Welcome to the Harlan Ellison Memorial Personal Boundaries Club

[james_davis_nicoll]

Sad male fan capitalizes on way to be even more creepy to female fans.

As seen on a wide variety of LJ accounts. I have to say there's a clear consensus on the idea of treating women's bodies as public commons and it's not heading in the direction of commutarian touching. Who could have predicted that outcome?

Comments

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

*tilts head* I already wrote a respons on this point, so I'm going to quote it and hope it doesn't seem rude of me to do so:

Asking a stranger in a public space if you can touch them in a sexual way is sexual harassment.

Aha! You are coming very close to seeing the point of the project.

Stay with me here:

1) Asking can be harassment, or viewed by uninvolved bystanders as harassment.

therefore

2) Considerate people would not ask, and were having a discussion about how it's kind of a shame that there's no polite or safe way to ask.

but

3) It occurred to a woman that she could invite the asking, and let people know that with her it was okay, they could ask, and it was not harassment just to ask her. She may or may not say yes, but they could ask.

so

4) Inspired by that point, a set of considerate people tried giving each other the right to ask without being accused of sexual harassment, and there was asking, and touching, and it all followed from 1) 2) and 3)

then 5) it all got out on the internet and they were accused of sexual harassment anyway, but just between themselves, they were safe from both the accusation and the fear of actually being sexual harassers, because of a safety mechanism they themselves put in place.

At Penguicon (once the buttons were created) nobody was asked out of the blue if they would wear a button or join the project. You had to notice and inquire about the buttons yourself and then choose to wear one in order to get involved. The fact that the safety mechanism worked for those people doesn't mean it would always work, but that was part of the concept.

I have heard of one person who asked about it herself and chose to wear a pin, and be touched and then later after reading the ferrett's post, felt that she had made thse choices under some perceived pressure that exists in the male-dominated system, and regretted being part of it. I don't know if she defined what happened to her as sexual harassment or not. If you've heard of someone else, I am open to hearing about her experience.

I think it is very definitely an imperfect system that does not 100% protect someone from having an unpleasant experience. There's a question of communication and mutual understanding, and how do you make sure that the person receiving permission knows what you're giving permission for, and doesn't take it too far. To quote another member of the project,

Whether the project was about desexualizing breasts had something to do with who you asked, apparently. Ferrett felt that it was sexual, but the people who came up with the idea originally did (and do) not. The large majority of touching that I saw (that related to the project, mind you, don't forget we're at a convention here) involved what I would call a "heft" or "squeeze" rather than a directly sexual, say, pinch or attention to the nipple.

I felt fine giving a non-stranger permission to do that. On a case by case basis I might have been ok with it for a stranger. But I think at the very least it required a sense that they had the same notion about the project that the permission-giver had.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've read that comment before.

This is how it actually works in law:

1) Asking is a form of sexual harassment.

2) People who wish not to commit harassment should not ask.

3) A woman may wish to be asked, but encouraging the asking will create a hostile environment for other women. In a workplace, this is, itself, a form of sexual harassment covered in law. Hotels and convention centres are workplaces, and it is incumbent on them not to allow their guests to create a hostile work environment for their employees.

4) People committed lewd acts and sexually harassed at least one woman in a public place, thus creating a hostile environment and making the convention venue vulnerable to litigation if they had known this was happening.

It was wrong. Not brave. Not liberating. Wrong.

Had it been in a private room, with everyone involved consenting beforehand, it would have been just fine. But it wasn't. It was sexual harassment, plain and simple.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

This was a great breakdown.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I don't expect it to be understood, but it was nice to have some braincells working tonight and to be able to express my concerns. It helps that various people know the law on sexual harassment and have laid out how it is quite clearly a case of same, in the many, many, many other posts objecting to what reportedly happened as well as what was proposed. I'm keeping the comment notification just in case some starry-eyed idiot tries bringing this into my favourite cons.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

Young grasshopper, you merely do not share in the new enlightenment.

('Sokay, me either.)