Usually called the doctor. Or the caretaker.

Now, people have said, concerning the Open Source Boob Project, that it was non-sexual and empowering, that no one was stigmatized for not participating, and that it was wonderful and the heavens opened up and spat forth flying unicorns pooping rainbows and in the Congo people put down their arms and, in some cases, other people's arms, and a shipment of rice arrived to the starving in Mali, and it was so awesome they decided to do it again except with buttons so that people could ignore them and ask you anyway if you minded having your breasts fondled by random strangers, or if you were instead a frigid prude. (Yes, this is not an entirely fair summation; deal.)

And I read about it and was pretty upset. It took me a couple of tries to get through the original, unamended LJ entry about it, because I kept imagining my nineteen-year-old self in that hallway and feeling sick. And, because I am an observant participant of this culture, and have been a participant in subcultures similar to fandom, I could pretty confidently project the arc of this little "project" through the subculture, and its spread to allied subcultures, and then I felt really sick, because part of my problem with the "project" is that it makes explicit and manifest some pretty sexist and misogynist threads that already run through these subcultures, and through the dominant culture that I live in. It's supposed to challenge ideas about touch between consenting adults...by letting men touch women's breasts. The window dressing of women also touching women, and women touching men's asses, which are not comparable to breasts when it comes to stranger-groping, aside (and you had better believe there are a hell of a lot of women that I don't want touching my breasts), this is just the same old shit. It doesn't even have new justifications or rationalizations--it's the same crap that was going on when I was nineteen: let us touch you, aren't you proud of your body, are you a prude, are you frigid?

If you want to change the paradigm, the first thing you have to do is stop reinforcing the old one, and in that sense, nothing that involves men groping women's breasts is going to do anything except end up with more women being groped in an only marginally consensual fashion.

And yeah, I have baggage about this--I freely admit it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one, and there are going to keep on being young women who grow up to be older women with terrible memories of this kind of shit if we, as a culture, as subcultures, don't cut it the fuck out.

You can experience comforting touch from me without putting your hands on my breasts, you know. I can hold your hand, or you can touch my arm, or we can, if you're not a total skeeze, hug. Maybe I can braid your hair or rub your scalp or give you a little neckrub, if you ask and I'm in the mood. Maybe we can sit side by side on a bench with our thighs touching and watch the clouds. If you want non-sexual touch, try wanting to hang out with me, and then maybe try wanting to touch me somewhere that doesn't turn you--or me--on.

Because that's the thing, of course. I'm not a cipher--I too have feelings, and if I am accustomed to finding a hand on my breast exciting, there's nothing wrong with that, and if I want to only have on my breast the hands of people that I feel comfortable responding sexually to, there's also nothing wrong with that. I'm not inappropriately sexualizing my breasts, I am acknowledging that I often find someone touching my breasts to be arousing, and that as a result, I want to be picky about who gets to touch them. I am also acknowledging that, for many people who are attracted to women, touching a woman's breasts is arousing, and while I can't stop you from having your own little Moment across the room as you mentally undress me, I can stop you from imposing your unwanted and unwelcome Moment on me and my anatomy.

And what you should acknowledge, before you ask, is that this question you're about to ask is, of itself, culturally loaded, intrusive, and open to misunderstanding--or even perfect understanding, for some of the people asking. Some people are likely to be offended, and it doesn't mean that they are sex-negative, that they are ashamed of their bodies, that they are prudish or unenlightened, frigid, virgins, lesbians. It doesn't mean that they're offended because you're not rich enough or cute enough or because they think that you are a tool of the patriarchy. It's entirely possible that they just think you're a tool. And it's entirely possible that they're right.