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kate_nepveu) wrote2008-04-22 07:41 am
On asking to touch the breasts of a stranger
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 you could be someone who will go away quietly if I say no (which I will). You could be the exiled gay prince of Farlandia, cursed to wander this Earth looking for the key to his return that can only be revealed by touching the breast of a willing stranger, and who isn't enjoying this at all. You could, in short, not be a danger to me.
But how am I supposed to know that?
How am I supposed to distinguish you from the person who says he's really just whatever, but is actually going to put emotional pressure on me, or make a scene, or stalk me, or rape me?
I can't. Because that would require a level of discernment and of trust that is not possible, by definition, in my dealings with a stranger.
And therefore, if you ask to touch my breasts, you will frighten me.
If your goal is actually to make a better world, I suggest that you use a method that doesn't involve putting women in fear.
(Also, I find it hard to believe you can create "the kind of world where [people can] 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," by going up to women, touching their breasts, and then going away. Among many, many other problems that are noted in the comments to the original. But that's secondary to my main point here.)
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My body. That's it. Period. Don't even try to argue.
Unless I'm confident that we both know the rules of engagement under which we are both operating, you don't get to touch it, and it's rude to ask about something so intimate.
Honestly, I've seen people whose hair I'd love to stroke - including little kids - and I wouldn't ask about that, either!
Why do people seem to think there's something desirable about collapsing all the possible levels of intimacy? Don't they want to have something special to save for those closest to them? It's a big deal that my friend Kat and my sis-in-law E. feel comfy enough with me that I can reach over and rub their shoulders or play with their hair, and have them do the same. And it should be - they're special people to me. Random guys at a con aren't in the same category - they haven't earned it.
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Heh. People pet my hair all the time. Usually little kids and old people, but occasionally squeeing teenagers. It's very long (down to my thighs) and very purple, and I think that people sort of forget their manners when they see it.
In the case of my hair, I'm a little more lenient about strangers touching it. Context is everything. The little kids petting it and asking if I'm a fairy are adorable. The little old lady absently fiddling with it on the bus while she talks wistfully of when her daughter wore her hair long is very sweet. Even the squeeing teenagers are rather charming.
The creepy guy or the scary girl or anyone who makes me feel uncomfortable, though? Get yelled at every time. Because it really does come down to "My body. You can not has."
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Little kids and the very elderly get a sort of intimacy pass in a decent society (as long as we're talking ideal societies here!) - they are the responsibility of all of us and so they become de facto "family."
And the odd thing is, I don't know how huffy I'd get about someone asking to touch my guy-short hair if I was in a comfy situation. But that's my choice. I know what I think. That doesn't give me the right to assume that I know what others think about their bodies and the parts thereof. And so I wouldn't ask another person about touching their hair unless we'd achieved some sort of rapport on the mental and emotional level first.
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The ones who don't ask usually don't actually manage to touch it anymore -- I've unfortunately had to become very good at intercepting hands. Inevitably, these dufuses cannot understand why I might possibly be offended by any reason. Even if I were to accept their assertions of cleanliness, good intentions, whatever at face value, I had *no* way of ascertaining that before they reached, and I have no level of trust with them that permits me to relax the "default deny" response.
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