The Open Source Boob Thing

[dreamshark]

Here's a link, if you've somehow failed to hear about this burning issue.

The theory that "some things just make more sense when you're all half-drunk" explains this whole thing as well as anything else does. It's just so... peculiar. I guess I feel about the same way about the "controversy" as I do about controversies involving sports. I am so completely unable to relate to the idea of caring about what professional athletes do, on or off the field, that I can't even find a way to think about ethical questions like should gambling disqualify you from being in the Hall of Fame? Same for guys who want to touch boobs just for the sake of touching boobs.

It reminds me of a joke I read years and years ago in the National Lampoon. Actually it was a joke letter in a spoof of the Playboy Forum. Went something like this: "Man, I wish I was a chick. If I was a chick I'd spend all my time naked looking at myself in the mirror and feeling myself up. I don't know how chicks ever get anything done, knowing those boobs are just hanging there under their clothes waiting for them. If I was a chick I'd be tearing my clothes off after an hour just to get my hands on myself. How do chicks hold down fulltime jobs? No wonder they spend so much time in the bathroom."

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

The theory that "some things just make more sense when you're all half-drunk" explains this whole thing as well as anything else does.

That may be the best comment--certainly it's in the top five--I've read about this. And I have read many, many comments, mainly because I am intrigued by how differently people are seeing this.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :-) I was actually paraphrasing somebody else - probably mle392. Oh yeah, here's her comment:

As in any large group, when alcohol is involved - plans are hatched. Sometimes, it seems like a good idea to develop a plan in which groping strangers is socially acceptable, like The Open Source Boob Project.

She goes on later to be slightly more disturbed about the whole thing than I am, however. Probably one reason I'm not terribly bothered by any of this is that I do remember the '60's so I know that people can say things like this with absolute sincerity:

"This should be a better world," a friend of mine said. "A more honest one, where sex isn't shameful or degrading. I wish this was the kind of world where say, 'Wow, I'd like to touch your breasts,' and people would understand that it's not a way of reducing you to a set of nipples and ignoring the rest of you, but rather a way of saying that I may not yet know your mind, but your body is beautiful."

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, because "I remember the '60s" has also been my reaction to a lot of this. Getting old can, if one pays attention, lend a lot of valuable perspective.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much of this was a case of peer pressure at work?

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

What? Did you read the LJ post about what actually happened at the con? Where do you see peer pressure? As far as I can make out, the people who were participating in this game were all having fun. It was people who were NOT involved that got all bent out of shape.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I wasn't there; I read the web page but not all the comments. I just wouldn't assume that because everyone who participated seemed to do so freely that someone or other of them might not have felt that failing to do so would have meant bucking the expectations of the immediate crowd.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

There are other posts about what happened at the con.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the source link. The originating event actually sounds sort of sweet, in a weird fannish way. But going beyond the original evening, formalizing the whole thing? Not so much.

It's interesting that most people's assumptions (mine included) was that it was it was all about males touching females. The fact that lots of women were touching too makes it even sweeter.