Cosplay Dilemma question:

This is a question to all you ladies who do cosplay at anime conventions:

If a guy walked up to you and said:

“I had a crush on _______ anime/game character and you portray her perfectly. Can I…? Can I squeeze your boobs/butt? It’s been a long-time fantasy of mine!”

If the guy was totally sincere about his feelings for that character or how he felt about you cosplaying that character, what would you do?

Wrong Section. In fact, this is more IB material.

Play pretend, also most of the people who go to cons would be too scared to say something like that.

I would let him grab my ass and pound me.

I'd respond with "well guess what, I'm not that character. I am a real person who has a desire for reasonable personal space and the right to a lack of voiced entitlement from you for wanted to touch my body."

Cosplayers are not somehow public property. If you saw an actor playing your favorite character, would you accost them and say the same? People are themselves, even when dressed up, they deserve to be able to move through public space without being creeped on or sexually propositioned...

"But I'm asking!", you might say.

Yes, you're asking, but think of it as though you are asking a complete stranger in plainclothes on the street (essentially the same social setting as a con with a few changes, really). You would not get far, and would likely face either disgust or worse, harassment charges, for doing so.
Sadly, not all cons have anti-harassment policies in place yet, so many people see them as a personal-space-freeforall zone, which they should not remain.

Give him a high five and say AWESOME GO FOR IT! XD

I figured I'd ask at least...since um...sometimes some cosplayers really wear some really RACY outfits...just my 2 cents.

It's really hard to resist asking that question some days... (>_<)

Racy outfits are the best tho!! I wore one last con!! <3

I'm guilty of being the minority on that one. Granted, I was slightly intoxicated, friends dared me, and more or less knew the person, but I'm still guilty of it...

[size=1]To those wondering: Great success. Which is surprising, since I expected to get slapped.
[/h]
[size=10]Moving on, if the roles were reversed, and someone came up to me and said that, I admire ballsy behavior, so I probably would. As long as they weren't being too creepy about it.
[/h]


You gotta admire a women bold enough to pull off something like that. Good job.

I just wanted to say thank you to all who posted. I enjoyed this discourse. I would also like to add there are some assumptions I wish were cleared up in the original asking of the question. Is this a friend or just person on the street? Becuz if its a friend are they asking to be more. (and just bad at asking people out.) But if its a random person "on-da-street" ... how to put this. A lot of the women in my life have been hurt/done wrong by men (but not intentionally by me.) I also professionally have done security and worked with special need kids. So my reaction to such question tends to be a lil strong. BOOT TO HEAD AND GROIN!!!

Seems like there is more here than was originally discussed.

Well, I suppose it should be common sense that if you really really LIKE a person, you'd be more polite about asking them out instead of doing something so incredibly..."aggressive".

But really, this one time I saw a really good Haruko FLCL cosplay and I held back the urge so bad...I held back and was polite and "Mr. Nice Guy" to the point that it HURT.

I'm not even kidding.

I regret not asking that girl out someplace.

I don't know how I would react. I would maybe laugh and be all embarressed.

Heh, why do you think it'd be more ok to ask that from a cosplayer than a person in normal clothes? I doubt that if it actually WERE the character from the anime/game that was walking down the street, you wouldn't think of asking something like that... or would you? D: although if you think about celebrities, they get all kinds of creeps asking weird stuff even though in the end they are just normal people.

I'd say the response will vary as much as in any situation. The more revealing the clothes are, the bigger the chance of her agreement.

Im pretty sure with all the sexisim problems within Cons and numorous accounts of people being sexual harassed I dont think asking this question would end well.
Atleast you are ASKING FOR CONSENT and that is admirable and more than I can say for most.
Id say no only because Ima "look but cant touch" kinda lady.

Do have to agree.
I still think it's an ignorant thing to say to someone though personally. I mean I've seen people perfectly portray some of my favorite characters, but all I've ever done is asked to get a hug because they look AWESOME.

I personally would say no, I'm the type to be like heh I know I look good, but there's only one set of hands that can have this ;).
That and I think letting random strangers touch my breasts/butt is creepy, and slightly slutty.