On asking to touch the breasts of a stranger

[kate_nepveu]

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.)

Comments

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Oh, if it makes you feel any better, he doesn't want to make everyone's bodies open source. Touching a guy's nutsack, for example, would just be too sexual (http://theferrett.livejournal.com/1087686.html?thread=54655430#t54655430).

[leupagus.livejournal.com]

Dude. Your icon is fantastic.

...Can I touch it?

But seriously, I read that thing about the nuts, too, and it did seem weirdly disconnected. Women objectifying men didn't seem to be on at all - the "it would be *too* sexual then!" excuse didn't really sound sincere.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

My icon, unlike my boobs, is free for the taking. :)

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

Hello, random person just reading through this saga and the responses to it, and I just want to add my adoration of your icon. It made me lol so hard when everything else in this has mostly just made me want to rage, a lot.

Thank you.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

I am glad to hear it. :)

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

That was really problematic. I commented on his entry to that effect-- no-one seems to be considering that women find it arousing to have our breasts touched. Not in an "I'm being appreciated" way-- in a "those are a lot of my nerve endings you're stimulating there" way. There's this total discounting of women having sexuality except as enjoying others' appreciation and that's just not it.

[kate_nepveu]

Excellent point, thanks.

[ad-kay.livejournal.com]

Yes! thank you! That was exactly my reaction. No one gets to stimulate MY nerve endings except for my husband.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

In context of other things he's said, it's worse. He's said, elsewhere, that dressing provocatively (as he sees provocative) entitles him (or anyone; but men are referred to) to not only express an interest, but to pressure women to have sex.

All, of course, non-coercively, but hey, If it's hanging out there what are men supposed to think? He follows that with a bunch of misogyny dressed as jesting commentary

* - Unfortunately, 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.

He also claims the lurkers support him in e-mail. And while that’s not the way it happened - at least from the perspective of the folks who participated that I’ve heard from who have expressed positive opinions behind f-locked posts because they don't want to endure the commentstreams that I’m getting…

So it's to toxic out there to say what a wonderful thing it was.

[neverjaunty.livejournal.com]

And that's exactly why we should all understand that he's very much the kind of guy who would make an Open Source Boob Project *safe* for women!