that's not a good reason and it's incorrect to boot. please send the pictures quickly.

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No, it's all the reason I need. You are a creep, and I am an independent person who can make my own decisions and say, and I quote:

NO, you may not.

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I truly admire your grace around idiots, though one part of me feels like saying Stop feeding them!

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it's no good we need greater numbers

surely five or perhaps even six of us should be sufficient

zoethe we want you to know your boobs are magical to us

please show us

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No.

Because I don't like you, don't find you respectful, and choose not to.

A choice that is the whole point of the exercise.

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WTF? Are you trolling *on behalf* of the project?

I don't even like the project; although I respect zoethe's point that there's nothing wrong with empowered women being open about their bodies and sexuality, the fact that by the end of the night women were "shyly asking if their breasts were good enough to be touched" or whateverdyhoo the original post said indicates to me pretty clearly that -- as one would expect -- the project lent itself easily to reinforcing women's need for validation on their conformity to some sort of externally-defined standard of acceptable sexuality. Not to mention that it's practically custom-built to reinforce men's sense of entitlement to female bodies. (I just realized that was way overwritten. How about, it lent itself to making women feel the same shitty old way about the need to get men's approval on their bodies, and making men default that much more easily to thinking of women's breasts as up for the grabbing.)

ANYWAY. So I don't like the project. But you are making absolutely no sense and are being a total asswipe. I'm serious when I ask if you're trolling on behalf of the project. It's starting to look like a tactic -- "let's make it look like people who are opposed to the OSBP are THIS STUPID!" Anyway, I don't know which side you're on -- the side of the OSBP, the side of the opponents, or the side of people who like to watch Internet shitfights -- but I do wish you'd shhh.

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from mr_quakcnebush's lj, an explanation:

please go tell that girl that thought i was harassing girls that I got banned and otherwise i'd happily explain that i was attempting a reductio ad absurdum by taking her premises of clearly stating what you want and attempting to have a conversation about why the answer was now resulted in a non-workable mode of exchange.

so basically, that; no i'm not arguing in favor of the project, but it became clear to me pretty fast that no matter what angle i take i'll get accused of weird crap like being a puritan or something so my juvenile contempt takes hold and well you saw what happened so... the people who support it are clearly going to do so unless it goes horribly wrong in some fashion or another and it reeks of the sort of construct that could enable any number of horrible things without its role being readily apparent. it's like trying to argue with a polygamist: "oh the women want to be involved they consented" etc. without anyone bothering to explore the why of said consent.

no i don't think this is a direct equivalent of polygamy but i think the same patriarchal bullshit attitude is responsible for both.

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Except he was completely misinterpreting the project. A person with a Yes button only gave permission for others to ask, and retained the right to say "no" without ever having to explain hirself. I said no, the commenter continued to press. He was, therefore, ejected.

And out of all the people I dealt with surrounding this project, he and you are the only ones who have treated me as if I were powerless. The people participating treated me like a competent adult capable of making my own decisions; this dialog has done quite the opposite.

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You're thinking of institutional polygyny. Don't paint the sane ones with that brush.

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I know I'm a completely random person just wandering through here reading the comments, but I have to say, thank you, thank you SO much for saying that. Not enough people know or care about the difference, and I'm so sick of it all being lumped together.

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Did you miss the part of the description that indicated that it was a mix of women and men asking the women? 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.

A lot of people are concluding it was a "You had to be there" kind of thing, but it's frustrating that people clearly don't understand.

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 purposed 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.

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....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.

That whole paragraph? An amazing synopsis of what is wrong with society. Especially in a country that purports to be 'free.' I especially like the phrasing on that part I quoted.

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I would like to request your permission to quote this in my blog, if you don't mind.

Because it's wonderful.

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Thank you. I would be pleased to see it quoted, especially if you will correct the typo that is "certain approved purposed " into "certain approved purposes"
when you do.

I may quote it on my own journal, come to think of it.

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Same here. I've been trying to make the same point at my own spot as well, here, and it's not going well.

http://trinityva.livejournal.com/784808.html

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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.

So, uh, why wasn't there homoerotic man-on-man groping? Oh, wait, because teh teetays r majikul. They heal all the boo-boos that geeky men incurred in high school. Whereas male bodies are just...icky. (As are, I guess, the bodies of the women Ferrett didn't approach because he didn't "find them attractive.")

It was in fact a fine case of feminist rebellion

LOL. Just like the Pussycat Dolls are feminist models for little girls.

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So, uh, why wasn't there homoerotic man-on-man groping?

There was man-on-man touching. And women touching men. And women touching women, finding out what other women's breasts felt like (for some for the first time). Men don't have a secondary sexual characteristic that's an exact corollary to women's breasts but so much as it was possible, there was mutual and all-around exploration, using men's chests and bottoms.

This has been mentioned in many places, but I can understand if you didn't get the memo.

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It's amazing. That's precisely the kind of asshole behavior that'd get you booted in the project itself!

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Some people just don't know how to *not* act like a dick. Sad, really.

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such a thin line though. to me it seems so clearly absurd that no one should have taken it for anything other than what it was, an expansion of the central premises to their logical conclusion to illustrate the fundamental problems with the ideas you guys are trading in. that the conclusion you get to is something no one wants is uncontroversial, that having been said I do hope want to apologize to the two ladies in this thread if they did misunderstand what i was doing and it made them uncomfortable. keep me banned or whatnot, but I'd appreciate it if you could point this comment out to them. i don't think you're a bad guy, just really really wrong in a lot of your fundamental assumptions.

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any premises can be expanded to an unacceptable conclusion. That's why we make choices and decisions about what is good and bad, and don't expand premises beyond where we want them.

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To be entirely fair to the objectors' side of things, however - just because you wouldn't take things to an unacceptable level doesn't mean that others wouldn't take what was originally meant to be a safe and liberating activity and expand it in a direction you would never have wanted it to go. Just because one group of guys respects the boundaries and rights of women who wear the green buttons doesn't mean that every group of guys who sees an opportunity will.

As I said in someone else's post about the OSBP, the original motivations behind the project - breaking down the social stigmas against casual sexual contact between consenting adults and letting people feel good about their bodies - are good ones. But it's a situation that can easily lend itself to abuse by others or that can send entirely the wrong message(as some have pointed out, women coming up and shyly asking if they're good enough to be groped sort of underlines a woman's need to be validated by her sexual attractiveness, and a homely-looking woman being passed up for a more attractive one for groping would only raise further issues regarding a woman's body rather than making her feel good about herself).

In theory, I think it's a nice idea, and around people you're comfortable with and know well, or in the right crowd, it'd probably work out pretty nicely, or at least without any serious issues arising. In an unstructured environment with strangers, I'm not so sure, and excellent motivations wouldn't make up for the problems that could arise from it.

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Alcoholic drinks are a good idea in moderation. It makes people feel good and promotes a general camaraderie. But whatever the original motivation, another group of people could drink to excess, and cause problems (drunk driving, abuse, riots, etc.).

Guns are a good idea for protection. In fact, the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights guarantees the rights of people in the US to keep and bear arms. But whatever the original motivation, another group of people could use guns for bad purposes (theft, murder, etc.).

Space travel is a good idea. It promotes science and exploration and furthering our understanding of the universe. But whatever the original motivation, another group of people could use those discoveries for bad purposes (missles, orbital lasers, etc.).

Should we condemn any original idea that asks us to embrace a different concept or way of thinking, just because someone else could (and in fact in this case did not) pervert that vision? We cannot continually throw out the baby with the bathwater or play devil's advocate about what might happen in the wrong hands or minds, else we will never develop, as individuals or as a society.

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In my world, if I wanted to boot an asshole like that in the project, I'd buy steel-toed boots first.

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Whoa. That's one hell of a fucking troll problem you got there. As a person who knows and respects you and your wife IN REAL LIFE, I find this whole thing to be a tempest in a teapot. It was consensual and opt-in. If a women accepted a button then later changed her mind, she would be free to remove the button, correct?

Seems like your comments thread has been taken over by the OTHER fundamentalists, the PC fucktards. More dangerous than the Christian Fundamentalists, in that some people in power share their judgmental world-view.

As far as anyone who thinks you are a sexist goes: hey, don't read the blog. Maybe they didn't know you always liked to push the envelope. Maybe they hadn't READ this blog before they were sent here by their masters.

Hang in there, both of you, and know that I, free from any expectations of political correctness, am having a laugh.

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