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.

Note the very careful usage of "us" and "we."

Not "me" or "my."

There's a large difference here, and if I thought it was my approval as opposed to the group, then by God I probably would think it vaguely unhealthy. And the group itself, in assuming that you assume it's male, confuses me, since a woman initiated and a woman was the second to go, and clearly there were at least a fair number of other women to have all of this touching going on.

Defaulting to a male-dominated group may be an assumption that's societally-valid, but I find that equally troubling that people would go, "Hmm. He talks about a group, so it must be guys." I wouldn't have assumed that at all.

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Oh, fucking bullshit.

Go back, reread your words.

Making the assumption that the group is defaulting to straight males is a product of your own writing here. The entire post drips with a male perspective of heterosexuality and, yes, the objectification of the female body. If that was bad writing, it was bad writing. But don't try and turn this around and say that as readers we weren't enlightened enough to see that it was an female-dominated group. If you that's how it was, or that's how you want us to read it, write fucking better.

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I personally think it's clear. It may not be. But to turn what I wrote as "we" and turning it into "me" and then claiming that words I DID NOT SAY are proof of this as an expression of male power is NOT fair.

I think the assumption that every group must be male because I didn't specifically announce it otherwise is also bullshit, and one supposed feminists should think about if they carry it. But at least I can understand that. Yet somehow if I say that, it's me being defensive instead of the reader bringing some pretty unhealthy baggage to the table.

Sure, it's a male perspective. I don't deny that... But I'm a guy. And it's my guy perspective on a group.

As usual, I could have written it better. But it's also the reader's job to read the text. And in some cases where the reader spackled over a part of the text with his or her own opinions, I don't think it's out of line to say, "No, I didn't say that."

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PROTIP: Not intending to say something =/= not saying it.

Incidentally, when I said "reread your words there," I meant in the original post as a whole, not the specific passage in the previous quote. And really, I'm dealing with the story you wrote about this thing, not about whatever happened in reality at the con. You and everyone else say that it was almost entirely women in that first room? Fantastic, I trust you. But that's not the story you wrote.

And I'm not talking about what you "specifically wrote," I'm talking about what's implied all over this story. The straight male voice dominates the whole thing, so if you don't explain that the group is mostly women, we're going to assume it's mostly people who are thinking like you, a straight man. (And yes, if you'd made it clear that the group was mostly women, there'd be a whole other set of issues, most especially asking why you're imposing your straight male perspective onto a group of women.)

Let's look at what you've written that puts the perspective male and straight. This is going to be a bit rough because I should have gone to bed three hours ago, and ire is my caffeine.

Yet it wasn't a come-on, either. There wasn't that undertow of desperation of come on, touch me, I need you to validate my self-esteem and maybe we'll hook up later tonight. There was no promise of anything but a simple grope.

Starting here, and continuing throughout the post, you use highly sexualized terminology. The fear that touching a woman's body would be a "come-on," would indicate a "hook up," or would turn into a "simple grope" strongly presents the situation of men touch a woman.

And lo, we touched her breasts - taking turns to put our hands on the creamy tops exposed through the sheer top she wore, cupping our palms to touch the clothed swell underneath, exploring thoroughly but briefly lest we cross the line from 'touching" to "unwanted heavy petting."

This may be where your problems started. This is a very male-gaze passage in describing these breasts. This is objectifying a woman's body, and fetishizing her clothing. And here, you used "we." If this is the problem, then it's not us turning "we" into "me," it's you turning "I" into "we." You do that enough, and when you start trying to switch back to first person, you've already lost the battle. When you attribute your male perspective to an otherwise unidentified group, then that group gets read as male.

We liked to express adoration of her body, and she liked the compliment of being desired. It wasn't a one-way flow; it was a stream of compliments being passed back and forth as we explored that small zone of her body, a My God, these are beautiful breasts you have, along with the backstream compliment of Thank you, you're worthy of touching them.

Here, you're bumping up against a really classic definition of objectification, where the passive person can only has a voice by being the object of an active person. "We compliment her by doing something to her; she compliment us by letting things be done to her."

The group is dominated by your voice—the straight, male voice. So you aren't presenting a pivotal moment that many of the women involved seem to be stressing, when the passive person becomes active. The "stream" is between touchers and touched, not between touchers and touchers.

Then someone else spoke up in the same tone of voice: "You can touch mine, too."

Remember how you haven't been very explicit about the gender makeup of the group? Well, now, we've got you, doing all of the talking and a whole lot of the touching, and we've got two people identified as women talking. And their voices in this story are there to volunteer their breasts to be touched to you and the group that you're already constructing as male. So you're going further to writing the women as the objects (literally) of touching.

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Thank you for the close reading in three parts.

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Because you're writing about your (male, straight, sexualized) experience of these contacts as the point of view of the group, the whole group gets that point of view. The women speak up to be touched, and the men (male point of view) touches. I'll assume, for the benefit of the doubt, that you didn't attempt to write from the perspective of other women present or from anyone else because that wasn't your experience. But you did not, at any point, indicate that there was, really, any experience outside of the sexually charged one you had (other than the experience that women had being touched by you in the same sexually charged experience).

We weren't degenerating into an orgy, but rather exploring the amazement of how beautiful this body was and how wonderful it was to have access to them. Nobody was trying to pull off a bra or suck on a nipple; we'd been given access to a very special place that only lovers usually touched, and why would you be so crude as to try to push the boundaries of that?

Again, the act of touching a breast is explicitly linked to sexuality.

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.

Here, phrases like "putting her assets on display" is straight up objectification. And my flags always trigger when somebody uses the word "obvious." What's obvious here? That the woman wanted to be objectified?

This could go wrong, collapsing and turning us into cruel lechers who'd make her feel uncomfortable and shamed of who she was....

Again there's an assumption that everything will devolve into sex. I'm not saying that issues of sexuality never come up when two women touch each others' breasts, but you're throwing your own perspective on here.

It wasn't that she was a piece of meat to be felt up, but rather that a living person that we did not know had voluntarily lowered the barriers that separate us and allowed us in... And we were so grateful that we were showering her in pure adoration.

Here, it's disturbing that you use such graphic description of justification that this totally isn't. At this point, it's starting to sound like she should have felt like a piece of meat. That it was a total surprise that she was actually a person. (Yes, yes, I know, not your intention, but this piece has already gone far afield of whatever your intent was.)

It was exciting, of course. I won't deny it was sexual. But it was a miraculous sexuality that didn't feel dirty, but clean.

Well, sure. To you, the straight man. You don't seem to give any voice to how it felt for the women.

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.

I mentioned this earlier. I don't know if it really needs further comment. But here, extremely explicitly, the women in your story sex validation by become the passive objects, not by active touchers. And yes, by this point, the group is strongly identified male, even though it apparently wasn't in real life.

We went around the con, asking those who we thought might be amenable - you didn't just ask anyone, but rather the ones who'd dressed to impress - and generally, people responded. They understood how this worked instinctively, and it worked.

People like the woman in the hallway? People who were "obviously putting [their] assets on display"?

(Like any good project, you need access control, because there are loutish men and women who just Don't Get It.)

Here's where part of the peer-pressure arguments come in. Because women who don't want to offer up their breasts to be touched "Don't Get It." They are unenlightened and need to be kept out of things.

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Here's where part of the peer-pressure arguments come in. Because women who don't want to offer up their breasts to be touched "Don't Get It." They are unenlightened and need to be kept out of things.

Actually, that's been misinterpreted twice now, but the intent there was to keep the people who disrespected women away, which is what we tried to do. I see that as clear, but if you guys don't get it, then I did need to rephrase.

The rest is point-by-point, and I could go over it, but I think that if you want to read it negatively, you certainly have the evidence, but that's not necessarily entirely in the text - it's in what you bring with you. I disagree with your interpretations here, and I honestly don't think I could have written about it in a way that would have satisfied you.

Basically, your comments here seem to be "You shouldn't have been turned on by women without knowing them. You shouldn't say that if someone dresses very scantily, chances are good she's doing it to be admired. You shouldn't have acknowledged that it's really easy to humiliate someone by asking to touch their breasts, because you clearly assume that they are a piece of meat inherently. And my God, how dare you mention your straight male perspective?"

Trust me. If I'd tried to write it from a female perspective, everyone would have rightfully shredded me because well, I'm clearly not a woman. And if I'd spoken for the women, saying how they obviously loved it? Shit, man, do you really understand how to interact with an audience and how THAT would have come across?

Certainly there's room for improvement. But what I sense from you is largely, "You should have written about this to tell me more about the women." And had I done THAT, shit, every feminist would have told me how I was projecting my own desires upon them and the accusations of dehumanization would flow further.

I disagree with your breakdown of comments. I certainly see how someone could read them that way. But I can also see how someone might interpret Lord of the Rings as an allegory for Vietnam, and that doesn't mean you don't have to stretch to do it.

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Basically, your comments here seem to be: You shouldn't have been turned on by women without knowing them.

No, being turned on by someone without knowing them is an essential part of sexuality. I don't see how you got that from what I wrote, and I openly admit that I'm too tired right now, and will not be able to reread it well for another few hours. We may be miscommunicating over what "objectification" is.

You shouldn't say that if someone dresses very scantily, chances are good she's doing it to be admired.

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.

You shouldn't have acknowledged that it's really easy to humiliate someone by asking to touch their breasts, because you clearly assume that they are a piece of meat inherently.

You shouldn't have used those words in making that observation, which wove nastily into the tapestry of other passages. Again, with all of the other questionable portions of your story, there's no reason that this comment should be given a pass.

And remember, as you pointed out yourself, you were writing from your own perspective. What's shocking here is that the narrator (and I really should have separated the character of narrator from you as the writer a long time ago, I apologize) seems surprised by her personhood, not that the woman herself is surprised that she doesn't feel like a piece of meat.

And my God, how dare you mention your straight male perspective?

But in your story, your straight male perspective doesn't just motivate you, it motivates the group (when you use the "we" with your own perspective) and subsequently the movement.

Look, I know that you like to take the attitude that your opinion is just an opinion and everyone is free to disagree (paraphrasing from previous posts on the subject). You wanted to present your own experience, which is fine, even if it's not ideally expressed. But you didn't present your perspective as merely your own viewpoint, your own little view of what happened. Your mode of writing declared, "Lo, this is how it was, and this is what it was! This is what the group thought, and lo, it was good." Not, "This is how it felt for me; it was important to me, but I'm an outlier in this; I'd like to hear more about what it was like for the women; I'm sure you would too; maybe they'll say so in the comments or on their journals."

Adding that last bit to the end of your story does a whole lot to put what you said into context.

And maybe that's something that you're missing. This isn't like you talking about some movie about which you have an odd or unpopular opinion. I can rent I Am Legend and disagree with you. But you're not just presenting a perspective on this project, you're presenting the project itself. You're presenting it with the power of a privilege not just as a straight man but as an "internet celebrity."

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Trust me. If I'd tried to write it from a female perspective, everyone would have rightfully shredded me because well, I'm clearly not a woman. And if I'd spoken for the women, saying how they obviously loved it? Shit, man, do you really understand how to interact with an audience and how THAT would have come across?

But you did, by often attributing your own thoughts and perspectives to the "we" in the story which was, apparently, meant to be mostly women.

Certainly there's room for improvement. But what I sense from you is largely, "You should have written about this to tell me more about the women."

Mostly, those responses were to show you how the group was being constructed as male-dominated in your story, which you are having a hard time seeing.

You certainly could have taken a more journalistic tone, reporting what other women told you. Then your own experiences would have a context, and you'd have an easier time demonstrating how you own experience differed. But really, you just needed to give any sense of context for your perspective.

The rest is point-by-point, and I could go over it, but I think that if you want to read it negatively, you certainly have the evidence, but that's not necessarily entirely in the text - it's in what you bring with you.

Yes, this is what I bring with me. And frankly, I don't know what you expect me, as a reader, to bring to the text instead. People who were there can bring some personal context of the event. The rest of the internet can't.

I disagree with your interpretations here, and I honestly don't think I could have written about it in a way that would have satisfied you.

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.

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I particularly hated it when you judged a woman as deserving to be stopped in a hallway because you interpreted what she was wearing as a an "obvious display" which meant she deserved to be objectified for it.

There are so many other reasons to wear an outfit! But those didn't matter: it just mattered that her clothes had put her in a category in your head that deserved to be examined and interrogated as an object of your enjoyment.

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(Like any good project, you need access control, because there are loutish men and women who just Don't Get It.)

Here's where part of the peer-pressure arguments come in. Because women who don't want to offer up their breasts to be touched "Don't Get It." They are unenlightened and need to be kept out of things.

Psst: Not getting into the larger discussion just yet, but T, as a bisexual woman, I read that as women Not Getting It in the same way that Men might Not Get It, no different - that they might be pushy or belligerent towards women who didn't want to be touched. Not that Not Getting It = not wanting to invite the question. There are creeps in every sexual orientation, y'know!

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And indeed, poorly as I phrased it, that's precisely what I meant. Yet again, the seeded idea that only men can be belligerent, stupid, or grabby is something that has led people to a wrong assumption. I specifically said women because women can be just as dumb.

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What she said.

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And if you weren't a total lout - the women retained their right to say no, of course - they would push their chests out, and you would be allowed into the sanctity of it.

The way you've presented the women's right to say no, it doesn't have anything to do with them as an active person. The test is whether the toucher, the active person, is a "lout"; it is not whether the woman is talking to someone already, is too tired, is going in the other direction entirely, or just generally wants to exercise her right to say not without any regard to who or what the prospective toucher is.

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.

What I said above about objectification.

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. It never got old, surprisingly.

And here, at the end, is kind of the crux of the matter. Yes, it's clear that this is your personal perspective, but that doesn't make it any better.

Look, I don't know how much you know me, but I'm all for people being able to touch each other. Touching is great. It's terrible that our society imposes so many restrictions (societal and legal) on the way we display our bodies and the times and reasons we are able to touch each other. But we, you and I, are men. We are straight men. That gives us a position of privilege, a strong one. So when we go into any situation, we get a whole lot of good out of it, and we don't have to worry about most of the bad. And it's really fucking hard to do anything about it, because it's hard to stop society from continuing to give you the benefit of the awesome. But if we're going to do something about it, we have to acknowledge that it's there, accept how much it skews with our viewpoints, and make some effort to keep Capital-S Society from privileging our points of view over those of others.

A convention happening where women decide that they want to be more open about their bodies is one of those situations. I know how you feel; I literally, directly, understand your experience. In cuddles and snuggles and the like, as a straight man, I get a lot out of it—yes, I do mean that I get a sexual charge when women choose to be freer with their bodies in what is, for them, a nonsexual context. I'm not ashamed of it (because I'm really fucking over being ashamed of my own sexuality), but I am aware that I am, even when I'm not doing anything, already "taking advantage" of the situation. My privilege has already put me in the advantage.

So what does that mean here? It means that if this was really a movement focused around women respecting their own bodies and the bodies of other women, you probably shouldn't have taken it upon yourself to explain it to the internet. And that when you did explain it to the internet, you probably should have realized that your own personal point of view is very much not representative of what happened and was, in some ways, counterproductive to what happened. And that when people started calling you on this shit—including other people who were there and very clearly had a different experience from yours—you should probably have taken a step back and looked at what you wrote from their eyes, instead of blaming readers for seeing what you wrote, even though you didn't realize that's what you were writing.

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.

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So what does that mean here? It means that if this was really a movement focused around women respecting their own bodies and the bodies of other women, you probably shouldn't have taken it upon yourself to explain it to the internet. And that when you did explain it to the internet, you probably should have realized that your own personal point of view is very much not representative of what happened and was, in some ways, counterproductive to what happened.

Most of the open-sourcers seem to be basically behind me on this one, barring the nitpicks - whether it's sexual, mainly. Generally, they thought I got the intent across (though one may well disagree largely, and I suspect rightfully). Most of the folks in the comments are actually arguing with other folks who have failed to get it, not arguing with me because they disagree with me.

Could I have handled it better? Sure. And I wish I had communicated more beforehand. But on the other hand, I do firmly believe your final statement says it all.

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.

And I never said they were. But I said they could be used for such a purpose, and to make THE WOMEN feel better about themselves, too. But the fact that you say this, that aggressively, indicates that I think the issue is not how I placed it, but rather that in fact I dared to say that yes, women's bodies can make men feel better, and how dare I say something so obscene and lewd?

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So what does that mean here? It means that if this was really a movement focused around women respecting their own bodies and the bodies of other women, you probably shouldn't have taken it upon yourself to explain it to the internet. And that when you did explain it to the internet, you probably should have realized that your own personal point of view is very much not representative of what happened and was, in some ways, counterproductive to what happened.

Thank you.

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Oh, brilliant, thank you!

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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.

YES. THAT. Thank you.

And from the OP: And I never said they were. But I said they could be used for such a purpose, and to make THE WOMEN feel better about themselves, too. But the fact that you say this, that aggressively, indicates that I think the issue is not how I placed it, but rather that in fact I dared to say that yes, women's bodies can make men feel better, and how dare I say something so obscene and lewd?

The problem with that attitude isn't that it's obscene or lewd -- the problem is that it's FUCKING ANNOYING. Hey, you know what, I was a loser in high school too, and it sucked, but I got over it. I may still be a little bitter over missing my chance to wear a big poofy prom dress with a hoop skirt (oh, the 80's!), but I'm over it. You need to get over it, too, and that's emotional work you need to do on your own. My breasts can't do the work for you, and you are not entitled to expect them to.

Entitlement (or privilege, if you like): that is the essential problem in your post here. This sense that oh poor you, all your life women have been withholding this precious resource from you, and if only they didn't have so many hang-ups, if only they were more generous, they would use their bodies to fix you. Well, fuck that. Fix yourself. If boobies are so magic, grow yourself a pair and fondle them all you want.

You know, I am generally a very compassionate person (and I almost never swear at strangers on the internet, which is one indication of just how upsetting your post is). I like to make a positive difference in the lives of the people around me. Society places enormous pressure on women to do most of the emotional work, the nurturing and the caretaking, that keeps the world marginally sane, and whether I like it or not, I have totally bought into that mission and made it my own. And what your post implies (and implies *heavily*) is that if I were really a caring person, if I *really* wanted to help people, I would let strangers at cons grope me. It's not enough that the world needs my time and my emotional energy -- apparently it needs my body, too. I hope someone somewhere in these four pages of comments has managed to convey to you just how upsetting and threatening and *infringing* that implication is.

In short: FUCK NO, YOU MAY NOT.

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Thank you.

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And yes, I know that I didn't excerpt the passages in your story that did convey what you wanted to say. I've given you the benefit of the doubt on the passages because I've read a lot of your journal. But those passages are crushed by these other passages, the ones that do far much more harm than the good passages, twisting the good into neutral, and the neautral into evil (or possibly chaotic).

And yes, I know that you can atomize each one and explain what you intended, but that is also not the point. Everything works together, not just in your story, but in the context of society around it. And in a position of privilege, we can't shirk the responsibility of dealing with what other people in our position say, do, or believe. Otherwise, everyone blames everyone else, and nothing gets done.

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thank you very much for a more thorough and restrained unpacking of this entry than i had the patience to give.

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My girlfriend linked me to this entry and it made me uncomfortable for exactly the reasons you expressed. I am all for breaking down barriers of intimacy between a group of friends or a small and comfortable gathering. But because of peer pressure, survivors of sexual abuse, varying ideas on intimacy, and all the various things you expressed here, it'd be dangerous to turn this into a widespread 'movement' or 'project' that needs recreating on a broad scale. Especially not a project delivered through the lens of male privilege.

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To Ferrett, re:this comment
A lot of the protests to this post involve putting it in the context of male privilege and sexism in an institutionalized/cultural sense. I'm not sure if you understand talking about privilege on that level whether it's sexism or racism. I sure didn't when your journal had that big dust up about inventing black holidays, and I actively regret my participation in that now. Ironically some of the reason I got so much more into feminism is the arguments we'd have over the comic, where stuff would put me off and make me uncomfortable, and I didn't really have the language, or thought it through enough to explain why that was, or at least not in the degree I would have liked.

Here is a great checklist/explanation for what I'm talking about:
http://colours.mahost.org/org/maleprivilege.html

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There's a difference between clarifying his words when you make an objection, and him saying you weren't enlightened enough to understand them in the first place.

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I read it as mostly women as both the touchers and the touchees (I'm a straight woman, ftr). Not that there were no men involved, but that it was mostly women. No idea why I read it differently from you, other than the fact that we are different people and etc.

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