I quite like you. Thanks for giving another voice to this (seemingly) small minority of people who see the wonder and beauty and healthy, respectful way of interacting that seemed to be at the core of Ferrett's experience.

Oh, hi. I'm Gabe. Pleased to meet you.

Indeed.

Another a somewhat distinct note, the commenter who went on about what touching/kissing/etc. "should mean," applying that "should" to -everyone-, particularly broke my brain (possibly more than the towel-rack yesterday).

Incidentally, just how much time to do spend blogging?? Not that I'm not very happy to have the benefit of it, o' course. :P

i don't understand where "here's a fully voluntary experiment and in which consent is explicitly asked for and given" became "omg everyone is going to touch my body against my will". *FROWNY FACE*

What an interesting way to gentle the interaction between people and bodies.

I realize that, if you've had a past experience that sours touch or this sort of interaction, it could be deeply disturbing, but in general I just think - what a shame that it didn't get to develop into the social experiment it could've been.

You know, I usually agree with your POVs when I'm linked to them, I do agree that the radfems take things way too fucking far, but in this case? The people I've seen commenting in disgust are not radfems too in love with their ideology to see people's real feelings. They're regular women with fairly limited experience with organized feminism, who read theferrett's post and were deeply creeped out by the skeevy feel of his take on events.

I admit I am somewhat alienated by the suggestion that they are "oppressing" theferrett. I would venture to say that most of them would not have been creeped out and disgusted if the post had been presented in a more neutral way, packed with less male entitlement and implicit endorsement of the idea that feeling up a woman's boobs validates her as a person. (There still would have some people posting with OMG BADTOUCH, because, well, there are people who think like that, but...)

I'm sorry to make this my first comment here! I just didn't feel comfortable seeing the very valid perspectives of my friends who were disgusted by the post and the way the idea was presented dismissed as the shriekings of oppressive harpies. (Okay, exaggeration; but I've seen that metaphor used to describe the radfem crowd before, and this post seems to be implying that the women who reacted badly to theferrett are all part of a similar amorphous blob of feminist evildoing.)

I usually agree with your stuff, but not this time.

I think there's a big dose of context missing here. What's appropriate in a BDSM space where everyone there is consenting is a world away from pulling something like this at a sci-fi conference, an environment that already has a history of being pretty sexist.

Really, if someone had approached me at a conference and tried to sell that to me, I'd have been left feeling profoundly uncomfortable, probably to the point of leaving.

I also found the manner in which theferrett talked about all of this to be skeezy and entitled, like annwyd. My body is not public property, and I should not be pressured to pretend I'm comfortable with it being so in a public space because some poorly socialised young men decide it's the perfect opportunity to feel up some women.

I agree with you that it's a shame that this is dead in the water even for those who would have loved to participate in the project. But I think the apology's focus on female safety is more evidence that this whole thing is skeasy. He says 'The people there should not have to worry about me'; nowhere does he mention that people might be angry at him, that people might simply disagree rather than being 'worried', afraid of, him and his masculinity. The "PTSD-bomb" framing of this is how he's framed it; it wasn't chosen by those of us who disagree.

I'm kinda middle of the road on this. On one hand, I'm disturbed by the removal of the participants' agency and ignoring the fact that explicit consent was encouraged and respected. It's like, if you don't wanna do it, then don't take a button, it's just that simple. It's also disturbing that people are using their former insecure selves as a stand-in for who they imagine the participants to be. Yes, low self-esteem and peer pressure are things that need to be addressed, but even if you have low self-esteem why should your consent be questioned? Given the choices you were presented (in a literal and more general context with regards with how you feel about yourself) you did what you needed to feel good at the time. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

On the other hand, theferret's language and perspective is real disturbing. Though, people need to seperate the two, just because there are guys you find creepy out there, doesn't mean that women can't fully consent and that the project could have some merit.

Personally, I'm not particularly sympathetic to the whole "revolutionary or something" deal, though yeah, I know it's colored by my own personal issues with gender. Why does sexuality almost always have to be about women/feminine/femme people being the object of sexual attention and whether or not they like it or consent to it or subvert it or whatever? It's like the default undercurrent in these kinda discussions. I remember reading some male sub's blog and saying well, at least you get to be objectified. While I was pretty ambivalent about it first, I'm now extremely grateful for reading that. The shakeup in perspective is helping me understand why me and sexuality are just not happening. (Though obviously, my issues don't overrule the fact that this project was good for others, which is what more people need to understand.)

I hope the women who mercilessly attacked Ferrett for doing something kind and hopeful never discover BDSM clubs.

As someone who goes to BDSM clubs, I didn't find what Ferrett wrote about kind or hopeful. I found it to be an disingenous attempt to grope women in public, without taking that to a place where it would be OK.

He has been to sex parties before. He has been to private parties at cons. He certainly could have limited breast touching to those sort of events.

He also publically stated "I can't decry the process of "asking repeatedly," mainly because it's the only stimuli a lot of women respond to. Frankly, I think any woman who has to be begged fifteen times before she eventually accepts should be drug into the back alleyways and beaten, because her rampant need for a string of pleadings trains the wrong sort of men that no doesn't mean no. And then we should go beat up the men for good measure." (http://theferrett.livejournal.com/535109.html)

Harassing someone into saying "Yes" isn't meaningful consent. It's also both harassing and puppydogging behavior which is frowned upon at the fetish events I go to.

Consent gained through social pressure, once you've consented to let 3 of the 4 men present touch your breasts, there is pressure to say yes to the 4th, regardless of how you feel about it.

For me, one positive part about being in the kink community is clarity about consent and respecting that consent. If wearing a green button effectively means "You can ask to touch me, but I won't be able to say no unless you are over the top loutish" that's not OK. I want poeple to have a green button that "wearing this button means you can ask to touch me as long as you don't assume I'll say yes. You also agree to accept my "no" without complaint."

I have attended snuggly parties. Female masturbation parties. Massage parties. Parties with kink but no sex. Parties with sex but no kink. And parties that are an unholy combination of all of the above. It has always been important to the success of these events that everyone in the space as agreed to be a part of the event. They may not consent to sexual touch, but they are consenting to be in a space where people can ask "may I touch your boobs?" The hallway of a sci-fi/open source convnetion is not a place where I would expect someone to proposition me. Or a place where I would expect my "no" to be heard and respected.

Edited at 2008-04-25 04:08 am (UTC)

I'm still reading the posts from unfunnybusiness and assorted links. As another person with PTSD and my own issues about feeling safe:

Thank you for writing this.