(Editor comment: This is another person's view)
This is about the birth of the Open Source "Boob" Project.
It was about women wondering why it was strange and only sexual to touch another woman's breasts. It was about one woman saying "I would like to touch your breasts.", and being allowed.
And it was about the women that were there actually touching each other's breasts, and feeling how they differed from their own. Not in a sexual way, but in a "what the adult human body feels like" way.
It was about a woman then saying to her male friends that it would be perfectly fine for us to feel them, too, not a big deal at all. Because men are shut out of any interaction with women's bodies that isn't sexual, unless we're doctors. And how can that be a good thing? And then it was about those people not wanting to be restricted to touching the female form, because the male of the species is also quite often touched only when it's time for sex, so then we decided that breasts alone were not enough, but the buttocks are also important and interesting parts of both the male and the female.
And it was good. It was enlightening. I know my wife had never touched another woman's breasts before. I had never touched another man's ass before, either. Each body shape has it's own type of feel, and they are pleasing to the touch.
Then it became a project. A project to ask other people if they can understand and respect the idea that a touch doesn't have to be a precursor to sex. That we (women and men both) own our bodies, and can be responsible and respectful and touch each other, too.
After that convention in January, those same initial friends talked about it some more, and thought that it might be something to take to another convention, one where we had hundreds of friends and acquaintances between us. And so the idea of a button and a name was born. The name "Open Source Boob Project" was catchy, though not very accurate, but we didn't think we needed anything better, considering our small audience. The green "Yes" button was only to indicate that the person wearing it would be happy to talk about it, and possibly extend their field of trust to include being touched by someone. The red "No" button was often argued against, for many of the same reasons that have been brought up everywhere since the story broke. But in the end, we knew we had at least one woman that would wear a "No" button and be more than happy to talk about the project, so they were made as well.
Over the course of a three day weekend, I was asked about my button many times. I probably touched 15 women's breasts, around that many women's butts, and nearly 20 men's butts. Of those, not a single one was pressured to allow it, nor were any of them uncomfortable in any visible way about the subject. During that same period, some women in the group did easily double that for touching other women's breasts, as far as I understand them. Several of the men involved touched nobody's body outside of their relationships. We provided explanations to anyone that asked about the buttons, though.
Those green and red buttons that were being passed around as "peer pressure'? Outside of the group of 15 total people talking about this between January and April (a few of which did not come to the convention), our button-keeper tells us that she gave out, a total of 24 green buttons and 1 red button, all of which were by request. In a convention of nearly 1100 people.
Now look, I understand that we live in a society that makes women's bodies a commodity. That's what started the whole concept. Why SHOULD women's bodies be that way? In what tiny way can we address the issue in a microcosm? Why is there such a huge taboo for simple touch in our society? Those are the starting questions for how we got here. We wanted to understand how we can look at the isolation that a lack of touch imposes on us as individuals, and to use consensual touch in a positive way to make us feel more connected to each other. Nobody ever seriously proposed extending this project in time or size. Because there are people that would abuse the idea. And because it simply wouldn't work in any positive fashion in our mainstream culture.
If we had proposed that, then everyone should have gotten angry. But we didn't. We set the limits, we were careful about how we talked about it, we were cautious about where we were and who we were talking to, we worked very hard to make sure that we did not offend anyone that we spoke to about it.
And I think that it would have been no problem for anyone if </a></b></a>![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
theferrett hadn't made the post he did. Now, he's a friend of mine, and I had participated in the project, so when I read what he'd written, I said "Yeah, like that!", not realizing that from the light and happy place that the project was, the post wasn't significantly damning. But from the outside, without the filters of fun that everyone had, without the inside knowledge of how we were very careful not to offend or to touch anyone inappropriately, it looked really freaking bad. I'm not really blaming him, because when he wrote it, he was looking at it from the same side that I was initially.
Regardless, this was an Open Source [Human Interaction] Project. This one was named for a body part. There will be another project. It will most likely involve some form of human contact. Maybe it will be a song, hugs, non-verbal, or any number of other interesting ways to communicate and see how we can grow closer. In the meantime, try not to dwell on the downsides of what would have happened if we'd taken this project fully public, since that wasn't ever the plan, and won't ever be the plan. Try to spend some time thinking about how human touch affects you, how the way you talk or write to someone else enriches or diminishes you, or how much nicer it would be to hug someone and explain than to call them names.
This is about the birth of the Open Source "Boob" Project.
It was about women wondering why it was strange and only sexual to touch another woman's breasts. It was about one woman saying "I would like to touch your breasts.", and being allowed.
And it was about the women that were there actually touching each other's breasts, and feeling how they differed from their own. Not in a sexual way, but in a "what the adult human body feels like" way.
It was about a woman then saying to her male friends that it would be perfectly fine for us to feel them, too, not a big deal at all. Because men are shut out of any interaction with women's bodies that isn't sexual, unless we're doctors. And how can that be a good thing? And then it was about those people not wanting to be restricted to touching the female form, because the male of the species is also quite often touched only when it's time for sex, so then we decided that breasts alone were not enough, but the buttocks are also important and interesting parts of both the male and the female.
And it was good. It was enlightening. I know my wife had never touched another woman's breasts before. I had never touched another man's ass before, either. Each body shape has it's own type of feel, and they are pleasing to the touch.
Then it became a project. A project to ask other people if they can understand and respect the idea that a touch doesn't have to be a precursor to sex. That we (women and men both) own our bodies, and can be responsible and respectful and touch each other, too.
After that convention in January, those same initial friends talked about it some more, and thought that it might be something to take to another convention, one where we had hundreds of friends and acquaintances between us. And so the idea of a button and a name was born. The name "Open Source Boob Project" was catchy, though not very accurate, but we didn't think we needed anything better, considering our small audience. The green "Yes" button was only to indicate that the person wearing it would be happy to talk about it, and possibly extend their field of trust to include being touched by someone. The red "No" button was often argued against, for many of the same reasons that have been brought up everywhere since the story broke. But in the end, we knew we had at least one woman that would wear a "No" button and be more than happy to talk about the project, so they were made as well.
Over the course of a three day weekend, I was asked about my button many times. I probably touched 15 women's breasts, around that many women's butts, and nearly 20 men's butts. Of those, not a single one was pressured to allow it, nor were any of them uncomfortable in any visible way about the subject. During that same period, some women in the group did easily double that for touching other women's breasts, as far as I understand them. Several of the men involved touched nobody's body outside of their relationships. We provided explanations to anyone that asked about the buttons, though.
Those green and red buttons that were being passed around as "peer pressure'? Outside of the group of 15 total people talking about this between January and April (a few of which did not come to the convention), our button-keeper tells us that she gave out, a total of 24 green buttons and 1 red button, all of which were by request. In a convention of nearly 1100 people.
Now look, I understand that we live in a society that makes women's bodies a commodity. That's what started the whole concept. Why SHOULD women's bodies be that way? In what tiny way can we address the issue in a microcosm? Why is there such a huge taboo for simple touch in our society? Those are the starting questions for how we got here. We wanted to understand how we can look at the isolation that a lack of touch imposes on us as individuals, and to use consensual touch in a positive way to make us feel more connected to each other. Nobody ever seriously proposed extending this project in time or size. Because there are people that would abuse the idea. And because it simply wouldn't work in any positive fashion in our mainstream culture.
If we had proposed that, then everyone should have gotten angry. But we didn't. We set the limits, we were careful about how we talked about it, we were cautious about where we were and who we were talking to, we worked very hard to make sure that we did not offend anyone that we spoke to about it.
And I think that it would have been no problem for anyone if </a></b></a>
theferrett hadn't made the post he did. Now, he's a friend of mine, and I had participated in the project, so when I read what he'd written, I said "Yeah, like that!", not realizing that from the light and happy place that the project was, the post wasn't significantly damning. But from the outside, without the filters of fun that everyone had, without the inside knowledge of how we were very careful not to offend or to touch anyone inappropriately, it looked really freaking bad. I'm not really blaming him, because when he wrote it, he was looking at it from the same side that I was initially.Regardless, this was an Open Source [Human Interaction] Project. This one was named for a body part. There will be another project. It will most likely involve some form of human contact. Maybe it will be a song, hugs, non-verbal, or any number of other interesting ways to communicate and see how we can grow closer. In the meantime, try not to dwell on the downsides of what would have happened if we'd taken this project fully public, since that wasn't ever the plan, and won't ever be the plan. Try to spend some time thinking about how human touch affects you, how the way you talk or write to someone else enriches or diminishes you, or how much nicer it would be to hug someone and explain than to call them names.
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