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Notes -
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 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?
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
Yes, nonconsensual hugging is generally bad.
I am not sure how you do a nonconsensual handshake? But yea, bad.
Nonconsensual ones are bad, yes.
Maybe!
Probably not.
Yes.
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."
Probably not, but forcibly kissing a woman might be.
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."
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?
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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.
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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!"
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To be fair, feminism articles from 2014 might as well have been pulled out of the Qumran caves.
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I guess I don't think that the presence or absence of consent is only determined by some explication of its presence or absence.
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