What is Sex 2.0, you may ask? (If you already know, feel free to skip over this next part.) From the website:
Sex 2.0 will focus on the intersection of social media, feminism, and sexuality. How is social media enabling people to learn, grow, and connect sexually? How is sexual expression tied to social activism? Does the concept of transparency online offer new opportunities or present new roadblocks — or both? These questions, and many more, will be addressed within a safe, welcoming, sex-positive space.
Now, the above isn’t a completely accurate description of what Sex 2.0 turned out to be–at least, not the three lectures I attended. Feminism barely came up at all, though all the attendees around me save for two, when asked by one of the lecturers, indicated that they self-identified as feminists. You notice the phrase “sex work” is entirely absent from the official description–I don’t know if that was on purpose or not, but sex work was the theme in two of the three sessions I attended, and many of the attendees were associated with or involved in sex work in some fashion.
I enjoyed it–it was different in many ways even from the few non-mainstream-type events I’ve attended in the past, and I do really like that. I was inspired to blog on a few of the observations I made and the thoughts that arose from those observations, both during the conference and later on in the evening when I discussed them with the spouse (who attended with me). Observation #1 below the fold!
Nobody stared at me. I suppose that sounds like a peculiar observation to make without some background on why I would find that peculiar–so, well, the ex-spouse always used to tease me about how I never notice it when people stare at me in public. And it’s true, I don’t. I also fail to notice people I know frantically trying to get my attention–simply put, for whatever reason, when I’m out somewhere with some purpose in mind, anyone who is not either directly involved with that purpose or a member of my personal party fades into the woodwork.
Now I can be jolted back to reality, and am on a semi-regular basis, by someone making an audible and/or visually distinctive fuss aimed specifically at me. And when someone does, it usually takes several minutes for me to subsequently sink back into my usual fugue state regarding my surroundings–so in that time frame, then I notice if people are looking at me. And people often are, though most of them look away when they catch me peering back at them. I expect this is because I’m fairly visually distinctive–I’m fond of high-heeled shoes and in the warmer months of the year, I often wear clothing made of thin material that fits me closely and leaves my limbs bare–in short, people tend to stare at a six-foot-tall woman with long blonde hair and a statuesque figure.
So, I didn’t notice for quite a while that I wasn’t being stared at like usual. Not til I went outside briefly and found myself being whistled at and ogled by two men walking past me on the street. That woke me up, as it usually does, and when I went back inside the hotel where the conference was being held, when I looked around, I found that really nobody was looking at me much at all.
It was pretty awesome.
I mentioned it to the ex-spouse, who pointed out that there were definitely more women present than men–at least a 2:1 ratio–and of the men present, a high proportion of them were homosexual. This was true–but women stare at me too, though their staring is not usually outright ogling, and they weren’t doing it either. And there were at least two men there who made it clear that they were present in the capacity of being clients of female sex workers, i.e. definitely men with a heterosexual bent, and they weren’t staring either.
Now, I’m not psychic, so I can only guess at the motives behind the not-staring–but this is how the not-staring made me feel. I felt respected. I really did. I felt like everyone around me, up to and including the men who purchased the services of sex workers, were making a point of not staring at anybody in an objectifying, stereotyping fashion. This was a conference that (among other things) was very much in support of sex workers and their allies. The attendees there were not going to make a fellow sex worker and/or ally feel objectified if they could possibly help it. I don’t know if this was a conscious effort any of them made–hell, I don’t even know if I’m completely off base in my assessment or not–maybe there was some other reason that that particular bunch of 100-plus people was anomalously uninterested in scoping me out. But that was how it felt.
I’m a little wary of men who are clients of female sex workers, especially men who are clients of female prostitutes. I met too many of those men at too young an age–but you know, those men that I met weren’t the kind of clients who would ever have bothered to show up at a conference supporting sex workers. So, not all male clients of female sex workers are alike, eh? Which is something I knew intellectually, of course, long before I ever set foot in that conference, but there’s a difference between coming to a reasoned conclusion that you have no hard, physical evidence to support and then actually being presented with that evidence.
Next up: Sex 2.0 Part Two–Constructive Dialoguing with Teh Enemy
I know the feeling; strangely, mine happened at a comic book convention, where I was wearing a sorceress dress (think low square cut). If any one had any comment about my appearance, it was “That dress is awesome, did you make it yourself?”. No whistling, ogling, or stares. Why can’t the rest of the world be like that?
I’m always torn by the “male gaze” thing. On one hand, it’s obvious why staring isn’t polite, but on the other hand I often feel feminists are overthinking it and wind up encouraging oversensitivity and, occasionally, oppressive rules in an attempt to eliminate what is, at bottom, a natural instinct in both men and women.
Men are visual–we’re going to look at attractive women. Women, in my experience, are also prone to stare, but just find a relatively much smaller proportion of men stare-worthy (and are better, though far from perfect, at being subtle about it). I’m not an overly handsome man, but I do find women looking at me from time to time. I don’t mind as long as it’s not disruptive, and I think that should be the standard. If you’re a woman and you keep an eye out for men looking at you, you’re going to notice men looking at you. If you don’t, you won’t, unless they’re doing it in an aggressive/disruptive way; in which case they’re overstepping and you can and should call them out on it.
Stacy-
I don’t really think it’s your place to tell other people what is “too sensitive”, and to what oppressive rules are you referring to? Lisa KS and I just said that our main strategy to dealing with it is “ignoring it” (well, I’m also pretty fond of the “flipping them off” strategy, but I’m not particularly afraid of people hurting me). That doesn’t sound onerous rules for the ones staring at us, that sounds like rules for us “Dealing with it”.
And if women can figure out how to stare while being subtle, men can to. In fact, I know this because my husband and my guy friends have learned to do it (a fortunate (unfortunate?) side effect of being close to a feminist- you pick this shit up).
Of course, my staring is slightly different than Lisa KS because I’m not a striking figure; I’m a giant fatass and when people are staring at me, it’s because I’m heavy. My particular place that people like to stare at me is when I’m trying to eat.
But, yeah; there’s a difference between “looking” and “staring”. We teach children not to stare, I’m sure that little adults can figure it out as well.
I’m not an overly handsome man, but I do find women looking at me from time to time. I don’t mind as long as it’s not disruptive, and I think that should be the standard.
How nice for you then, that you can advocate a standard based on your experience and your comfort level.
I wonder if you know what it’s like to go to a professional conference, approach the presenter with a question, and find them carrying on a conversation with your (not overly well displayed) cleavage.
I wonder if you know what it’s like to have people assume in a professional environment that they can flirt with you/comment in your appearance in a sexually suggestive way/assume that you’re sexually available and interested because you happen to be young and by some standards attractive.
I wonder if you know what it’s like to stand up to give a presentation and know that a certain portion of the room is thinking not about what you say but about your appearance. To have people comment afterwards about how great you looked, but not about the content of your presentation.
To ride your bike to work, and have people comment on how you look.
To have strangers appraising you with their eyes on the bus.
You get used to it, you learn not to mind, heck, you may even learn to work it. It becomes like the hum of a refrigerator in the background—something you just live with. And when the hum stops, and you can finally hear the quiet, and a tiny bit of tension eases out of your shoulders, you realise how present that hum has always been.
Recently I attended a women’s only party with my girlfriend. We were both dressed for viewing, and ready to be appreciated. And the other women there did indeed ogle. But it was different, not because it was women doing the ogling, but because every single woman asked it it was okay if she ogled—said something like “I hope you don’t mind my looking at you, but you look really great in that corset.” And in that setting, in that milieu, that acknowledgement was unexpected and awesome. Here I was, dressed in an outfit that said “LOOK AT ME!” and the people for whom I was dressed still acknowledged that there was a person inside that corset, and asked permission to gaze.
(This is not to say I think men should ask women if it’s okay to ogle, in everyday life. The party was a very specific setting.)
Sorry for sharing my thoughts. And “how nice” that it’s still okay to tell certain people what their “place” is.
Oh, for fuck’s sake Stacy. No one told you not to share your thoughts. No one told you were going to get banned (though I’m strongly considering it now). And, it FUCKING isn’t your place to opine on how other people should feel, any more than us to tell us it’s illegitimate for you not to care that others stare at you. It is nice for you. It isn’t so nice for us.
Get a fucking privilege check.
You know what? I wasn’t mean, and I didn’t dismiss anyone’s feelings. I expressed an opinion — one that’s obviously not popular here — and got jumped on for it. I got upset about being jumped on. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but I do expect respect for respect, and I didn’t get it. I have a right to be pissed about that. Ban me if you want, but know that if you do, you’ll be censoring thoughts, not behavior.
Stacy-
I’ll try to explain this simply. Lisa KS made a post, talking about how great it was that she could go to a conference and not have to deal with people staring at her all the time. I posted next about how when I experienced that it was wonderful.
You came in after that talking about how it isn’t that big of deal, and hey we’re just being oversensitive and oppressive.
You can’t see how that isn’t privilege? Your experiences are the end-all be all of the world, and hey, we’re just being oversensitive to care about it?
And then, when it’s pointed out that it’s not your place to tell other people what to feel, you flip out and act like a spoiled child that’s just been told that you can’t have another fucking cookie.
I’m not going to ban you. A) It’s Lisa’s post, not mine, so it’s her discretion and b) we don’t ban people for being clueless, and you haven’t technically been abusive. But for the love of fuck, “Censoring thoughts?” I can’t censor your damn thoughts- they’re in your head. And, if you think the “you’re overreacting to stuff you have to constantly dealing with” is an original thought that we haven’t heard before, than you have an over-inflated opinion of yourself, as well as being completely clueless. Finally, “jumped on”? Jesus, I feel like telling YOU you’re being overly sensitive (that’s not at all dismissive, is it?).
Stacy, your opinion as to what you, personally, feel okay with, is not the issue here. I think it is indeed very nice that you’ve had positive experiences with being stared at. As far as I’m concerned, as nobody in particular, you can write all you want about your experiences and your feelings, and I’ll read them and accept them as just that: one person’s experiences and feelings that are honest and important to that one person.
I do take issue with you, or anyone else for that matter, telling me or anyone else that because something doesn’t bother you that it shouldn’t bother me. Because 1) we’re not the same person, so your experiences are going to be different from mine, 2) by telling people they should feel the way you feel, you’re saying that the way they feel is different if it’s not the way you feel (therefore, your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, dismissing their feelings), and 3) who made you the arbiter of how people should feel, anyway?
I, personally, don’t like being dismissed because if how I look before I open my mouth and say anything. I personally don’t like having my body and appearance considered public property because I have the temerity to leave my home. I personally don’t like co-workers staring at me, no matter how discreetly they do it. I personally don’t like being catcalled when I’m riding my bike.
And if three people independently take issue with how you’ve phrased something you might consider that the problem is not theirs.
Good God, what happened here while I was slaving away at work? I’d better read!
Zing: “I wonder if you know what it’s like to stand up to give a presentation and know that a certain portion of the room is thinking not about what you say but about your appearance. To have people comment afterwards about how great you looked, but not about the content of your presentation.”
It’s funny–because, as I said, I usually pay absolutely zero attention to my surroundings, I often forget that people, especially men, are scoping me out in ways that have little to do with anything I might be saying or doing productively. My sex 2.0 experience did induce some sad reflection that probably my professional labors are less appreciated than I’d like, simply by virtue of the fact that they are not getting the same attention as my chest. Sigh…
Antigone: “Why can’t the rest of the world be like that?”
It’s so funny you said that b/c after I wrote this blog and the spouse read it, he’s like “You should have written some more, like you should’ve said Why can’t the rest of the world be like that?”
Stacy:
I’m going to read the interchange between you and A. and Z. before I get to what you said originally, just to make sure I’m not reinventing the wheel when I respond.
Stacy,
The ladies are annoyed because your post was a collection of cliches…sorry, but it is. Lemme help you out a little. And of course you’re free to express your opinion–and others are equally free to express their opinion of your opinion, eh?
“On one hand, it’s obvious why staring isn’t polite, but on the other hand I often feel feminists are overthinking it and wind up encouraging oversensitivity and, occasionally, oppressive rules”
Oh, those overthinking, oversensitive feminists! Not here, I’m afraid. If you really read what I wrote, you’ll see that generally speaking, I am the exact opposite of sensitive when it comes to being stared at. I actually make a big, huge point of describing that. Don’t let cliches interfere with reality, Stace.
“Men are visual”
Humans are visual. That’s what I love about evo psych–on the one hand, women have this amazing color detection sense and ability to see messes that men simply can’t detect but on the other hand, “men are more visual than women.” Oh sigh. Next!
“I’m not an overly handsome man, but I do find women looking at me from time to time. I don’t mind as long as it’s not disruptive”
For it to be a truly comparable experience, you need to spend all day surrounded by a group of people consisting solely of women over 50 with big bellies and missing teeth and big, powerful, aggressively homosexual men and experience them staring at you–as well as constantly hitting on you–and take it all with a sweet smile and unflappable courtesy, even when one or more of them accidentally manages to find an excuse to touch you over the course of the day. Then, when you say you don’t mind, I will absolutely go for this as a valid comparison.
Don’t get me wrong, Stacy–I hardly think that ogling is the biggest issue faced by women today–this is probably the first time I’ve ever blogged about it and I wasn’t actually complaining about its presence, merely reveling in its absence.
I’m so tired of the ‘men are visual’ thing. Women are visual. We look at men all the time, fantasize about them, cast them in our personal fantasy pornos. It’s just that patriarchal societies deem men the power class, and women the sex class that services the power class. Most men are so busy exercising their privilege that they just don’t notice that they’re being physically dissected by women on a regular basis. In fact, most of the men I know would freak if they knew how often it happens – and by women they would never consider fucking.
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Lisa, I think that for a lot of women, being the object of the male gaze is not really something they notice, until it’s not there—like that refrigerator hum I compared it to, or like the constant hum of traffic to someone who’s grown up in the city. I notice it now for a couple of reasons: I’m sensitized to it from various unpleasant experiences and on account of my feminist education; I was the kind of teenager who blended into the background and only started being noticed when I was in my mid-twenties; and I do pay a lot of attention to my surroundings and to how people act and react to other people. Also, there are some unabashed oglers in my life, and it’s difficult not to notice when I have an entire conversation with someone who can’t meet my eyes because they’re captivated by my chest.
Ogling isn’t really the problem, though. I ogle (discreetly). Everyone ogles a bit. It’s the assumptions that often go along with ogling that a person’s body is there primarily to be ogled, and that it’s therefore open to comment, suggestion, crowding. It’s the assumption that women’s bodies, in particular, are in public specifically to make the landscape prettier. It’s the assumption that a person’s value is in their ogleability, and that if they’re not fodder for the male gaze, then they can either 1) be taken seriously (if they’re a man) or 2) be dismissed entirely (if they’re a woman).
Those are far more problematic than whether someone stares at my physique or not; however, I think it’s fair to say that the ogling and the attitudes tend to be linked.
Stacy: I’m sorry someone was mean to you on the Internet. Rest assured that your thoughts are as unique and beautiful snowflakes.
Amber Rhea, who founded Sex 2.0, was not particularly happy about that (before the con, at least).
The thing about staring / oogling is that yes, it’s mostly part of the background, but it’s part of a substantially violent background. We live in a culture where women are constantly told, “be vigilant! he might be a rapist!,” and however problematic we think those exhortations are, they’re in the water, and getting stared at or ogled, particularly by strange men, carries this low-level implicit threat of violence, particularly if you’re a trans woman or a woman of color.
[...] commenter violet in a thread at PunkAssBlog (about Sex 2.0, coincidentally enough!) The thing about staring / oogling is that yes, it’s [...]
I think one of the cool things about your experience at Sex 2.0 is how it shows that when you can just sort of assume everybody’s sexual it tends to neutralize rather than increase the kind of sexualization that leads to appropriating gazes.
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About who looks, ogles, stares, gazes, etc.: in general it’s much more interesting to assume everyone is pretty much the same out of the gate and then to inquire where the differences come from than to assume we’re different and then just go home after saying “oh, well we must be different because we’re different.”
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As for the visibility of feminism in the sessions, I thought Amber put it well when she said it’s difficult to imagine sex positivism without feminism. So to a certain extent it was invisible but more in the way that water is invisible to fish. My strong suspicion, based on both conversation and conviction, is that if feminism were threatened nearly all the attendees, including those who forswear use of the term, would immediately stand up to defend it. Articulately.
I read her concern as more directed at the sort of quotational “sex positivism” that actually seems more accurately described as men-fucking-and-women-being-sexually-available-to-be-fucked-by-men-positivism. Which certainly exists in some environments, particularly some con environments, so being concerned about Sex 2.0 becoming that seems not-unreasonable.
violet and figleaf – both of you are right about what I meant about sex-positivism and feminism!