I always thought I'd be a grown up when I grew up

I very rarely post rants here; at least, not thought out ones (absence of "well" is intentional). However, theferrett's LJ-famous bout of utter stupidity has pushed me into one.

Apologies in advance for any incoherency, comma abuse, footnotes and overuse of brackets. I never was taught how to write an essay.

On my initial reading of the Open Source Boob Project, I thought "Oh, ok. What's the big deal? Not My Thing, but where's the harm?" Then I started reading the comments, and very quickly got my answer. the_red_shoes has an excellent linkpost here. Pretty much every time Ferrett sets finger to keyboard, he makes it worse. T_R_S, coffeeandink and tablesaw have all expanded on the Big, Serious Reasons why it's such a bad, bad idea, so I sha'n't try to copy them. I'll just rant about what it's done to my headspace.

Everybody knows I have less than stellar self-image, in terms of my looks, my personality and my abilities. Most of you know I had a breast reduction 7 years ago; one of the reasons I got it on the NHS was the psychological issues of having random men (and teenage boys) grab my chest as they walked past, or make exceedingly personal comments to me. Only one of those was someone asking politely if he could feel them, and I actually said yes to him; he was a complete stranger but not creepy at all. I felt I could have asked him to stop had he continued too long (he didn't; it felt *entirely* unsexual to me). I have no regrets about that one occasion.

Before the operation, I used to rubber sword LARP. That crowd seems to me very similar to the SF&F convention crowd; that is, mainly socially inept men. Some of them think the world of themselves and live their lives by the Five Geek Social Fallacies, some are like Cat Piss Man, and some go scarlet if a stranger - much less a woman speaks to them.

At the time, there were very few women invlved. Those that were were generally (and I *know* I'll insult people here, and I don't mean to, but it's my recollection) on the large & unfit side, but were excellent LARPers / filkers / writers / re-enactors. Those that weren't go all the male attention In The World.

I'll be the first to admit I wasn't exactly an oil painting; I did no exercise and had a Brian May haircut. But I had large breasts and no self confidence, and didn't realise that male attention could be any other way. I liked the attention I got from showing off my cleavage. I sucked at (and hated) LARPing, but didn't stop in case I lost all my so-called friends.

What the guys (calling them "men" feels wrong; it implies they were adults in mind as well as body) didn't understand, even after having it explained to them, was the sense of hopelessness their ogling engendered in the women they *weren't* fawning all over. As more girls joined the hobby, they got more & more choice targets. They were "only making th new girls feel welcome". Surely we could see how hot the new girl was? *We* were one of the lads; what were we getting upset about? They couldn't understand that it was creepy to watch, shocking to realise what they'd been doing to us, and devastating to realise how much we'd hung our self-images on their treatment of us.

A decade later, post-reduction, at GenCon, not much seemed to have changed. There were a lot more women around, and the "wench" look was very popular. Dressing like a prostitute (a SF&F one; no syphilis scars or rotten teeth) seemed to be the only way to get attention. I don't just mean getting chatted up; I mean attention. The easiest way to get some Me Time was to change into jeans & t-shirt; I could have been curled up on the settee at home.

Again though, I'm torn. I wore my beloved pvc jeans (see userpic) one year and got a fair bit of attention for them. It was, however, good attention. Nobody touched, or asked to touch; they just complimented while being outside my personal space. A couple of the artists were especially nice, and appended their compliments to intelligent conversations, as part of their goodbyes. That's how to make it uncreepy. (And I'm aware that the least creepy people there were the ones with the most successful carers. Coincidence?)

The thing is. The thing is, had someone come up to me while I was dressed up (and not even needing tit tape) and asked to feel my breasts, I don't know if I'd have been able to say No. If he'd been Cat Piss Man, then definitely. If he'd looked like the Ferrett, probably. But if he'd been an average con-going geek (excluding the card gamers here) who'd asked politely, I'm not sure. Partly, I still have trouble seeing my breasts as sexual. For years I'd seen them as unattractive and cartoonish in size, and not part of me at all. Then there was my ongoing self-esteem issue; any attention was better than none, up to a point. Thirdly, people do all sorts of odd stuff at cons; might it have been easier to say yes than to chance them hanging around and pestering me? Fourthly, what if my saying "no" to them discouraged someone I *wanted* to ask from approaching me?

Tht fourth one has me infuriated with myself. I KNOW how awful it is, and yet... The other reasons I'm infuriated with the whole project are similar; they're all to do with my personal self-esteem. It's reminded me how long it's been since anyone propositioned me / complimented me / showed any signs of seeing me as other than asexual. It's made me fear that I'd have been the person asking whether my breasts were "good enough" to be groped by a stranger¹, and it's made me hate myself for having that little self-respect. On one hand I'm screaming out that it's male privilege, etc, etc (what I *know*, rationally), and on the other I'm desperately wishing for the validation it could bring and hating myself for being so crap.

In short, it's making me feel like a piece of meat. Not a particularly good one. It's making me miserable about the fact that I'd be put back in favour of a better cut. It's making me spitting mad that that bothers me. It's making me mad that I can't express myself more coherently, and will have forgotten several points I wanted to make. It's making me mad on behalf of the decent people who will have been discouraged from making advances towards someone they genuinely like for fear of being mistaken for one of this sort of person.


ETA Another link via theyorkshergob.

I told you I'd forget something. Behaviour like this - creepy "bad touching" masquerading as appreciation and admiration - is one of the reasons I've stopped hanging out with the alternative crowd. If I wanted to be eyed up consideringly, I'd go to a fetish club. NOT a goth club and NOT a convention.



(To the gentleman who snogged me thoroughly because I couldn't remember what pepperoni tasted like, NONE of this is directed at you :) I remember it fondly!)

(NB: afk for a few days now; I'm not ignoring anyone who comments. Well, except you.)


1 - Hell, I *would* have been wondering it. I would have been too shy to go up & ask, though. And I hate myself AGAIN for that.