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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.
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.
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