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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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