I see nothing wrong with the project as an experiment among consenting adults. But the evangelizing of it to everybody is a different matter. That's what pissed me off
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See, I have been reading theferrett since before there was even a livejournal - I don't remember how I found him, but back in the dark ages, he somehow tripped a random trawl through the internet - and I realise that I may be coming from an overly-supportive point for him, because I do not believe that he ever, ever intends harm, and I do believe that he deserves mad propz for taking one on the chin on occasion - and if nothing else, everyone has had to think about this. Thinking is awesome. So I'm fully, fully prepared to admit that I am backing this because it was his post more than I probably should, especially given that I don't know what I would say if I were presented with the OSBP
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We must have very different flists, because I'm not seeing a lot of this. I see a lot of "how dare this asshole think he can set up a default where I have to say no to not get my tits touched?", but that's a function of the average age of my flist (which includes a lot of college friends, thus a lot of late 30s and early 40s). A lot of the women in that age group, particularly geek women, have experienced a lot of harassment in geekspace, and the OSBP goes right to their bad experiences. Not everybody--I have a friend in her 40s who thinks there must be something wrong with her because it's not her hot-button issue. I told her no, there's nothing wrong with her. It's just not her particular damage.
Having said that, I find the statement "no woman can be touched like that" absolutely outrageous. WTF and who elected whoever said that arbiter of who touches my tits? My tits are mine and I am the only person who gets to say who touches them (absent prior agreements I made). If the goddamn PC patrol doesn't like who I permit to touch my
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polymexina asked that same question, more or less, about where I was seeing it, and I realised that most of where I'm seeing it is the person that censored me, so I'm not naming names for a lot of reasons
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Fuck the radicals on both wingssparkfrostApril 23 2008, 00:47:43 UTC
This is probably the best response to the OSBP that I've read. greyweirdo had a very funny one, but most everyone else is Ranty McRantpants about it. I agree with everything you said
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Re: Fuck the radicals on both wingschannonyarrowApril 23 2008, 01:02:56 UTC
I...you know what, I am fucking staggered. I think, and I mean no disrespect whatsoever to immlass and apiphile, both of whom I think are close to what I believe about it, that you are the first person to get what I am saying.
It doesn't matter what I would do with the OSBP, what matters is that I don't tell someone else what they can do in the name of protecting myself. If all else is as stated - consent is requested and obtained, refusal is not a big deal - then I probably would do it, even though touch is sometimes painful to me in some complex ways. But that doesn't mean that I can trample on someone who's chosen not to do it, or someone who has if I refuse to.
I feel less like a crazy person. I am always glad you're on my flist, so fucking serious - I can trust you to be reasonable when everyone else has gone mad (see also: Brendon might be a little shit for all we know).
Re: Fuck the radicals on both wingssparkfrostApril 23 2008, 14:34:03 UTC
I'm definitely glad you're on my flist. There have been many times when your opinion on a topic has either perfectly encapsulated my own, or gone through your argument so rationally that I can follow along while drawing my own conclusions.
And yes! Consent is the crucial part of it that so many people are missing. Even when theferrett emphasized the women choosing to participate it was misconstrued. I don't even want to get into the harassment that zoethe was subjected to because she had the gall to say that she as a woman had enjoyed the OBSP and thought that in the right situation it could be a good idea. It seemed that anyone who made a choice that was different from what the opposition wanted they got flamed. And that is just bullshit. They are angry because they think the OBSP takes away choice, removes consent. Yet they cannot understand that women could, in fact, choose to consent! Gah!
The one that has me most pissed off is...actually not one that I'm going to name. That's the person who censored me, and as a result I've left their flist in a lot of anger; I don't think it's fair to leave myself hanging out there - as I am - in her entry without the whole of what I said being represented, and that is obviously not going to be the case. But I agree (with her) that I was asking for what appeared to be a minor wording change.
The only other place I've discussed this in someone else's journal is trollprincess's journal, in a flocked entry, and frankly, I'm splitting some hairs with this entire post; I mostly want people to look at what it says when they say things in exclusionary language. I felt there that apiphile sort of got what I was saying and linaerys did not.
mr_quackenbush brought it up, but not from the point that has me going off like a little rocket, and immlass has also posted, but I actually haven't yet read her post; it came hard on the heels of Censoring Channonyarrow 2008 and I was...more than a little upset by that
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It...is a little, because a lot of what I've seen brought up - linaerys brought this up, and possibly other people - is that for a population that is, I believe, very scarred by being female in our society (we're going to leave aside the different scars of men and minorities for the moment, though I'm not saying they don't exist) this is an incredibly risky thing, but it seems like that was several times predicated on the idea that men have behaved badly to these commenters before, and involving oneself in the OSBP would, default, cause men to behave badly again. Sometimes that was tied to peer pressure (you're a prude if you do this/you're a slut if you do that) and sometimes to society's failure to understand the harm that can come to women from men, but because of my unique position in the spectrum, I think I'm more comfortable than a lot of people with myself, and from that standpoint, I'm not letting someone push me into doing something; I've played chicken before and it doesn't end well. So I can see that side of it, but it's not
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i don't know who you're arguing with, but if you're characterizing everyone who is opposed to that bs "project" as having this opinion for the reasons you list, then that's a strawman argument.
No - in fact, I tried to make it clear that what I'm arguing about here is that people have used the OSBP to justify taking away my right to choose. It pisses you off, from what I read, which was only your toplevel post, by letting men (and probably women) get away with not being adults. That's not my argument here, and I'm not discussing whether I find the OSBP itself to be right, wrong, saintly, or morally repugnant. What I'm talking about is that I have been attacked, in conversations about the OSBP, for saying that applying what Person A feels about their body to mine without my consent is exactly the same as saying that Person A is opposed to abortion, so I can't have one. I have run into several instances of women abrogating from other women the right to choose control of their own bodies, and that doesn't matter to me if it's in the context of the OSBP or not: it's MY body, no one else's, and I don't want ANYONE choosing for me. However, it's a tricky abrogation, because it's offered in support of women, that no woman's
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see and that's my whole opposition to the thing. I don't doubt that at least at a certain level theferret was coming from a completely honorable place. the problem with it is not the intention, but where that intention ends up, and particularly the language and dissembling that went along with it. I agree with you completely that any woman who wanted to participate in such an event has every right to. I do question the motives of guys participating in it, however, and I think the whole thing is problematic at all levels due to the way it's structured. The wrongness of it doesn't have to do with women advertising a willingness to consider being groped. the wrongness is in it's juvenality and the fact that it is based on problematic ideals about sexual expression. anybody who said you shouldn't be able to choose to do problematic sexual things though is a fucking idiot.
I completely understand why people were/are skeeved out by the post on the OSBP, and I really appreciate theferret's "updates" on the issue in light of his critics -- because he took the very simple and very rare tack of 1) empathetically acknowledging that he had skeeved people out, and 2) apologizing for skeeving them out without dismissing or belittling them by calling them PC feminazis or whatever. Which is what I usually see in fauxpologies for unintentionally sexist stuff.
Now, I came to this late, and I haven't followed the whole imbroglio, so I haven't seen anyone saying, "OMG no one should ever touch a woman's breasts in public." That would certainly be a dumb thing to say. Glad I caught your rant.
Yeah, well, that's what I've been hearing, in a fight to make flamewars look nice. Since being censored in that journal I've refused to continue to respond, but it left me plenty pissed off.
I suppose, with the hindsight afforded by a couple of days away from the computer, that I admire theferrett's retraction - and the fact that he sacked up and owned what he had inadvertently done - but...dude, no one gets to choose what I do. If the element of choice is present, I have the right to decide how I feel about something. If it's not - that's a very different issue, but the OSBP as presented offered choice; the comments I was reacting to removed it.
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Having said that, I find the statement "no woman can be touched like that" absolutely outrageous. WTF and who elected whoever said that arbiter of who touches my tits? My tits are mine and I am the only person who gets to say who touches them (absent prior agreements I made). If the goddamn PC patrol doesn't like who I permit to touch my ( ... )
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It doesn't matter what I would do with the OSBP, what matters is that I don't tell someone else what they can do in the name of protecting myself. If all else is as stated - consent is requested and obtained, refusal is not a big deal - then I probably would do it, even though touch is sometimes painful to me in some complex ways. But that doesn't mean that I can trample on someone who's chosen not to do it, or someone who has if I refuse to.
I feel less like a crazy person. I am always glad you're on my flist, so fucking serious - I can trust you to be reasonable when everyone else has gone mad (see also: Brendon might be a little shit for all we know).
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And yes! Consent is the crucial part of it that so many people are missing. Even when theferrett emphasized the women choosing to participate it was misconstrued. I don't even want to get into the harassment that zoethe was subjected to because she had the gall to say that she as a woman had enjoyed the OBSP and thought that in the right situation it could be a good idea. It seemed that anyone who made a choice that was different from what the opposition wanted they got flamed. And that is just bullshit. They are angry because they think the OBSP takes away choice, removes consent. Yet they cannot understand that women could, in fact, choose to consent! Gah!
You are definitely not a crazy person.
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The only other place I've discussed this in someone else's journal is trollprincess's journal, in a flocked entry, and frankly, I'm splitting some hairs with this entire post; I mostly want people to look at what it says when they say things in exclusionary language. I felt there that apiphile sort of got what I was saying and linaerys did not.
mr_quackenbush brought it up, but not from the point that has me going off like a little rocket, and immlass has also posted, but I actually haven't yet read her post; it came hard on the heels of Censoring Channonyarrow 2008 and I was...more than a little upset by that ( ... )
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I completely understand why people were/are skeeved out by the post on the OSBP, and I really appreciate theferret's "updates" on the issue in light of his critics -- because he took the very simple and very rare tack of 1) empathetically acknowledging that he had skeeved people out, and 2) apologizing for skeeving them out without dismissing or belittling them by calling them PC feminazis or whatever. Which is what I usually see in fauxpologies for unintentionally sexist stuff.
Now, I came to this late, and I haven't followed the whole imbroglio, so I haven't seen anyone saying, "OMG no one should ever touch a woman's breasts in public." That would certainly be a dumb thing to say. Glad I caught your rant.
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I suppose, with the hindsight afforded by a couple of days away from the computer, that I admire theferrett's retraction - and the fact that he sacked up and owned what he had inadvertently done - but...dude, no one gets to choose what I do. If the element of choice is present, I have the right to decide how I feel about something. If it's not - that's a very different issue, but the OSBP as presented offered choice; the comments I was reacting to removed it.
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