LAST Boobs Update of the Day
I want to clarify/evolve/change a couple of different things (I'm participating in an ongoing discussion, and my thoughts are changing, and I want to be very clear):
So, first--my reactions were totally based on the original post and the first explanation. I have new information now. New information should always be accommodated into a theory, right?
a. I take back my assertions that anyone actually ACTED out patriarchal norms. Participants don't feel that way. I've read more updates now and other folks' assessment of what they themselves did, and I was wrong to say anyone actually ACTED like a football player. I think the naming of the project and the communication of the project as a manifesto to be expanded to the universe described it problematically. I can guarantee you what my feelings and reactions would be if anyone approached me to participate in such a project. But I don't really ascribe to the idea that I get to tell someone else they were co-opted or coerced if they don't feel that they were. I don't really feel that I am somehow EXTRA SUPER SMRT and can, you know, tell Anne her experience wasn't right.
b. My thoughts on the idea or the concept, though, pretty much remain unchanged. I think expanded, in practice, you would almost assuredly see a bunch of contradictory results and emotions--as the internet kerfluffle demonstrates--and that the success or positive impact of any movement like this (which depends as much on the experience of observers as it does on the participants, I think) would be affected profoundly by the inherent implication of male privilege, the sexualization of the female, and the assumption of access. In other words, expanded unchanged outside of the group of friends doing this in a completely consensual, non-gendered fashion, I think the issues others have discussed related to perceptions of safety (more than one kind of safety, too), consent, and the fratboi attitudes about my tits would almost certainly overpower the positive benefits.
c. The participation of men doesn't really change it for me--because patriarchal power isn't eliminated simply because men and women are both there being ogled.
BUT
d. I do wonder if there is a way to expand the idea of shame-free touching and affirmative female control and consent by taking into account some of the criticisms and creating a version 2.0, with a different name ("open access" is really, really problematic), etc., to keep furthering the very laudable personal and cultural goals Anne discussed in her post. But it's not undermining any cultural stereotypes more broadly than for the people participating if, as described and to outsiders, it looks like show us yer tits. The affirmative power in something like that is going to based in how it's perceived by others in the community. Which makes this, as Scalzi pointed out on Whatever, largely a controversy born of the difference between description and experience, to my mind.
So, first--my reactions were totally based on the original post and the first explanation. I have new information now. New information should always be accommodated into a theory, right?
a. I take back my assertions that anyone actually ACTED out patriarchal norms. Participants don't feel that way. I've read more updates now and other folks' assessment of what they themselves did, and I was wrong to say anyone actually ACTED like a football player. I think the naming of the project and the communication of the project as a manifesto to be expanded to the universe described it problematically. I can guarantee you what my feelings and reactions would be if anyone approached me to participate in such a project. But I don't really ascribe to the idea that I get to tell someone else they were co-opted or coerced if they don't feel that they were. I don't really feel that I am somehow EXTRA SUPER SMRT and can, you know, tell Anne her experience wasn't right.
b. My thoughts on the idea or the concept, though, pretty much remain unchanged. I think expanded, in practice, you would almost assuredly see a bunch of contradictory results and emotions--as the internet kerfluffle demonstrates--and that the success or positive impact of any movement like this (which depends as much on the experience of observers as it does on the participants, I think) would be affected profoundly by the inherent implication of male privilege, the sexualization of the female, and the assumption of access. In other words, expanded unchanged outside of the group of friends doing this in a completely consensual, non-gendered fashion, I think the issues others have discussed related to perceptions of safety (more than one kind of safety, too), consent, and the fratboi attitudes about my tits would almost certainly overpower the positive benefits.
c. The participation of men doesn't really change it for me--because patriarchal power isn't eliminated simply because men and women are both there being ogled.
BUT
d. I do wonder if there is a way to expand the idea of shame-free touching and affirmative female control and consent by taking into account some of the criticisms and creating a version 2.0, with a different name ("open access" is really, really problematic), etc., to keep furthering the very laudable personal and cultural goals Anne discussed in her post. But it's not undermining any cultural stereotypes more broadly than for the people participating if, as described and to outsiders, it looks like show us yer tits. The affirmative power in something like that is going to based in how it's perceived by others in the community. Which makes this, as Scalzi pointed out on Whatever, largely a controversy born of the difference between description and experience, to my mind.