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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   28290 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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Fake Outrage for a Fake Crisis

In one of the most annoyingly misguided media crusades in recent memory, the soccer world (read: Reddit, PMC, sports media, and virtue-signaling athletes who are delighted to be out of the Sauronic Eye for once) has fixed its laser gaze on Luis Rubiales, head of the Spanish FA (the top soccer organization in Spain; representing all club and national teams in the country). His crime, for which he is demanded to give up everything he now has and ever had, was a kiss.

After the Spanish National Team won the Women's World Cup last week, a traditional trophy presentation was held. In his jubilation, Rubiales kissed player Jenni Hermoso, just as thousands of soccer personnel have done thousands of times in moments of great triumph. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath, Hermoso laughed it off on camera as a passing awkward moment. In the days following that recording, I assume Hermoso has come to see that one moment of blasé honesty as a crucial tactical mistake (not that it matters; the original video of her has yet to make an appearance in any of the numerous "j'accuse" incendiary articles).

What Hermoso failed to realize in that moment (but has very much seized upon since) is that she had been granted the gift of victimhood. Not just as a woman, not just as a woman at the hand of a man, but as a woman footballer (one of the venerated subclasses, as elaborated upon in one of my past comments) at the hands of T H E P A T R I A R C H Y.

This one meaningless moment flashed overnight into an international dogpile, with consequences as wild as Rubiales' mother enduring a hunger strike. Unfortunately, Rubiales is experiencing firsthand that racism is not the only demand in excess of its supply, and that even a hint of raw meat, especially in the entirely invented space of "women's sports" "inequality," will be devoured, even if it was just shoe leather all along.

I'm not a fan of the other comments here about how the attacks on him are justified by his unpopularity rather than whether he's guilty of anything more than a faux pas.

It's apology-and-move-on tier, but instead it's been placed in the fire-him-for-sexual-assault tier.

Okay. If that's how they want it to be. But the door swings both ways, and this overly broad interpretation logically leads to claims of having been sexually assaulted becoming comparable to enduring a sub-second celebratory kiss for a national triumph. Their own tactics are trivialising sexual assault. Perhaps that's how Rubiales should have responded.

I for one am still coming to terms with the revelation that I've been the victim of countless sexual assaults since I was a baby, mostly at the hands of my own family. I'm not sure I'm ready to unpack whether I myself may have inflicted the same disgusting crime on other innocent victims.

I think this is definitely a storm in a teacup. Ironically, if it had been a male player, there would be little to nothing about it, because grabbing your bro and planting a smacker on him after winning a match is practically a tradition by now, to the point where you can look up 'bromance' video compilations of kisses on Youtube.

The original video of her has yet to make an appearance in any of the numerous "j'accuse" incendiary articles.

ESPN has ran numerous pieces about this with zero easily available video. It is akin to them running stories about someone saying a racist thing allegedly. They never quote what was actually said; they just tell you it was double plus ungood.

I don’t understand the rationale outside of narrative control. Can someone steelman?

I've posted a longer comment with sources above that may interest you.

It's narrative control. Don't steelman attacks.

When I heard this, the first thing that came to mind is how unfun woman soccer is. Especially if I grant the critics that, yes, non-consensually kissing a woman in such a situation is a Big Deal.

You could have literally have the same situation in men soccer, with a significantly bigger and stronger, literally gay coach kissing a male player on the mouth in a moment of excitement, the receiving player looking baffled & awkward at first but laughing after realizing what happened. It would be the kind of thing that everyone considers HILARIOUS, that would be remembered positively for a long time as showing just how emotionally invested everyone was in this win. In fact, in male soccer people constantly do stupid shit to celebrate winning, often things that in any other situation would be considered kinda gay. I'm not a particular fan of soccer in general, but I can sympathize with the kind of excitement you may generate when winning something as big as a world cup. Also, as some people have already pointed out, kissing is one of those things that varies A LOT by culture. In some it's not a big deal, even among acquaintances, in others it's strictly for lovers. I've been surprised at times by kisses from southern european girls (and had to remind myself afterwards that it wasn't a big deal, despite what my cultural instincts were screaming at me).

I also don't quite know how to fix this. I can see where people are coming from, woman genuinely are often more susceptible to being pressured into uncomfortable sexual situations and so a sense of protectiveness is not misplaced. Likewise men are genuinely biased towards doing something ambiguously sexual and then go for a mediocre justification if it doesn't work out. The current trajectory is pointing towards boring adjustment, where even in exciting situations people consciously suppress their emotions and play it cool, which we already do in most other, especially work, situations. But I think that takes out a lot of the fun of sports, it's one of the few areas where genuine, strong emotions like this are still acceptable.

I also don't quite know how to fix this.

"˹O Prophet!˺ Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and guard their chastity. That is purer for them. Surely Allah is All-Aware of what they do."

The current trajectory is pointing towards boring adjustment, where even in exciting situations people consciously suppress their emotions and play it cool, which we already do in most other, especially work, situations.

Or stable and internalized norms will mean that people won't even consider that particular expression of their emotions, instead of it being a constant struggle to not do a certain thing.

Take the Sharia pill.

This never would have happened if the coach was in hijab.

Hard to feel sympathy for a man forcing himself on a woman who did not consent being kissed. What's shameful here is that it took FIFA externally intervening to get him suspended, as the Spanish federation clearly failed to do so before they did.

Good thing our POTUS would never do such a thing...But I jest.

To get some context, displays of affection from a powerful male to a female is an incredibly important social status signal that woman crave. For the man it displays he is powerful enough to be permitted to make this display, and for the women it is an honor to be chosen for this role. From puberty onwards, women make most (?) of their rituals about this very act; most boy band concerts, Ricky Martin (and yes R Kelly) will select a girl from the audience to be ritually (and hopefully tastefully) wooed by the singers and dancers.

All that being said, the Foucalt-ian left can never leave a win-win social tradition be, especially if there is some power to be extracted from subverting it. Dictating who can and can't give displays of affection is of course of the most basic elements of creating social power, something found in almost every cult, and every chimp pack. And now in probably every womens sports for some time.

Anyways to get to my black-ish pill: you'll never win back the right to give a woman a celebratory kiss at your mutual moment of world triumph via LessWrong style debate. Only by being socially recognized as the one who decides who can and can't make these display of affections, can you regain that pleasantry. Traditional society forfeited this power without realizing it when they adopted "who cares what two adults do". Someone always cares, and someone always gets to decide.

There is no level of status at which any man becomes attractive to every woman. The phenomenon in which high-status men sometimes get away with sexual harassment or assault was never win-win to begin with. Your comment doesn't even consider the possibility that sexual attention from a powerful man might at times be deeply unpleasant in itself, and that refusal is important for personal reasons rather than some kind of elaborate power play.

Boy band audiences, particularly those in the front row, can usually be assumed to be fans. That makes them a special case. Even then, it would be possible to go too far, I think.

The important question is what concrete harm something like that does - and how that trades off against other interests people have. One such interest is 'exuberant celebration of a sports win'. If a random guy walked up to me and kissed me on the lips - I'd take issue with it. But if a (male, say I'm also male) friend of mine did that right after we won the biggest sports event of the year - I'd personally, without finding it to be worth doing myself, understand the spirit of it and not mind too much. From the perspective of popular sports, winning is massive, it's what you've spent your entire life working towards, and a grand celebration is worth doing! Gonna link the socialist fraternal kiss again. Obviously the m/f dynamic changes that a bit, but how much? Feminism/#MeToo have brought with them a deep intuition that that what happened here is very wrong, as opposed to just 'somewhat wrong', and others who don't hold that intuition are objecting to the apparently disproportionate response - so one should ask, which intuition is accurate? What specifically happens with such a kiss, what cultural ideas and instincts cause the harm, and is it important enough that 'winning the BIG GAME' can't make a brief exception? (not rhetorical, I think that's the thing worth discussing here)

Obviously the m/f dynamic changes that a bit, but how much? Feminism/#MeToo have brought with them a deep intuition that that what happened here is very wrong, as opposed to just 'somewhat wrong', and others who don't hold that intuition are objecting to the apparently disproportionate response - so one should ask, which intuition is accurate?

In my eyes, it's not just or even mainly the disproportionate response that needs to be opposed, but the gendered nature of it. Feminism has severely inflamed people's existing bias towards disproportionately punishing men for behaviors that they refuse to similarly permit society to punish women for.

"Display of affection" not sexual assault! If the jumbotron at stadiums starts zooming in on a man and woman and instead of saying "kiss?" says "sexual assault?" it seems things have gone too far. In fact, even if there is "full consent" and you go for a really long sexy kiss on the jumbotron, the crowd will boo. A peck on the lips is neither a step too far nor should it be taken further: a perfect social ritual as it stands.

But perhaps we should improve society somewhat, and remove this burden of a sometimes deeply unpleasant experience? I'll expand below in reply to 2rafa how this kind of thinking is a clever trap that promises increased personal empowerment but actually ends in the opposite.

The very fact that she said she didn’t want it (and that everyone complained) is proof that Rubiales wasn’t powerful enough for the privilege you cite. Harry Styles can likely kiss his fans just fine, and nobody cares. Rubiales is an ugly old man who works as the president of the Spanish football association, he’s a nobody.

Indeed, Harry Styles - GQ magazine man of the year - can go for the kiss. So could David Karesh, Jim Jones, and Keith Raniere. What I find compelling and relevant to these aforementioned cult leaders is not just that they built themselves sexual access to their followers but how important they found it to create community policing and punishment around any other men in the community to display affection towards the women.

Free people display affection for each other when they publicly celebrate. Controlled people enact "Dear Leader" parades and anyone who falls out of line is made an example of. Once you remove the ability of men and women to form bonds of affection, you remove their ability to resist ideology. At that point, the hierarchy of violence overrides all personal autonomy, and it will be much more than a peck on the lips, and it won't be up for debate.

So could David Karesh, Jim Jones, and Keith Raniere. What I find compelling and relevant to these aforementioned cult leaders is not just that they built themselves sexual access to their followers but how important they found it to create community policing and punishment around any other men in the community to display affection towards the women.

Did Raniere do that? The whole thing is muddled because both major documentaries about him involve people clearly laundering their reputation and avoid their own prosecution (honestly, it might make for some fun meta-viewing to watch them side-by-side), but it seemed that prominent figures had wives he didn't split them from and it was mainly through other women and the secret cult-within-a-cult they were controlled.

I'm coming from the book, not the documentary but I think you're correct that NXVIM is the most tentative example of the ones listed. One commonality from each of the situations is that sexual policing started out soft and voluntary and then ratcheted up when the members became permanently fixed to the compound.

A counter example that might prove the point is the Rajneeshee who I think were a complete free love compound. Most members got taken financially and some did time for their spree of oddball crimes. But I'm not aware of any complaints that many women there felt consent was removed from them despite having lots of sex, highlighting the pernicious role of policing and positive role of community adoration.

How old is he? Is this really the case of an elderly lecher?

I looked up a photo of Luis Rubiales to see how ugly he is. Your definition of ugly must include 90% of men if it includes Rubiales.

Your definition of ugly must include 90% of men if it includes Rubiales.

Most women's does. (OK, it's actually 80% from that infamous OKCupid study)

Or the one with the two histograms in one place.

Women often deny the apex fallacy but then when presented with such exhibits, the goalposts shift and a common reaction is "see how hard dating is for women when men are so shitty and unattractive?" Women view at least 80%* of men as below median in attractiveness; women most affected.

*If we divide the middle bar by two, that would imply OKCupid women view roughly 86% of men as below median in attractiveness.

I don't want to have a right to give a woman a celebratory kiss at our mutual moment of world triumph, I want women to want me to kiss them at our mutual moment of world triumph but I also want people to not try to destroy me if I fuck up and read the room wrong.

I agree that his life shouldn't be destroyed or anything, but imagine the following (assuming that you're a straight man):

Right after you win the World Cup, a famous and powerful gay guy whom you're kind of acquainted with, who is physically stronger than you, puts his hands on both sides of your head and kisses you on the mouth on international television.

His motives may have been pure, maybe even not sexual at all (although Hermoso is cute, so I doubt any straight man would really have zero sexual feelings about her even in such a moment). But I can imagine that having the world see this video could make her feel humiliated, on top of whatever unpleasantness she may or may not have felt in the moment of the kiss. There is no need to reach for a narrative of woke persecution to explain her sequence of reactions.

Funnily though, this is an example of the strange subtleties of gender politics. I guess that straight men sometimes kiss each on the mouth in some cultures in moments of elation, and it is not generally interpreted as sexual. So it is possible that Rubiales had no sexual motives whatsoever (although again I doubt it, given what she looks like). But if, let us say somehow if he didn't, then this would be an example of a man being treated as doing something wrong for just treating a woman the same way that he would treat a man.

But again, I doubt that he has no sexual interest in her.

Right after you win the World Cup, a famous and powerful gay guy whom you're kind of acquainted with...

It's impossible to have a gay guy who would be attractive to the vast majority of males the way that a guy could be attractive to the vast majority of females.

Hermoso is cute

I mean it's pointless to argue about this but since you brought it up... I can definitely believe that there were no sexual feelings.

Yeah, the tattoos completely destroy and attractiveness I would feel for such a woman. I suspect many men are similar.

I'm not even talking about the tattoos.

Is it the tattoos in an aesthetic vacuum, or is it the attribute signalling they convey?

A bit of both. I've seen tattoos that look good, but it's pretty much universally been on men and also very rare (I would say < 5% of all tattoos I've seen on men I would classify as tasteful). It's also very much their attribute signalling though, they signal low class in a way that you can't even hide (like e.g. a golden tooth).

The problem with your hypothetical is this:

My optimal response as the footballer kissed by a gay man is I deliver a severe beating to this queer. If I had done that, I'd be the one being cancelled. OTOH, our girl probably wishes she had delivered a strong slap to the face of him, she just was too shocked. But if she had succeeded she would be cheered, and probably everyone would be in a better situation today.

So, again, we are learning bad lessons: 1) You gain from your own inability to react appropriately to mild aggression; 2) You are punished much harder than is warranted if your opponent is less competent than the average.

This response is arguably unnecessarily antagonistic (for which it has been reported twice) but I'm more inclined to lay down a warning for "inflammatory without evidence." There are plenty of examples of predatory homosexuals being on the receiving end of social or legal fallout. Asymmetries in social responses to behavior based on sex roles surely exist, and almost every culture warrior takes a turn arguing that those asymmetries are good actually, so your response to the hypothetical isn't necessarily wrong. But you've framed it in a needlessly inflammatory way ("severe beating to this queer") instead of taking the time to consult direct examples of same-sex sexual harassment and how it has been treated by the public over the years.

Stated a little differently, even if the substance of your post is correct, you've framed it in a way that is more likely to make people angry and defensive than to persuade them of your own correctness. That's exactly the kind of outcome the rules exist to discourage.

That is why it would be "my optimal response" not a consensus building attempt at telling others how they should feel.

Regardless. This topic seems one where the heckler's veto is overly privileged if you aren't banning people for reporting things of this nature. IMO.

I think kissing people without their consent is bad and I don't think any of ("I was very emotional", "It has happened a lot in the past", "Some iconic moments are similar", "The victim didn't react the right way in the moment") are very good excuses or justifications. This is not complicated.

Something to keep in mind here is that 'the kiss' isn't a natural category that has a fixed relationship to human feelings or psychology. Many human societies across space and time don't even have 'mouth-to-mouth kissing' as a standard practice for romantic couples. So when you make a broad statement like 'kissing without consent is bad' or 'kissing without consent is fine' ... how, exactly, can that even be true? It'd have to depend on the social meaning we imbue kissing with, and not something about the physical aspect of the act itself. And ... what meaning is that? Other commenters in the thread have noted that the exclusivity / meaning imbued in a kiss varies across different western cultures, does that matter?

This is not complicated.

Also, what does this mean? In one sense, you can apply a moral rule in an uncomplicated sense. But surely the validity of that rule is, itself, complicated?

Sure, you can read my comment with an implied "in our present cultural context" if that helps.

I think forced touching is generally bad so I think forcibly kissing someone would be bad in probably any cultural context. It would be less bad if it had a different social meaning than it currently does, but it would still be bad.

Also, what does this mean? In one sense, you can apply a moral rule in an uncomplicated sense. But surely the validity of that rule is, itself, complicated?

It means I do not think either the rule itself ("kissing people without their consent is bad") or its application to this case (there's literally video of him doing it) are complicated. If you want to argue in favor of forcibly kissing people or that he didn't actually forcibly kiss her I'm open to hearing the arguments.

Sure, you can read my comment with an implied "in our present cultural context" if that helps.

As doglatine noted below, this involves cultural norms that have changed recently, and maybe Luis has been slow to adapt. Are these changes good or necessary changes? I think that's a more complicated question than you imply.

If you want to argue in favor of forcibly kissing people

I think the argument is that - when you combine the southern European more lax attitude towards kisses plus the commonality of 'doing crazy things right after you win a big event in sports', the kiss isn't nearly as bad as a boss randomly kissing a subordinate without their consent. And, to whatever extent it is bad, it's something that should at worst be called 'a mistake' and something he should apologize for, not something that's basically sexual assault and something he should be fired for. The idea that this 'is just bad, not complicated' tug on the idea of a man using his power in a workplace to force a woman to do things she doesn't want to do - is that what happened here? (I'm not sure what the right answer is to any of this)

As doglatine noted below, this involves cultural norms that have changed recently, and maybe Luis has been slow to adapt. Are these changes good or necessary changes? I think that's a more complicated question than you imply.

How recently did social norms change such that forcibly kissing a woman is taboo? Luis was born in 1977. I'm confident forcibly kissing women has been taboo since the 90's, when he would have been a teenager.

I think the argument is that - when you combine the southern European more lax attitude towards kisses plus the commonality of 'doing crazy things right after you win a big event in sports', the kiss isn't nearly as bad as a boss randomly kissing a subordinate without their consent.

As I said in my original comment I do not think "commonality of 'doing crazy things right after you win a big event in sports'" provides any justification or defense. Either as a general principle or here specifically. Probably it has some explanatory power for why he did it, but I don't think it goes at all to justification or mitigation.

The idea that this 'is just bad, not complicated' tug on the idea of a man using his power in a workplace to force a woman to do things she doesn't want to do - is that what happened here? (I'm not sure what the right answer is to any of this)

I am not sure about "using his power in a workplace" but it was definitely "forc[ing] a woman to do things she doesn't want to do." Rephrase your example slightly. Coworker A forcibly kisses Coworker B at a public work-related function. A has no (formal) power over B. Is that just "a mistake", something requiring only an apology, or something Coworker A should face some discipline (perhaps not termination) for?

As I said in my original comment I do not think "commonality of 'doing crazy things right after you win a big event in sports'" provides any justification or defense. Either as a general principle or here specifically. Probably it has some explanatory power for why he did it, but I don't think it goes at all to justification or mitigation.

Right. What's at issue isn't "is nonconsensual random kissing bad" - most here would agree that him grabbing random players during practice and kissing them is bad, for various reasons. What's at issue here is precisely how bad it is, and how that trades off against other benefits. I mentioned the workplace because this moral sense that such kissing is very bad as opposed to somewhat bad - that little is a 'justification or defense' for it - comes from feminism broadly and #MeToo. Like, when such a nonconsensual kiss happens, it's the man forcing himself on the woman, it's absolutely terrible and sexist, etc. People who are defending this see it as 'she wasn't comfortable so he shouldn't do it next time', but not something truly terrible. In a triumphant moment where people do all sorts of crazy things, the kiss a minor issue - he made someone a bit uncomfortable, whatever - rather than something awful he should be blacklisted for. What's more common when you win a big sporting event are unprompted (and 'nonconsensual' as a result) hugs - randomly hugging a coworker for no reason is 'not okay', but hugging a fellow team member or coach right after you win the big game? That's normal and great, imo.

So when I discuss social norms changing, it's not about

How recently did social norms change such that forcibly kissing a woman is taboo

but about norms changing enough for that to move from 'exuberance gone too far' to 'disgusting sexism and assault, not okay under any circumstances'.

I guess my evaluation of the degree of harm it does isn't dependent on the degree of social acceptance of the behavior. I appreciate that other people's evaluation is different but I don't understand why that should change my evaluation. Granted that Luis was raised in a time and place where it was more acceptable. His subjective feelings of its permissibility seem to go to explanation, but still not justification.

I guess my evaluation of the degree of harm it does isn't dependent on the degree of social acceptance of the behavior

My argument is that culture is what makes that kiss so unacceptable in the first place! There are other possible cultures where such a kiss is not one of the main romantic gestures, and as such unprompted kisses are simply less 'bad' because they're not signs of unwanted romantic interest. The 'harm' people object to here comes from a ... haze of perceptions surrounding said unwanted romantic interest, as opposed to a generic unwanted touch (if he had merely hugged her, all the backlash wouldn't have happened).

According to wikipedia, in many places kisses on the cheek are greetings, and ... apparently in part of South Africa quick closed-mouth lip kisses are a 'common greeting' (although that has a citation needed, so idk about that). The harm is, necessarily, dependent on the society's ideas of what kissing is.

I'm not sure if your objection is an entirely principled 'no touch without consent', or mostly comes from the specifically sexual/romantic nature of mouth-to-mouth kisses? My guess is it's some sort of mix of the two? The current backlash is entirely to the latter.

More comments

It does indeed depend on the social meaning to some extent. But, looking at reactions within Spain to this event, it seems like a lot of Spanish women agree that, according to their own social meanings, this was out of line.

What about hugging? What about hand shakes? Back pats? Was my old aunt sexually abusing me when I was 10 and she'd plant a big lipsticky kiss on my cheek? Did I sexually harrass my dad when he was lying in a hospital bed in a coma and I kissed his forehead?

Or am I being outrageous? Is it bad, but the same way answering your phone in the library is bad rather than sexual abuse? But is answering your phone in the library bad enough to lose your career over? Could there be a middle ground perhaps, where it's not something people should do moving forward but we don't crucify this guy for not being American?

Like most things in life, it's only not complicated if you don't really think about it.

What about hugging?

Yes, nonconsensual hugging is generally bad.

What about hand shakes?

I am not sure how you do a nonconsensual handshake? But yea, bad.

Back pats?

Nonconsensual ones are bad, yes.

Was my old aunt sexually abusing me when I was 10 and she'd plant a big lipsticky kiss on my cheek?

Maybe!

Did I sexually harrass my dad when he was lying in a hospital bed in a coma and I kissed his forehead?

Probably not.

Or am I being outrageous?

Yes.

Is it bad, but the same way answering your phone in the library is bad rather than sexual abuse?

It is (much) worse than answering your phone in a library but probably not as bad as the median example of conduct described by the term "sexual abuse."

But is answering your phone in the library bad enough to lose your career over?

Probably not, but forcibly kissing a woman might be.

Could there be a middle ground perhaps, where it's not something people should do moving forward but we don't crucify this guy for not being American?

People learn what to do and not to do because of the consequences for the things they do. I am pretty sure he is criticized for forcibly kissing a woman, not for "not being American."

Probably not.

Why? By your logic the man's father was unable to consent because he was in a coma. I've read enough feminist discourse about how "Sleeping Beauty" promotes rape culture to know how I'm supposed to interpret this situation.

Because neither person, sleeping or awake, would understand the gesture as sexual or romantic. Also, in the original Sleeping Beauty tale the prince doesn't just kiss her to wake her up he has sex with and impregnates her while she's asleep. That's definitely rape.

If that's the case, then who the hell is going around interpreting pats on the back as romantic or sexual?

I mentioned the sexual or romantic aspect because the question is whether the commenter kissing their dad was sexual harassment. Nonconsensually touching someone can be bad even it if isn't sexual harassment.

Okay, so /u/Fruck kissing his comatose father on the forehead was "bad" even though it wasn't sexual harassment?

More comments

Serious question, how do you envision the consent-seeking process working for these?

For example, I want to greet or congratulate a male friend. Should I really ask him 'may I slap you on the back?'

I don't think consent can only ever be verbal. I have given my fair share of back slaps and shoulder grabs and hugs and so on that I didn't ask permission for in advance but that were nevertheless consensual. Part of it is the shared context the action is occurring in. Like, if you're on a date and your partner leans in for a kiss, they probably want to be kissed and it is ok to kiss them. If you have to grab their head with both hands and hold them in place to forcibly kiss them? Less obviously consensual.

I guess this demonstrates the problem with trying to collapse all interpersonal contact into the legalistic 'consensual-nonconsensual' binary. In the examples you give, you clearly did not seek consent, nor were you granted it. That's fine, because the model isn't suited to most human behaviour, and we shouldn't act as if it is. Somebody being okay with a physical interaction after the fact isn't consent. If that were the case, then someone not being okay with it after the fact would have to be treated as non-consent, whereas in reality consent wasn't sought in either case.

Your example of kissing is valid but not that helpful, since almost all actual kisses will be less cut and dry than the example. In reality, women rarely lean in for a kiss, they wait for the man to move to them. They may give lots of non-verbal signals of course, but those are ambiguous, and so can't be taken as explicit consent.

So how about we ask her permission before kissing her? Well, you could do that, but there's a good chance that will kill any latent sexual attraction she had for you.

My favorite verbal signal while hesitating to kiss a girl was "you better not ask to kiss me", which spurred me to rather successful action.

Ultimately, all roads lead back to "just read her mind, bro."

Regardless of the object-level topic-of-the-day at hand, men need to take on maximal agency and accountability when it comes to approaching, escalating, and reading The Signs, where The Signs are extremely ambiguous, inconsistent across women, and ambiguous and inconsistent even within the same woman.

It's almost as if it's a shit-test to filter for men who are willing to just shrug off and trample over such "Signs," a filter for men with sufficient mental fortitude and/or social capital to just dominate interactions and treat women as passive NPCs.

As you noted, treating her as your equal in agency and accountability, asking for explicit consent each step of the way, would just kill her attraction toward you and her ability to feel "omg, it just like happened!"

To be fair, feminism articles from 2014 might as well have been pulled out of the Qumran caves.

I guess I don't think that the presence or absence of consent is only determined by some explication of its presence or absence.

The way that you are overplaying your hand here is precisely the phenomenon that leads to things like this being handled in a polarized and extremist way instead of a reasonable and measured way.

If 'This made someone uncomfortable and uneasy and was a minor violation of their autonomy that shouldn't have happened, an apology is in order and we should try to keep in mind not to do things like this' was an option on the table, both sides might be able to agree and we could make some progress without destroying anyone's life.

Instead you go to immediate dismissing of the incident as meaningless and normal, attacking the victim as dishonest and manipulative, and drawing battle lines while closing ranks. As a result, the only way to get any reaction of condemnation or acknowledgement of wrongdoing is to go just as extreme in the other direction, calling it a travesty and an attack and screaming for blood and sanctions, just to rally enough outrage to counter the backlash.

And to be clear, I'm not saying your side 'started it', both sides go to the extreme immediately because it is ingrained at this point. The chronology isn't what matters, what matters is whether you choose to participate in the game at all, or if you just decide to ignore it and give the actual measured take that you think would be correct in a world where no culture war existed.

Except that requiring explicit consent for any type of physical social interaction is an extreme overreaction. Human beings touch each other all the time, it’s normal enough that (https://www.healthline.com/health/touch-starved) touch starvation is a real thing. Human beings are not built to live in a world where we must legalistically ask for explicit permission to engage in normal, healthy human behaviors. It’s ridiculous to contemplate that we’re building a society that makes social interaction much more dangerous and then bemoaning epidemics of loneliness, mental illness, and touch starvation.

I 100% agree with your point about touch starvation and think this is a major failing of our society.

And yet I assume you wouldn't take the argument you just made as a justification for rape, even though nothing in your argument explicitly excludes it.

This is obviously a matter of degrees, some types of non-consensual touching obviously cross the line into being likely enough to be harmful/unwanted that they are not justified by your argument. The question is where you draw that line, or how you behave around this issue so that you can gauge the line better in the situation (such as, you know, asking people what they want).

Your boss, grabbing your head so you can't get away and physically pulling you in, kissing you on the mouth, in front of millions of viewers locally and on camera, seems like something you could predict would be way over the line if you don't have a pre-existing social relationship that makes it seem appropriate. Even if you don't think that should be upsetting/traumatizing in your ideal world of casual touch, even if some pairs of people can do that in the current world and aren't upset by it, it seems quite predictable that many people would be very upset by it, and it should be over the line.

And I just want to point out, I think a major reason why we have this touch starvation problem is specifically because people (esp. women) cannot trust people (esp men) to be reasonable and careful about where that line is, in precisely the way her boss and you are demonstrating here. When men will take any ambiguity about boundaries as an excuse to push further and further towards unasked and random physic intimacy, and when other men will defend their actions to the death every time, then drawing incredibly strict boundaries a mile before the actual line and being incredibly paranoid about enforcing them becomes the sane strategy towards making sure no one crosses the actual line accidentally/casually.

This is again where I say: I wish both sides could just agree that this was understandable but over the line into inappropriate, a simple apology is called for and a reminder to everyone to be more careful. One side saying it was nothing or it's good actually while the other says it's a major violation that demands a head on a spike just means we can never make progress on building a new normal where everyone can trust actual boundaries to be respected and can be more casual about everything leading up to them.

I don’t think every type of touch is okay all the time. I just think the legalistic need to constantly be seeking permission for every little connection or touch is so outside of what used to be normal human behavior that it turns humans into robots.

Again, I 100% agree with that statement, while also thinking that this particular case is very plausibly over the line in even an ideal world.

Not sure if we actually disagree on anything, or just endorse slightly different lines.

There's no need to escalate this to "requiring explicit consent for any type of physical social interaction." I'm sure a congratulatory pat on the back would have been fine. Even a hug.

If I remember the John Lasseter and Al Franken cases correctly, that's not necessarily true either.

I wasn't overly familiar with Lasseter's case, but Wikipedia's brief summary mentions "grabbing, kissing, [and] making comments about physical attributes." In both cases, it may be worth distinguishing between "physical social interaction" and sexual interaction.

Yes, that's power of the progressive movement. Someone says something happened, someone else writes it on wikipedia, and then we're supposed to assume that was the truth. Can you actually name the person accusing him of "grabbing, kissing, [and] making comments about physical attributes" beyond "One longtime Pixar employee"? The only thing I have ever heard proven about him was that he was a big hugger. Also, no comment on Franken?

You are completely over simplifying the political aspect of this issue. Rubiales has made many enemies in football, including FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, the two clubs who hold enormous sway over La Liga. This isn't a man being taken down for sexism, this is a man with many political enemies who very publicly committed a fuck up, so all the knives are being driven into his back right now.

Many sports fans who couldn't give less of a fuck of the Women's World Cup or sexual assault in general, are all eagerly jumping on this train to see Rubiales ousted.

This isn't even mentioning how his dad is the Socialist mayor of his hometown, so there are actual political enemies who would be more than glad to see Rubiales taken down a peg.

This post is too much on the side of waging the culture war rather than discussing it.

Remember to speak as if everyone is reading, rather than only people that agree with you.

Imagine you are writing to convince one of the people you mention: "(read: Reddit, PMC, sports media, and virtue-signaling athletes who are delighted to be out of the Sauronic Eye for once)".

“Jenni Hermoso”

Normative determinism* takes an L. Old and mid, even without the tatuajes feos.

Of course Hermoso, her hanger-ons, and mainstream media will try to over-dramatise and wring every drop of clout, attention, and idpol victimhood as they can out of this. However, I can’t muster up much sympathy for Rubiales either.

Like he couldn’t rein in his thirst for just a bit? With his high status position, he could had banged one of her hotter teammates a few hours later. Or better yet, even hotter unaffiliated chicks.

ESH.

*At least it isn’t “Jenni Hermosa,” which would sound like she could be an all-too-common latina camwhore “modelo de cam”.

However, I can’t muster up much sympathy for Rubiales either.

This is the only sentence in your whole comment that does not arguably break some rule or other. But it does not really salvage the rest of your comment.

If you'd called someone posting here a "camwhore" (without them, say, pimping their actual OnlyFans site or something) you'd eat a ban for sure. Dropping an "at least it isn't" is just apophasis at work. We're generally pretty lenient about casting aspersions on public figures under discussion, but at some point it just becomes "boo outgroup" even if it's an outgroup of one. This comment strikes me as over that line; please don't.

Normative determinism

Since I've made this mistake before, I'm sensitive to it.

Nominative determinism, not normative determinism.

Me too, sadly—multiple times. Sometimes I'm able to catch myself, but otherwise I've accepted it as a personal mental blindness just like how I tend to accidentally a word here or there, or be unable to notice when people suddenly whip out the the trick of repeating "the."

At least it wasn't something obscene and unforgivable, like using weary when you mean wary.

The constant news reports of the event in my local news media make the whole thing seem more comedic than serious. The reporting is definitely not supposed to make light of the 'heinous' event that took place. Yet with every new detail and development the story just gets more absurd and childish so one can't really help it.

I think most people intuitively recognize the absurdity of it. How male vs female ingroup bias is pushing each side further along a childish rollercoaster. But it's also very easy to just hop on, represent your side and have some fun.

Welcome to the Venn crossing of sports and venerated subclasses; the scandals are made up and the truth doesn't matter. For additional interest, see this week's story of the Bay Area sports media losing their minds over a laughably overrated YoungBlackMan getting replaced at quarterback by a White dude working his ass off.

Outside of the Bay Area, are national sportswriters/commentators wringing their hands over the Lance thing. I very painfully had to stop listening to the output of a number of sports podcasts I’d once cherished because 2020 turned their libtard dials up to 10, so I genuinely haven’t seen what guys like Gregg Rosenthal from the ATN podcast, who is obsessed with going to bat for every mediocre black QB in existence, have said about it.

Has Bay Area sports media been losing their minds? I haven't seen it. National media got the message that he was garbage weeks ago. It's not even like Kaepernick where he had a couple of good years. Trey Lance hasn't played good football since 2019 at North Dakota State University where he was up against corn farmers and UPS drivers.

I never thought I’d see a team top the Herschel Walker trade, but the Niners trading up for the ghost of Trey Lance and mortgaging three first-round picks has gotta be an all-timer.

the original video of her has yet to make an appearance in any of the numerous "j'accuse" incendiary articles

You didn’t post the video either.

Honestly, this looks more like prudish Anglo-American business culture triumphing over Southern European romance culture than it does feminism v patriarchy. I can totally imagine Fox News running a few “groomer” segments if this had happened to the USWNT instead. As a certified American, my immediate reaction upon seeing the clip was, “WTF you can’t do that.”

Still, Rubiales does seem to be getting a truly excessive amount of hate, such that it’s hard not to root for him. America has a sort of natural immunity built up over centuries of moral panics. Seeing a relatively minor incident like this completely paralyze international institutions overseas really drives home the power of American cultural hegemony.

If Rubiales is guilty of anything here (besides plausibly being coked off his face), it’s of a failure to “read the room” and adapt to the etiquette of high status individuals in his communities. In some cultures, he’d be quite appropriately excoriated simply for shaking hands with any of the female players. In others, an affectionate mouth-to-mouth kiss would be appropriate between him and all the male players.

As it is, social forces have been rapidly moving towards a new set of norms that emphasise female bodily autonomy to the exclusion of unsolicited signs of warmth and affection. Rubiales was going slow in the fast lane of cultural change, and got rear-ended for his slowness, stupidity, or arrogance.

Which countries do you have in mind for those?

Kissing a teammate seems odd for any culture that comes to mind.

Mouth-to-mouth is unusual, but cheek kisses are very common in Southern European countries when a player is substituted off after an extraordinary performance, not unlike the ass slapping on the sidelines of NFL games.

I mean there’s this whole thing.

Not sports, but kissing „mates on the same team“:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_fraternal_kiss

My major takeaway from this episode is that Rubiales must be a real prick.

This incident should have been a nothing burger. An apology along the lines of the one he initially gave about getting caught up in the moment should have been the end of it. The fact that seemingly everyone in Spanish football has queued up to stick the knife in Caesar style, and apparently nobody has come to his defence, indicates that this is not a popular man.

I think you're right about the rest of the dynamics here though - it's more social media mob justice. It does seem to have prompted a criminal investigation now though.

Remind me of some cases where "apology along the lines of the one he initially gave about getting caught up in the moment" been the end of it and SJWs were satisfied by just that. Because I can't remember many such cases (unless the person in question is a high-status Leftist of course, the rules are different there).

The fact that you can't remember cases of unremarkable things that didn't cause much of a fuss and weren't a very big story, is not very strong evidence that they don't exist.

Outrageous anecdotes of crazy shit are not just more memorable and more likely to be reported on a lot, they are also preferentially promoted and even created by media agencies and algorithms that base their business models on outrage engagement.

That's why it's dangerous to go off of your intuitions and impressions alone in cases like this.

I guess he's the one to blame for having the team quartered in Palmerston North: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/sport/2023/07/football-world-cup-spain-reportedly-abandon-palmerston-north-base-due-to-boredom.html

apparently nobody has come to his defence

the RFEF (spanish football federation) is fully backing him. they even tried to have UEFA (governing body of european football) expel them, kicking out spanish teams from european competitions, in protest of government interference.

That's a fair point, but it's literally just the organisation he's president of that's supporting him. In that sense it looks more like self defence than allies rushing to his defence, if you catch my drift. Meanwhile, the regional presidents of the RFEF have released a statement calling for his resignation. And, as far as I'm aware, none of the Spanish clubs or their named senior officials have backed him.

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