Can I Touch Your Boob?

Please Watch This First! :) Bubz Plz (SA 21 PROJECT) 


1) What norm did you violate?
- The concept of personal space and the sexual connotation that’s been ascribed to breasts; the established association of breasts with female sexuality
2) Describe the breaching experiment in detail. What was the activity? Where did you do it?
- We performed the breaching experiment in school, along SEC Walk, Gonzaga Cafeteria, and Zen Garden. We approached strangers and asked if we could “touch their boob.” We had two male and two female members of the group to each do this to strangers of both genders in the selected areas. We observed their reactions and documented each experience accordingly. After the intial question and reaction, we then disclosed that we we were doing it as a project for SA Class.
3) What were the different reactions of the people? List all possible reactions you observed. Why do you think they reacted this way? What caused these reactions? Did the deviant act reaffirm/reinforce the existing norms based on these reactions?
Since the experiment was executed on both sexes and friends or strangers , there was a range of reactions. Overall, no one was angry or felt violated. Majority of the people found the request weird, especially the strangers. They would cringe away but smile or laugh. Friends would give a soft slap and laugh about it as well. However, strangers who were asked by the opposite sex, especially boy (asking) to girl , did not find it funny and gave hostile looks to the person asking. One girl even asked ," excuse me?" .
We think that majority of the people found it funny because they took it as a joke or a dare. They probably assumed that someone was daring the person to ask them the question. Most of the people asked were mostly students from Ateneo so that may also be aware that students are doing breeching experiments.

4) Aside from the norms, what sociological themes are at play for people to react in a certain way? Is it a function of gender (gender norms,roles), social class(norms of the rich & the poor ) values /beliefs og intitutions, =( religion,family,peer group, etc.) [ You could design the experiment based on these sociological themes. [For example, you could compare reactions according to gender, social class, etc.]
- An underlying theme of our experiment is gender and the predisposed behaviors that are expected of us as men and women. More men said yes than the women, probably because they felt that they did not have “boobs,” and therefore found the question less invasive. Most women participants refused to have their breasts touched and generally felt awkward or offended.This may be indicative of the sexualization of female breasts and how they have come to be defined as a “private part” of a woman’s body. Discernably, one of the key values tested in this experiment was the generally encompassing sense of conservatism that most Filipinos seem to share. During the times that a woman did say yes to our male groupmates, they felt very uncomfortable with actually proceeding with the act of touching the girl’s breast and chose to instead explain the nature of the experiment immediately.

5) How did you feel when you did this experiment How does it feel to deviate from the norms? Were you hesitant to do the activity?
- Initially the very thought of asking to “violate” someone’s personal space like that made us quite reluctant to proceed with the experiment. We first tried to ease ourselves into it by asking friends first. Soon, we began feeling a bit more confident and began asking strangers. We were common in our sentiments that it couldn’t be just anybody walking by. We tried to look for people who appeared to be a little bit more open to something like that. Through the course of the experiment, there was also the fear that we might accused of sexual harrassment (laws regarding this are found in the student handbook), but thankfully all persons involved in the activity were good sports about it.
6) Other observations and analysis that you may have on the activity and on deviance in general.
- Based on the reactions of people, the group did not find any difficulties executing the activity. People were generally good sports because they somehow had a common social group they belong to. They had existing assumptions about why the group was asking a weird request and this is probably why they didn’t find it offensive.
This leads to the observation that how an action or a gesture is interpreted as deviance depends on the society one is present in. They may vary depending on who is viewing it as well. The group may have received a different action if the experiment was executed on a different environment with the people coming from different age and social groups.