kate_nepveu | 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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drunk on your own sense of moral outrage

Tangent: a sadly widespread phenomenon; this comment immediately reminded me of some white feminists who fail to understand that being feminists does not give them a get-out-of-racism-free card (one example).

Anyway, yes, what you said.

That entire situation is deeply sad, and it was so unnecessary.

I find Amanda Marcotte's writing invigorating and intriguing, and I will probably continue to read her blog. But it will be with a huge grain of salt. I've been appalled at how she's behaved throughout this, and in some ways even more appalled at the behavior of her defenders. I have my own shortcomings when it comes to being sensitive to all the nuances of other people's issues, but it's blown my mind just how insensitive they've all been, ladling out the same condescending and dismissive treatment they rightfully call out when men dish it out to feminists. One of her regulars, a white man who states that he is not a feminist, made a snide comment about how the feminist blogosphere thrives on "outrage." Yes, I guess if none of your own oxen are being gored, it's easy to write off other people's anger as self-righteous temper tantrums, isn't it?

Nor was I that impressed by her mea culpa the other day, which dealt only with the illustrations in her book, not with her appropriation from BFP and other bloggers — and she sneered at criticism of those illustrations at least as early as last summer.

I sympathize with Pam Spaulding, who's tried to bridge the two sides diplomatically and insightfully but who must really feel caught in the middle.

On asking to touch the breasts of a stranger

Re: Well said.

Re: Well said.