late 80s in my neck of the woods, the "sometime later" you suggest there might have been in like twelve minutes, you know? Which makes it not so much with the different, though I agree in a bar there is at least some sort of mediation or structure (because generally I think a bartender will stop facilitating someone being creepy and being told no).

I totally agree, again, that the OP was not wise in what he posted or in his assumptions. I just was really surprised by the way so many people seemed so, so firmly of the opinion this had to be unequivocally sick and wrong, rather than seeing how maybe he was ill-informed but not necessarily fully evil.

[jamoche]

Ah. I'm in the "at that time, with those people, in that place, it worked - but the assumption he makes that it'll work *everywhere* for *everyone* is just plain wrong, and his failure to see is a big problem" camp.

Also, never had someone try to pick me up in a bar. But it's not so much the directness that bugs me, but the *complete* lack of interest in the woman as anything other than the owner of a pair of breasts - the "not only do I not know your mind, but I'm not taking even the slightest interest in it, and I'll go away once I've got what I want" part.

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

The OSBP (more accurately Open Access than Open Source) explicitly claims to be operating on the grounds of "I don't know your mind, but I'd like to touch your body."

No, actually, it's more accurately Open Source than Open Access. Because if you wore a green button, you were allowed to say no. (Although not all green-button-wearers were aware of this, which is a serious failure.)

Now, guy in the bar could just be faking interest in the girl's mind, but at least he's doing that much.

I disagree, quite powerfully. Then again, I'm a naive idiot who thinks that a more honest world would be a better one.

But think for a moment - why is it that women are afraid that men are constantly looking for excuses to feel them up? Quite possibly because of exactly the sort of deception that you're promoting. If men could be trusted to say what they want and to take no for an answer (I accept that this is a Very Big If), wouldn't that be empowering for women?

Isn't that what people were trying to promote, however clumsily and controversially?

Shouldn't intimacy between the man and woman in the bar be given to each other because they both want to, not earned by him because he made an effort?

[jamoche]

No, it's not open source. Public domain, maybe, but not open source. Talk to some actual OSS software people - they find the co-option of their terminology for this event rather annoying.

Disagree with what? That might be faking? I'm not assuming he is, I'm just saying it's a possibility.

Disagree about the "at least he's doing that much"? Why? It's a damn sight better than not expressing *any* interest other than "hey, you have tits!" And I'm assuming that the woman will be smart enough to see through it.

I'm *not* afraid that guys are looking for excuses to feel me up. It's not my default assumption; it's not something that's happened to me; I've been at Baycon, I've been at WWDC (100:1 male-female ratio), and not been hit on. I go to cons expecting to talk SF/software, and that's what happens.

Whatever the *intentions* of the event, statements like "I don't know anything about your mind, but I want to touch your body" are *not* going to "promote empowerment". Not when *the article in question* says that that was the *entire* extent of the interaction. Touch the tits and go. Yeah, *that's* empowering.

How the hell are the two people in the bar going to find out that they do in fact want intimacy with each other if they *don't* make an effort to get to know each other? And yes, I said both of them. I am not assuming a passive woman, waiting for the guy to make the right motions to indicate, however insincerely, that he's not a jerk; I'm assuming two-way communication, mutual respect - and hey, maybe even mutually enjoyable sex.

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

Re public domain vs open source: The model has been published and can be changed by those who adopt it, hasn't it? Therefore the 'boobs project' is 'open source'. (Whether the 'boobs project' has been named incredibly badly is another thing.) As for the boobs themselves, they were never open source, open access, or public domain. What the project did was to say "It's OK to ask", thereby significantly relaxing the usual social constraints on access, but not intentionally removing them.

I was the one assuming that the guy in the bar only wanted one thing - I had thought that the comparison was based on equivalent desires but different actions. I now begin to think that we're in violent agreement, our problem is our ability to communicate effectively, not so much a significant disagreement.

Which is to say that I didn't assume that the woman would be smart enough to see through the guy's intentions, although I'm happy to concede that most women can see through most guys.

I think that intent is an important guiding principle in this matter, and I suspect that you agree. I don't want to have sex with someone who isn't interested in me as an entire person, and I fully support any woman who doesn't want to be treated like a piece of meat. For me (and many others), the emotional content of a relationship is extremely important, and I'm not interested in physical intimacy with someone that I'm not emotionally intimate with.

However, I think that 'fooling around' is a legitimate and enjoyable thing that people can learn from. I didn't fool around as a kid, and I was married at 18. Having followed the rules until the separation, I'm now in a situation where physical relationships scare the hell out of me. A safe place where I could start to get more comfortable with physical relations without either party mistaking it for something else really appeals to me.

I think that the project was an attempt to create a safe space such as the one that I describe there.

(And now I see that I'm a stranger who barged in and acted on a misunderstanding, which is the kind of behaviour I've been criticising lately....)

[jamoche]

OK. I think you may have thought that I was saying that the guy in the bar was exactly the same as the guy who wanted a button that would let him avoid that pesky social interaction, when my assumption was that the guy in the bar was sincere in wanting to get to know the woman first.

But I was also acknowledging that the OP could be right that bar guy and button guy had exactly the same motives, but insincere bar guy is still - if only slightly - a better person for at least being aware that social interaction is something that people value. He's making an effort to behave like a member of the human race; he does not deserve a reward for the effort itself, but it does mean he has a chance to actually discover that the object of his attention isn't an object at all but a person. But button guy will never do that; he's skipped the process that would make that possible.

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that recognising the value that people place on social interaction is a virtue.

If we remember that the buttons give permission to ask (and not permission to touch), then what ferrett rather foolishly portrayed as an all-in gropefest becomes an exercise in communication.

I guess, there are times when my thought processes really are very profound, and there are other times when my thoughts and feelings are really very shallow. And I think that it's good to encourage people to be honest about the depth or shallowness of their thoughts and feelings. I agree with an implication of what you're saying - that touching people in a deep and meaningful way is better than doing it in a shallow and meaningless way. But I don't think that it has to be deep and meaningful in order to be good, and I think that a bit of shallowness now and then is good for us.

So, yes, not investing in communication and 'getting to know you' places a limit on a relationship between people. But I think a limited relationship (provided everybody gives genuine consent) can be a good thing.

Personally, I would be very reluctant to take part, I think my values about relationships are actually very similar to yours. But I don't think that the best way to evaluate this concept is on the basis of whether it suits me, I think the best way to evaluate it is on the basis of whether it suits the participants.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

See, yur example about a guy buying a girl a drink? With the intent to find out if she's up for the possibility of touching? I LIKE that set of social signals.

The button people seemed to be creating a situation where they could skip the conversation and get straight to the boobs, and I would not want to be in a situation where this became the social norm.

If other people wanted to do this, great, but that is not how I want my world to work, and I don't want them social-engineering my world into working that way.

[florahart]

Oh, sure, as I say, I agree the OP was apparently not clear on how the existing norms work; I'm only positing that they are situations that are of a similar type, and maybe not such a very different degree as all that, only we've developed some social code for how the bar thing works, and we haven't about the other. I mean, there are existing unwritten rules about ways women put up "no boobies" buttons at a bar already, and we have (generally) some mediation available (for instance, if the girl says no, go away, you are a creep, there's a decent chance many bartenders will at least discontinue to facilitate, and may tell the guy to GTFO to make for non-alarming tension at her or his bar); however, these are things that have grown up over time. I expect there was a time when a girl being perceived as available enough for a guy to buy her a drink in public was pretty damning, but over time, these codes have developed, and have done so probably with the help of folks who initially might have though um, no. I could be wrong.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

No, I think he was perfectly clear on how the existing norms work, and, in some core way, displeased that he had to master ALL THESE SOCIAL STEPS OMG to get to what he really wanted, which was BOOBIES.

I read a post by netmouse, a participant, where she described the women's collective intent, which reads as pretty cool. The thing is that she and I live in different headspaces. She feels that boobs are hedged about with warnings and thou-shalt-nots and she would prefer to negotiate access individually instead of defaulting to BOOBS BELONG TO YOUR MAN.

I have felt since I was eleven that THE WHOLE WORLD WANTS TO GRAB MY BOOBS, and the social restrictions put on them and are fragile and too easily violated, or strangers would not feel entitled to comment on them or grope on a crowded subway, for example.

I don't care if other people want to grant more access to theirs, but I would like to feel as if I don't have to constantly defend mine, and so I resent a situation where "may I touch?" is a reasonable question from a stranger and puts me in the position of having to keep saying no.

I see what you're saying about "how do these codes develop?" All I can say is, I think THIS attempt to change a code sucks.