itsallovernow | Boobs Ahoy

Boobs Ahoy

Okay, so skimming through the flist yesterday, I came across the boob kerfuffle, and I didn't follow the links because I was too busy and I assumed it was simply male geek dumb-assery, and I was happy to see women outraged, and I felt a little… arrogantly, snobbishly… ABOVE IT ALL. Except then today, I read the original post about the situation, and I read some of the reactions and I… yeah.

So here's the thing, here's the story: bodies are not public domain. And we know this right? Or we're supposed to, but apparently, it's not common knowledge.

And here's my story about how I learned that.

I'm a hard-cord commie feminist. Not anti-male, but certainly pro-women, pro-self esteem, pro-rights, pro-equality, pro-choice, pro-I say who touches me. I've protested in college. I've protested all my life for the right to have a safe space where people don't leer, don't touch without being invited to. I protested the way our culture turns women into sexualized objects, strips them of a deeper selves and fetishizes their bodies. I grew up quickly, at least my physical self did, and my vast discomfort with men looking at me as a sexual object has been part of my awareness for most of my life.

And men don't… I don't know if they don't have it, but it's not the same, not in mainstream society. 11 or 12, and already I had boobs, and I was tall, and looked older, and I walked through the door of a restaurant with my father and a man my dad's age looked at me and made a pass at me. In front of my father. And sure, the guy was drunk and stupid, but I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I was humiliated. Because of what this man assumed was allowable. Of what I somehow had put out there as being allowable.

But you know, that's not the story.

10 years old and my young cousin's baby sitter wants to play spin the bottle with me. And I say no, and make my cousin go to bed, and lock our doors.

But that's not the story either.

As I got older, as my libido and my body and my brain struggled to at some point all be on the same page, as I found people I wanted to touch and wanted to have touch me, little things started to make more sense. How to offer, how to deny, how to set up body language that said "fuck off very very much." And if you ask the men in my life, they'll tell you I wear that language more often than I wear the "please fuck me" language. Because I had to. It was about protection, it was about setting myself up in a safe space of control because society, male society, certainly wasn't going to do it for me.

So I learned, and at some point had to unlearn part of it because turned out sometimes I wore the "don't fuck with me suit" when I wanted to wear the "come talk to me" suit, and it's always been a negotiation for me. Always been a struggle to find that safe space in the wider world where women are sexualized objects and not women. Where my tits define me more than my talent does.

So years passed, and I came to live with M. and we had a complicated relationship that develops between heterosexual people sharing the same space, and there was a little bit of sex and there was a little bit of inappropriate touching, and eventually I decided no more. It didn't make me happy, it just made me bitter.

But M. never quite got the message. He never could get past the idea that because I didn't want him to touch my boobs, that was all that mattered. He'd wheedle, and beg, and cajole, and try and make me feel sorry for him, and manipulate me the way that men have been sexually manipulating women for eons. He'd say, "But we've done it before. And you liked it." And here's the kicker. I let it happen sometimes. I never walked out. Well, I did once, and he promised to stop, and honestly, he hasn't stopped asking but I stopped responding.

I set my boundaries, I say no and fuck off, and sometimes it gets so old that I almost say yes because I'm lonely, or I'm tired, or I just don't want to have the same goddamned fight about why he can't, or why I don't, in trade want to see his penis.

Men, here's a clue. Those of us who like cock do indeed like it. But I have NEVER met a woman who thought to herself, "Man, I'd sure like to see that wang. Not the rest of him, but that big ole dangly bit." Not saying it doesn't happen, but well, I'm not in that category. A nice ass cheek. A forearm, a bare neck. But never the cock itself independent.

And maybe it's because men think of themselves independently from their penises. They give them names, and they pretend that they can't control their actions when their cocks rule their brains, and we indulge this little reality, and so maybe they think it's the same with boobs. That they're independent agents, freelancers from the main stage.

But guess what. It's a lie. I'm the package. I'm the body. I'm the tits, and the ass, and the cunt, and none of that is up for grabs unless I say it is.

To the women who allowed the groping, well, okay, that's your deal. But… why did you? The physical pleasure? Curiosity? Pressure? Shame? Joy? Know it, okay. Know why. Say to yourself why it seemed okay. Why relinquishing your space was acceptable (this is not a lecture, I'm just saying. Not a condemnation. Everyone's got a different touch/no touch system. Everyone has to know it).

But I will say that I STILL feel apologetic when I say to M. for the millionth time, "No, you cannot touch my breasts. They're not yours. They're not up for grabs. This is not an option." APOLOGETIC. Because somehow, I have trained myself, I have been trained to apologize for not being a sexual object that's up for grabs. And I know better. I get angry, and I know that I'm in some absurd awful abusive cycle with him, and me still being in that house is a careful negotiation of risk and responsibility. M. is not a threat to me. He'll do what I ask. But the asking on his part? Is still a violation. So is his alcoholism, but they're tied together and part of the ugly cycle.

I choose who puts his hands on me. And I choose when it's acceptable, and when it's not, and I feel guilt for my desire, and I feel shame for it sometimes, and I don't know what to do when it's not returned, but it's mine. It's my space, belongs in my house. My self.

Bodies are not public space. Female bodies are not subjective. Breasts are not independent agents.

I figured out, at some point, why I wasn't okay with M. groping me. I mean, I wasn't going to sleep with him, and he knew that, and it was like the boobs were just out there. But that was the thing. He wanted that touch, he wanted that "feel" without wanting ME. And that's where it came down to me figuring out why it was wrong, and what was wrong. I'm part of the equation. No part of me is separate. I'm more than that. Once I figured it out, it was far easier to put a stop to the issue. (And let me tell you, having a conversation like that with a drunk, even when sober, is still humiliating for the person setting the boundaries. And sometimes, the humiliation of the act is enough and it gets too hard to say it outloud.) I learned how to stop it in my last relationship when it became clear that the physical was having less and less to do with me and my presence and more to do with the act. But that, at least, was honest. And discussed.

Because the thing is that M. is not the exception to the rule. He's the drunken embodiment of it. Men leer in public. They ogle. They grab. They honk. They talk to you when you don't invite it. They try and touch when they aren't invited. (And no, not all men,definitely not all men, but still, the space is open for them to try. Society opens that space by putting women on display as bodies without resonance. Our films, our media, our magazines, our fucking precious "the interenet is for porn." By putting their skin out their like it's community property. By insisting upon it, in fact. By condemning those who won't, or those who don't comform to a standard of security and body image. By saying, "You're not worth seeing, or touching. But I've got the right to touch you anyway.")

I can trace this stuff, this weird combo of setting boundaries and letting M. in and mostly it comes down the idea of being wanted too early and then losing the confidence that I'd even be wanted, but at some point it comes down to me being the equation. The package deal.

So, I'm proud of these women who come to the front and say, "Sexist. Unacceptable. My body, my rules." I'm so proud. I'm not above it. I'm below it, struggling to get back. And thank you for reminding me of that. Thank you for making me say these things outloud.

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It's amazing how a guy being an asshole can make YOU feel like you've done something wrong. It's probably because my grandmother used to constantly comment on my behavior "if you chew gum, men will think you're loose." "If you were shorts, men will think you're interested." "If you whistle, men will think you're easy." All these little lessons have made it so a guy is inappropriate and I wonder what I did to give him the impression I was okay with it. What did I do that made him think I'd want him grabbing my ass, or leering at my boobs.

There's this guy at school who always hugs the girls and kisses their cheeks. It's obvious the girls don't like this. People try to avoid him. He doesn't get the message. I'm amazed how many girls don't simply say "I don't want to hug you." And then I feel like a bitch because I DO say "I don't want a hug, no offense." Sometimes I hate our society. You're "weak" if you don't stand up for yourself, and a "bitch" if you do. You can't win.

In most situations, I'd rather be a bitch. But sometimes it's hard, exhausting to always feel on the defensive for something that shouldn't have to be an issue.

Bless you, and hang in there.

(And I would sometimes like to enroll M. into the Open-Source Swift Kick In The Nuts program.)

Thank you dear.

It isn't often that I am thankful for having spent my teens and twenties (and thirties) as an overweight, almost deliberately unattractive woman, but this is one of those times. I never experienced the leering, the come-ons, the unwanted advances. I breezed through high school, never having to say no to any of the usual teen temptations; no one offered me booze, drugs, or sex. I did have boyfriends, once I matured enough to want such a thing. I was a late bloomer, and didn't start even wanting to have sex until my mid-20s. The men I dated were people I met through common interests who were able to look beyond the outer appearances. But I think that different experience left me with a much less jaded (or perhaps much more naive) view of people in general, and men in particular.

One of the reasons I've gained 70 pounds since high school (almost all post-college) is because I did experience the leering, the being followed to my car in dark parking lots. It helped less than I expected, but I still worry about what'll happen when I lose the weight (I have to, for health reasons unrelated to the whole anti-fat campaign in our society).

That's very similar to my situation.

It's not everyone certainly, so I think you get to keep a relatively unjaded view and I'm glad of that:) I'm glad someone has one.

This was very well-said. I am reading my friends flist and I'm happy I stumbled on this.

It's frustrating and confusing when you have to put your foot down with men you've ALREADY been intimate with. A person has every right to choose never being intimate with that person again, but men always find that so APPALLING. Why should "You let me do it before!" even be an ARGUMENT when a woman (or ANYONE) says NO. You know? It's so PETULANT too. Like, why are you making your own choices? WHINE WHINE! Why aren't you just letting me do what I WANT? You ALREADY DID! That's soooo unfair!

ugh, no dude. That's just my PRIVILEGE of having a body.

Exactly!

From the very beginning when I was four and the redneck spawn down the block, a year older than me, coaxed me behind his garage and yanked my pants down, I've never felt anything but outrage and righteous fucking anger.

I have, as I've gotten older and learned to be a better human being, realized how a girl could be helpless in those situations, how they could be paralyzed or weary or resigned. But it's still a profound culture shock to me, in the way that a dinner guest suggesting that we eat the family pet would be.

I read a great analogy somewhere about the disconnect between 1. people who view sex as a product or service provided by women to men and 2. people who view sex as an enjoyable collboration such as play or music. I've learned to live in a world where my body can be and is interpreted as property or the source of a commodity, but the first, foremost, and inherently primal reaction I have is violence directed outward. What the fuck, dude, we're here to have FUN, which is MUTUAL and not this CREEPY POWER SHIT.

I don't lean away and ignore that crap, because that in itself is acquiesence to a bidding process. "If I keep talking, if I annoy her enough, if I make it the price she has to pay to get me to stop..."

That's coercion. And it makes me irrationally angry. (You may or may not remember the incident in Boston with the dude with the camera, who quite likely shit a brick because--borderline autistic or not--I was debating if I could/whether I should destroy his camera and I think he actually grokked that.) Because I missed the part of female socialization where I have to be nice and make everyone feel good despite myself--most of that baggage was heaved overboard three generations back, and the last carry-on was pitched by my grandmother when she booted my grandfather's sorry drunk ass out the door. We really don't care if we're seen as bitches. Better a bitch than a doormat or a slave. We try to be good people, but we won't eat shit to prove it.

This is new ground for women, for how we raise them and what we expect of them. Even with a practical feminism rooted in 1917 in my female line, it's a tough line to walk, and sometimes a dangerous thing to act in accordance with thinking you're a full human being when society makes different assumptions. To be angry and lash out when the script is to be meek and self-effacing. To figure out *how* to be aggressive and effective, when girls aren't put through the same playground schools and bootcamps as boys, aren't really allowed to *be* angry, much less *how* to be angry *well*.

This is the way I'm wired, so I've had to figure it out ad-hoc, and while I cultivate this reaction because I believe personal physical sovereignty is fundamental to all human rights (and as a small woman I have a lot of misapprehensions to counter right off the bat), it's only luck and surprise that have kept me from being seriously hurt in situations that, in retrospect, a more sagacious female would have avoided.

You, you know, are my role model. When I forget how it works, how it should work. The girl I am? All those roads, are fundamentally rooted these days, through you, and what I hear you whisper in my ear.

My girl. My pride. My saviour. My conscience. My reminder.

So eloquently put, you just summed up what it's taken me more than forty years -- more than ten of which were married -- to figure out. The whining, the coercion, the grabbing... Just because I am your wife does not mean you own this, asshole. I wish I had said it just that bluntly although I doubt he would have heard the words even then. Certainly no discussion of 'feelings' ever got through. I've been abstinent for years now and, while that choice doesn't make me happy, the thought of returning to the days of coercion with me crying during sex absolutely horrifies me. So... No sex? I'm good with that. Because it takes me out of the cycle.

As for men in general, they can look but if they value their hands, they do not touch. And it is a sad world where strippers are paid more than teachers.

And that's what's... sort of wrenching about this situation, all these situations. Women have to figure out how to say no, how to say you don't have "rights", you have privileges, ones that I'm a part of. It's still a struggle, it's still something that makes us less than equal.

Loves you dear.

One of the things I'm learning about myself, one of the things that I don't like very much about myself right now in fact, is that while I am very much MYSELF in other situations - feisty and pissy and funny and aggressive - in relationships with men, particularly those that trend towards a sexual component, I am not the woman I want to be. I am meeker, and lesser, and... this is not the girl I want to be. The woman I want to be. I'm tired of apologizing for my feelings, my desires. I'm tired of reacting to someone elses bad decisions and judgments and then making my own equally bad choices.

I've fought my whole life for a power dynamic I deserve in every other area. This one shouldn't be so fucking hard.

Your experiences are fairly similar to mine. I wound up losing my virginity because I'd said no and not had it respected so many times I just gave up saying it; I didn't have any fight left in me. The absence of a "no" isn't a "yes".

I'm below it, struggling to get back. And thank you for reminding me of that. Thank you for making me say these things outloud.

And thank you for this.

I've been lucky in that my other direct sexual choices - ones that have been (M. aside) about myself and my sexuality and my choice of partner, have been far more respected. I wish that were true of more women. I know too many women who have been robbed of their sexual choices over the years.

Thanks for writing this. (And that sounds like a rather difficult situation to cope with... yeesh.)

It's... it was a lot more difficult when I was younger and honestly felt both angry and guilty for saying no. These days, it's much more... disgust.

I've never experienced any fear of sexual assault, or noticed being leered at in any way, for reasons similar to One-Eye's above. When dating, I never felt less than in control of my own space. In fact, I was the aggressor in most relationships, and had our sexes been reversed, it would have been I who was the stalkery, grabby-hands, "let's have sex now - damn it, why not?" party (early twenties, hotbed of raging hormones).

That makes the whole Boobsyay! thing interesting to me, if a bit alien, because this state of women in fear is apparently a cultural saturation to which I've been oblivious. I'm not sorry to have missed it.

I'm sorry you and others haven't.

As for theferret, a lot of folks seem to be jumping at the bit to overreact and condemn the guy for what is a basement geek's fantasy writ large. The men and women who participated freely had drunken fun when it happened, and it appears to be one of those spontaneous con-goings-on that comes out sounding terrible when spoken of later. It would be better for all concerned if he had kept his reminiscing and proposal to himself, because not only has he enraged a great many people, but his own memories of the happy boobsyay! event are now tainted. But stupid ideas will emerge, especially the ones that are powered by alcoholic afterglow.

I'm not sure I can agree with your last paragraph - because what if one of those girls who were asked to be touched felt even the slightest bit of pressure, standing there in a group of friends in a hallway when "everyone else" was being oh-so-free-and-cool about it?

Why should any of them have been put in the sort of situation where they might have felt some pressure to acquiesce, even if that was never GeekBoy's intent?

*That* is the crux of the whole thing to me - not that some boob-ogler had the time of his life, but that maybe, just maybe, some girl minding her own business and having fun suddenly found herself having to decide "Do I let them, or not?" and having to deal with the fallout of whatever they chose to do.

Any way you want to look at it, that's just not right.

Agrees. It's that... there's something very specific about taking a sexual act out of a personal context that can make it feel (for some) impersonal and allowable, but it's not the rule, and it's not some fucking game.

When dating, I never felt less than in control of my own space. In fact, I was the aggressor in most relationships, and had our sexes been reversed, it would have been I who was the stalkery, grabby-hands, "let's have sex now - damn it, why not?" party (early twenties, hotbed of raging hormones).

That's part of the difference, or the issue, I think. A negotiation between two people who are in a relationship - dating, fucking, friends, whatever, is one thing. It's openly sexual, or slyly sexual, but it's a personal negotiation.

Most sexual advances? Most of what's put out there outside of one on one chosen situations? Is not personal, it's aggressively not-personal, and even if there's not a sense of fear created by it, it's still a violation of personal space and comfort that was UNASKED for.

To the women who allowed the groping, well, okay, that's your deal. But… why did you? The physical pleasure? Curiosity? Pressure? Shame? Joy? Know it, okay. Know why. Say to yourself why it seemed okay. Why relinquishing your space was acceptable (this is not a lecture, I'm just saying. Not a condemnation. Everyone's got a different touch/no touch system. Everyone has to know it).

I think this is one of the things that skeeved me the most about the entire thing, because that is a decision that we have to make, what we're allowing and what we want out of it, whether we're reading the situation right, what's really best for us. And that can be complicated enough without having to make snap decisions in hallways, or in the face of peer pressure. So while I don't have anything to say about the participants who came out of the situation feeling good about their decisions, because that's their choice, I also think that "they can just say no" is an idiotic argument for. And that's not even touching the issue of whether it's okay to pose the question in public, non-sexual spaces in the first place (it's not).

So while I don't have anything to say about the participants who came out of the situation feeling good about their decisions, because that's their choice, I also think that "they can just say no" is an idiotic argument for. And that's not even touching the issue of whether it's okay to pose the question in public, non-sexual spaces in the first place (it's not).

EXACTLY!!

They shouldn't have to say no. It's a sexualized question, out of a personal sexual context and frankly it pisses me off.

I've read, and I've read the comments, and I feel honoured to look in on this important and interesting conversation. I wish I could articulate a response, but I can't, not really, and not yet. PErhaps not ever.

Partly, this is because my experience has been different: for whatever reason, I haven't generally attracted male attention. I am, I believe, attractive. Slim, decent if not stunning features. But I am above all me, and that means that men don't necessarily pay me much attention.

I didn't date in high school. At. All. I did in France (on exchange at 18 -- got my first French kiss from a French Boy. Which is kinda cool, though it was also kind of awful since I didn't really know him, at all. Other french boys were more fun ;) and in Uni. Well, at least, in undergrad. I haven't really dated since uni, and I've been basically celibate since. Which is not entirely by choice, but nor is it something I've gone out of my way to change: I like my safe zone, mostly.

And the things I do don't stretch this zone: riding is a place of mostly women, and the men that are involved are usually married, or gay, or involved. At Aikido, there are men, but they are either young, or married. And on the mats, I become, in many ways, genderless. Except when I am not, and that is a WHOLE other discussion.

And I am also educated in feminism, and though I was not raised by feminists (though Mom and Grandma are strong women, they are also traditional in many of their relationships with men), I call myself a feminist. But while I can appreciate and support the way other women feel and respond, I can only say that I support your responses, but can't dictate them, or something. Which is wishy washy, at best. But I am NOT really engaged in being ogled as a sexual object, and I am not engaged in enough male/female sexually charged relationships to speak to how they make me feel. And perhaps that's because I am who I am, and I hope to hold fast to that, even in the face of a man who offers other things. Safety, refuge, support, sex --> all of these things interest me, attract me, but I won't accept them if I have to compromise me to get them. And I know myself, because I DO compromise, or I did, once upon a time. And so maybe I quietly and unconciously avoid putting myself in situations which test this.

*sigh* I don't know. I DO wish it was easier, for all of us. But I think the reality is that interpersonal relationships of all sorts are always going to be fraught with negotiations of power, of gender, of class, and of race. And all of these things are linked in complicated ways, and in the end, all of the theory in the world, all of the activism, doesn't necessarily make it any easier when you yourself (or I, myself, or she, herself) are faced with situations where they need to navigate these muddy waters.

And hey, I guess I had a response, of sorts, after all....

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Boobs Ahoy

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Odd Woman Out

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a response that wasn't meant to be a response....