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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 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.
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.
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).
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