This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'd like to post about the Spanish soccer kiss and some developments. Another commenter below posted a take decrying it as a case of classic excessive modern SJW-type media cancel culture crusades gone too far. This is not just a wrong take, it's a flagrantly wrong take and a significant misunderstanding of the "read between the lines" of everyone's statements. Also, the TIMELINE is very crucial to understanding this whole thing. In fact, the opposite is true, this is almost a perfect example of how people in power can't help themselves but to manipulate everyone around them. Below I will explain the exact timeline. (For length I'm making it its own comment, hope that's OK).
Interestingly, our understanding of the facts is very similar. As a background, it's worth noting that Rubiales has VERY extensive list of baggage and accusations from the last five years, including clashes with other officials and organizations, firings, lawsuits, leaked recordings, allegations of everything from sex parties to fraud to assault, and conflict with and within the women's team and their coach too. Regarding the kiss, the Spanish are very physically prone to displays of at times excessive physical affection. This is mostly just cultural, but it's important to note that there IS at least some smaller element of sexism that is baked in. The kiss appears to be one of joy during a massive medal celebration, but of course he's grabbing her whole head and planting it right on the lips, a bit too far. That same night, Hermoso laughs it off but also, critically, says she didn't really like it, "but what can I do?".
People online start to go to war about it, and people within the Spanish soccer community too don't really like the look or the attention. The very next day, which is Monday, a few things happen. According to this article, virtually all 300 people are on the same flight home to Spain, including the team, the coaches, federation people, family, etc. On said flight people obviously notice the growing online criticism. They left that morning, had a two hour layover in Doha, Qatar, and arrived that night in Spain (it's like 22 hours of flight time but going backwards so same calendar day). What happened on that flight?
So they pressure her to defend him but she basically says no. They record a video with Rubiales ONLY in their Doha layover, which goes out later that night, but only after a statement goes out to a news agency (EFE) seemingly quoting her that basically goes "we were all just really happy and it was natural and no hard feelings". This comes out first and the video after (a bit of difficulty pinning down exact timeline but definitely in this order). Of note is that some media outlets are now alleging that the statement may have NOT in fact been a direct quote from her and the federation made it up (this is not certain however).
What's in the video? I speak Spanish pretty decently, thanks to living in Miami a while, so listening and watching it directly is pretty interesting. This is a horrible apology. I'm going to roughly thought for thought translate the whole video because it's worth noting the tone and words used:
Commentary: Note how he focuses on how he's almost forced to apologize, how he created a distraction, and how he minimizes everything that happened. He doesn't even say what he did, he just says "what happened, happened". No big deal, no big deal. It's all about the consequences of his actions and nothing about how it could have made her feel or if he truly made a mistake. No, it's an apology that he "has to" make. This is, IMO, extra clear in the original Spanish and with intact voice inflections, etc. and I've tried to render the overall "vibe" of his comments accurately, though Spain-Spanish isn't my forte.
Tuesday rolls around, it's a big story still, and many people including the prime minister feel that the apology was inadequate.
Wednesday Hermoso releases a statement with her player's union and agency here which basically (and vaguely) says that the federation should take action to prevent bad things and make sure bad things aren't unpunished. It's not very specific but clearly is referring to the kiss, though the whole content is basically just urging better player rights.
Thursday FIFA begins to investigate and step in. Clearly pressure is building to fire him, suspend him, or have him resign.
Earlyish on Friday is a big federation meeting, where Rubiales makes a speech. I haven't been able to iron out exactly who called the meeting and for what exact purpose.
Notable is that a very big portion of the audience is clapping loudly throughout. He the goes on to say that though he can't remember clearly it was Hermoso who lifted him up, they almost fell down and then they hugged. He emphasized it was her that picked him up so close, he told her not to worry about a missed penalty, told him he's great, then he asked "A kiss"? and she said OK. He says it wasn't something of desire nor forced and just like kissing his daughters and everyone gets that, even though they are saying the opposite when talking to the media. He says it's fake feminism and people who are all for his rivals. He calls it character assassination. He says that it suddenly ballooned from "no big deal" and then Hermoso didn't defend him and "a statement that I don't understand". He says that people making a big deal about it are hurting victims of real assault.
This ignites quite the firestorm that same day. (The next day, Satudary, FIFA suspended him. Since then, he's been pulled into at least one other avenue of potential firing/suspension as well). Note that Rubiales is not just adding detail but arguably changing the story. The importance of this is made clear when Hermoso finally and directly breaks her own silence, later on Friday FOLLOWING the speech, which in my opinion adds a TON of context to everything. Much as I want to summarize, this would take out the read-between-the-lines as well.
This statement almost perfectly describes how a normal person would react to the situation. Personally, although it sort of has devolved into in some ways a he said/she said, I find her account by far the most credible. The things that stand out, to me:
Rubiales outright is lying when he's adding the detail about how it was literally consensual because she said yes to a kiss, that he's making the whole exchange up. She basically says this is why she's speaking now because of him doubling down and indeed adding falsehoods.
She was silent because she was genuinely celebrating, didn't want to hurt the celebration, and also needed to process things. Personally, I think we can all relate to this, often our behavior psychologically right after something big doesn't always line up with our true feelings. Fun fact: Once someone threatened to kill me! It wasn't until later that my heartbeat could slow a bit down and despite sort of laughing it off at the time I realized it was actually a bit more serious. This jives with psychological research about how we react to unexpected and even unwanted events, including genuine sexual assault of various kinds. I might add that she might still feel that this isn't a big deal but was more offended by Rubiales' lies and/or general attitude than the actual event.
This kind of bad behavior, rather than being a one-off kind of thing, is actually endemic to how the women's team and players are treated.
She's been subject to a very significant pressure campaign to generate good PR even if it means lying. This pressure campaign has targeted a lot of people around her, too, which also seems to cross a line.
Ladies and gentlemen, this statement demonstrates almost exactly what feminists have been saying for years.
My take is that the kiss itself, not really that bad, but also something that does reflect on power dynamics, both men/women but also boss/employee. It deserved a real apology which was not given, instead the apology was not only extremely insincere, but also a result of behind the scenes pressure to sweep it under the rug and downplay. Rubiales doubling down was awful and it is kind of dystopian to see so much applause. He's the one playing a victimhood narrative, not Hermoso. Which is crazy! She didn't even talk about victimhood AT ALL until AFTER Rubiales basically lied about the kiss. I might add that Rubiales' version of events is in my opinion not supported by the video of the kiss, where they don't seem to have much of a conversation at all.
This is the key point behind why I bothered digging in to the whole timeline of things and making a whole effortpost. If you look at it all as the same big story, sure you might be inclined to say, yes this is just the media deciding to pillory someone with no due process and demanding blood for a minor infraction. But no, looking at her statement and the timeline, with the background of things not being very sunny within the Spanish federation and the players, it actually and fairly becomes a case of people in power trying to remain in power, especially in the world of soccer, which is well known to be an old boys club as well as infested with corruption on many levels, including FIFA. Far from victimhood being asserted by Hermoso, disproportionate to the actual harm or intent, it's Rubiales first trying to be a victim of persecution, as well as self-aggrandizing (note how many times he gives credit and glory to the federation and organization, rather than the players). Instead, Hermoso is only a reluctant participant in the whole debate who might have though it also wasn't a big deal and wanted to move on herself, until pressure and slander essentially forced her hand.
I don't know anything about the people involved. For me how we should assess this event basically comes down to the answers to a couple of questions:
More options
Context Copy link
To add to this, the Spanish women's team was already very unhappy with the Spanish federation.
They were in open protest before the world cup, and won by ignoring their coach's instructions and with half the 1st team 'exiled' from the squad.
They won despite Rubiales (who put his weight behind the coach). He was the villain in the story even before the kiss. (Yes, the team was that absurdly strong. Sort of like a USA NBA team)
The previous post annoyed me. It was written by someone who went looking for a culture war angle, and came out with the least charitable interpretation of the whole thing, just so it looked like SJWs had gone too far.
Some men deserve to cancelled. (or at least fired for gross incompetence)
This post and OP annoy me since they accuse others of looking for a culture war angle when they are doing the same thing.
I mean, I don't actually care about the Spanish womens national team. Like, at all. Never spared them a thought or wondered if their bureaucracy is efficient. It might as well not exist. But I am sure that if it were a mens team being retarded by some women in positions of power that I could muster up some ingroup bias to care. At least enough to add it as another mark against an outgroup. Hell, my carefree disposition of indifference towards this is all a product of my biases.
Point here being that I'm not here pretending that I'm not on a side even if this thing isn't emotionally animating. And I think it would do a lot of 'rational' minded people a lot of good to recognize how their indifference is not indifference at all.
If Rubiales was incompetent he should be removed on those grounds. But that's not what's going on. Instead the public incident is being used as a weapon to oust him. On that front, how can you say, from a culture war neutral perspective, that Rubiales isn't just playing an optimal power game? If his detractors wanted him gone, why not go after the actual substantive stuff? Instead they hand him this publicity stunt to play around with. Now they can't remove him without perceptions being that it's because of a kiss.
I don't think you realized how entrenched in corruption the various heads of FAs are and how widely they're despised by everyone. This is the perfect opportunity because his misdeeds are dragged into the limelight; nobody cares about Rubiales siphoning off millions for sex orgies or cocaine, this kiss made national news, and it's easier to pressure FIFA to remove him if it's on the front page of all Western media.
I can tell you don't follow football at all, this isn't a culture war issue at all. This is mainly about corruption within the RFEF and this is the perfect opportunity to get rid of Rubiales.
Casillas (the captain of the 2010 men's team who won the WC) has spoken out against him. Xavi has as well. Sergio Ramos has hated Rubiales when he was still captain. Florentino Perez absolutely fucking despises the man and despite being one of the most powerful people in Spain, he can't do shit to Rubiales.
Again, if you don't follow the sport, you may not realize how absolutely hated the heads of the FAs are across all nations. Fans and players will gladly use any excuse as a way to get rid of them. Argentina has just won the fucking WC, and people still hate Chiqui Tapia (he's even called "Chiqui Mafia" because of how corrupt he is).
The corruption is seriously disgusting and impossible to get rid of. You have shit like a 79 member body producing an anonymous 40-40 split of votes for the head of the FA.
Followed by
It can't be both. Either everyone knows and cares enough to despise them, or they don't.
Your comment sucks.
I know, from playing and watching plenty of football, that most people who watch don't care at all about corruption. They 'know' about it, sure, but they are not activists in any sense. Events like the Calciopoli corruption scandal in 2004 don't mean anything. People still show up to watch the next game and cheer for their side because it's a hobby. Every event is just more entertainment. And what else can you expect? Football is not a democratic thing.
You just don't have an argument. Which is why you need to leverage your culture warring with the appearance of being in the know, when all you are doing is projecting your own opinion into the world and trying to mold it around it.
But maybe that view of mine is wrong. To help me understand your position here: Do you not care about womens rights at all? Is this all just a shadow campaign to fight corruption?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, the entire chain of reasoning is "this dog is vicious: it bites when you kick it"
More options
Context Copy link
Removing people on purely substantive grounds is difficult even when you're right. Ousting power requires some level of opportunism.
Unilateral disarmament would be a noble if naive goal, but if you can excuse Rubiales' blatant lies you can just as well excuse an opportunistic ousting. Otherwise it's pure who-whom, and no point discussing further.
I'm not advocating for disarmament or lamenting the actions of Rubiales or the people who want him gone. I am lamenting the posturing of people here who are acting like they are just on the side of reason and common sense as opposed to the people 'waging a culture war' when in reality they are just waging a culture war from a different angle.
You can't call out the actions of Rubiales as being nefarious or less sympathetic, like was done by OP, because he is transparently playing out some power game when you then admit that the whole thing is a power play to begin with designed to get the guy fired.
You also can't point to some mild opportunism and say it delegitimizes all other complaints. That leads to pure who-whom, which sucks.
Your protest is like asking why the USG went after Al Capone for tax evasion instead of his actual crimes. The answer is obvious and it doesn't make him innocent.
That's not what is being done. You can be a SJW or an anti-corruption advocate or whatever thing it is in the culture war that animates you, just say that's what you are. Don't pretend to be one to pursue the other or some variation thereof.
It's not but whatever. If we know the witch floats why bother throwing her in the water? Maybe, if you can't oust a corrupt president or prosecute a guilty criminal for his actual crimes, the issue is broader than those specific individuals and throwing them to the dogs won't do much to solve it. In either case I am not impressed by people who insinuate they are acting better than others when they are transparently not.
This is disarmament. So you are advocating unilateral disarmament then? Unless your demand is only for your enemies, in which case yes they will of course ignore it.
They should just get off without any charges? If your commitment to due process and the impartial hand of justice is that great, you can't turn around later and defend Rubiales' because he's on your team.
I'm not advocating for lawless vigilantism or witch burning. I'm pointing out that one party engaging in power politics doesn't necessarily disqualify their legitimate complaints.
You need to explain what you mean by "disarmament". I don't understand what you mean.
That's the opposite of what I am saying. My point is that if your legal framework can't work itself around an obvious criminal then the problem might be with the legal framework.
And I'm saying there are two parties engaging in power politics and that makes it a fair game for both. I don't understand what you want here. I am very sure Rubiales thinks he has legitimate complaints as well.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I appreciate the writeup, but I can't help thinking you are just 'reading the phonebook' and not supporting your point. You go from:
To:
It seems your actual argument is not that SJW's have gone too far, but that they clearly have not gone far enough.
To that end I don't think you are playing a game all that different to the likes of Rubiales. As feminists in general have managed to poison their own position and ideology quite heavily. I can only have so much sympathy for people decrying men and their 'old boys clubs' when their alternative is just the inverse of that and worse.
Recognizing the beast he is dealing with, Rubiales could choose to fight or get eaten. He chose to fight. Telling everyone how good he would taste doesn't change anything.
The timeline is important because there's little evidence that Rubiales is actually a "victim" of anything, nor is actually in danger of losing his job, until he decides that angry confrontation is the way to go. It's only after that moment that he actually faces real attempts to remove him. Before that, it's all speculation, online noise, and "we'll look into it". Stuff we've all heard before and often leads to not much at all. It's only after his speech on Friday (which could have had more detail but I chose to skip) that we start seeing petitions getting passed around, that FIFA gets serious, that the Spanish government starts announcing inquiries, that other Spanish players start making comments or talking about boycotts.
The true story is not in the media recycling the same content and punishing a man for a minor infraction, but in the behind the scenes pressure campaigns and PR attempts that seem to sidestep the actual human relationships involved. Note that Monday morning during the flight, Rubiales is already focused on saving his job rather than making real apologies, and he hasn't even been subject to a full media cycle yet! It's been like 6 hours.
Him deciding to fight was not protecting "real victims of assault". It was not an innocent man trying to keep his job from an online mob. It was an in-your-face political stump speech about how great, infallible, and perfect he was. It's the self-important, self-dealing soccer establishment applauding themselves for a job well done while making zero attempt to help the actual players who actually won the damn trophy.
I never called him a "victim" so I don't know who you are quoting. I would appreciate if you didn't construct your paragraphs around 'quotes' that I didn't write.
Regardless of that, reciting the timeline accurately does nothing to change the fact that your original point is not in any way affected by it since the conclusion you reach is close to antithetical to it. So how it is important is still a mystery. Unless, of course, my original assumption was just accurate. In which case I would like to ask you to be more plain with what you are advocating for, rather than trying to hide it under the guise that it's something other than SJW activism.
This is a really annoying argument. We only have the timeline of events as they transpired. That timeline is not proof that if he had done something differently that things would have gone better for him. Citing it as if it were is, again, annoying. There are plenty of examples of people who gave a heartfelt sincere apology to the beast and where then immediately eaten.
As far as I can tell Rubiales is just as emotionally intelligent and socially savvy as the people who want to get him. He is also just as hungry for power and cognizant of appearances. On that front he seems to be playing the game as well as you can. Asking such a person for a sincere apology is about as smart as expecting the SJW mob to forgive him.
After all, if he were really sorry, he would resign, right? ;)
Just want to second the use of "quotes" to emphasize words with heavy connotation or specific contextual meaning, this (along with parathesis for snippets of slightly tangential information or ideas) are writing habits I picked up from commenting on SSC, probably copying some smarter/cooler person I read there (the / thing is another one).
I do that too but I don't use quotations, I either use italics or 'apostrophes'. It's not that I don't understand this practice, it's that I can't engage with a person without making it clear that what they are quoting isn't actually a quote.
It's doubly important when the person is using the quotation as a springboard to make an argument when that argument isn't relevant to anything I've actually said. But it sure does look that way when they are using quotes to start off their spiel.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Not all quote marks are really quotes, even if people in the forum like calling people out with them a lot. I like using them to draw attention to phrases or words that people use (or I am about to use knowingly) with particular baggage or specific connotations. In this case, I'm referring to Rubiales' own word in his Friday speech.
I read the news a lot and could watch things sort of develop. The furor got absolutely worse Friday after the statement. Want at least some evidence? Look at Google Trends and you can see things start to die down on Wednesday/Thursday, and spike Friday and double Saturday when he's actually suspended by FIFA, an action that to me seemed to be rushed out to satisfy public outcry (considering it had only been Thursday they announced a look into it). The search interest clearly indicates that traffic about the topic actually surpasses the original news bump Friday/Saturday. This is true for most all phrases I plug in having to do with the news. The curve can even be more dramatic. I know that Google Trends isn't a perfect examination method but it does reflect a bit how much people care.
This isn't the result of an "SJW mob" out to fire him (to use an actual quote of yours), and coopted by internal enemies. It's real people being upset about Rubiales, for example, alleging that anyone upset about the kiss is actually a (another actual quote from Rubiales) "fake feminist", and an implicit allegation that he blames Hermoso for not supporting him more, and the fact that people are fucking applauding someone who is showing zero contrition and instead going on the attack. Why is he being applauded?? Actually why? This guy just brought an absolutely massive embarrassment on the entire organization singlehandedly, even if it was totally innocent, so how on earth is he somehow a hero? Those things rightfully triggered disgust and though I cannot prove it, I can certainly make a valid claim that his post-kiss behavior is a worse problem than the kiss.
Now, does all that imply that I'd be happy with FIFA or the government or someone else giving him a harsher punishment because of his post-kiss behavior and lack of contrition? That's a harder question to answer. I'm not really sure, to be quite honest. On its face, that does seem to be an unequal application of justice. But practically, it would make sense. That's partly why I brought up the point about how there are apparently lots of other problems and mistreatment that has been swept under the rug that he might deserve to lose his job for.
If these are not my supposed to be quotes from me then I am at a loss as to what the relevance of the paragraphs is.
Doubling down on your annoying argument won't make it any stronger. How would Google Trends look if he had made a public apology? Don't know. All I can tell is that the media gave Rubiales another cycle and made it a big news story. People heard the news and googled Rubiales.
On that front what Rubiales did might make a bigger media splash than doing one of those pathetic apologies that never help the one who makes them. But how that is making things "worse" is still a mystery. People got more angry and that's bad because people being angry is bad? OK, but from the perspective of Rubiales who wants to keep his job, I don't think he made things worse for himself. That is unless you are assuming that people would just accept the apology. Which, in light of how much he was apparently disliked, I'm doubtful of. And considering how poorly apologizing has worked when the SJW mob comes knocking, I'm even more doubtful.
Yes it is. None of the arguments you give following your statement in any way impact the truth value of it so I'm just not going to bother with more.
How can he be an embarrassment if he is being applauded? Maybe SJW's think he is embarrassing, but their worldview is rather distorted as compared to some dude listening to the news. I know from listening to my colleagues that the more they hear about his antics and the more he sticks to his guns, the more they like him.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Very much appreciate all the information and commentary.
I don't think this addresses the concerns of the commenters. It's reasonable to imagine that the kiss, itself, just isn't a severe offense. It made her uncomfortable - how bad, exactly, is it to cause someone some level of discomfort? What specifically about the context of male/female, him being a boss, it being a kiss makes this worth firing someone over? To whatever extent he he misrepresented what happened in an attempt to save his career, that's bad, but it dodges this point - and if he's being unfairly persecuted, one might see that as understandable but misguided.
How much of her severe discomfort was contingent on culturally transmitted ideas that 'nonconsensual' things like this are really bad, as opposed to just 'somewhat bad'? Consider as an analogy Aella's post about trauma - where, supposedly, much of the negative feelings one has about childhood trauma come from how your culture interprets it. You justify Hermoso's response by claiming it is 'normal' - and, yeah, this particular cultural mode is winning, it is normal now, what one might contest is if it's correct, or the best approach.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's not really about the kiss and what's an appropriate punishment. It's more about the culture surrounding it and how it's dealt with that is highly problematic. The first instinct of the federation and of Rubiales is to lean on Hermoso to make a situation that Rubiales caused go away, and to try to guilt trip her and her friends and family into doing so (the coach apparently tried no less than three times on the plane trip). The second backup plan is to make the bare minimum apology, where the subtext is extremely loudly insisting that not only is the infraction so small, but also that people are just being jerks to insist on ruining the moment, and that his only true crime was being "too good at his job" or something. He likes to talk about the moment having "bad faith", but that's bad faith right there. At no point does Rubiales say something like "I made her uncomfortable", or talk about respect, or display any remorse. It's all "oops I guess I was caught". And then the Friday speech. Oh boy, the speech. It's throwing water onto a grease fire. I cannot understate how shocked I am that he's being applauded loudly by so many people in the room. At this point he has faced honestly very little actual repression. It's mostly online. People (rightly) think he's insincere.
But making such a fiery speech and claiming his own victimhood as more important and real than the victimhood of someone else, while behind the scenes him and his bureaucratic, domineering friends are the ones laying it on? Hypocrisy. He's the one that worsened the situation again further. The situation looks even worse for him if they did in fact fake the Monday quote from Hermoso (source here) which seems more likely than not. Hermoso herself and her family didn't seem to want it to be such a big deal based on Monday alone, or even during the week, refusing to be baited out by reporters on multiple occasions. Now of course the media might have been making things worse, but the only official action was FIFA beginning to look into it. It's important to note again that he's only actually suspended on Saturday, after he ignites the firestorm. I don't think that's a coincidence.
And of course the thing underlying it all: As Hermoso alludes to, and apparently a LOT of other players on the women's team believe, there were and are actual big issues going on behind the scenes in Spanish soccer that mean that it's not actually a given that Rubiales deserves to have his current job. The tip of the iceberg, as it were. In particular, there was a whole heavyhanded incident back in September where a group letter from 15 players resulted in the federation going public first and accusing the players of blackmail and trying to pull a coup on the coach, with bad feelings all around. For what it's worth, those tensions didn't appear to involve assault or anything like that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah, sorry chum but I don't see anything in your post that changes this from the he said she said nonsense I thought it was in the first place. She says he lied about asking for a kiss. Why is she more credible than him? Because you empathise with her more. Anyone who feels the opposite will find Rubiales more credible. But we didn't record that exchange so we'll never know. What we did record has Rubiales mouth blocked by Hermoso's head while they hugged, which would also be a good way to say a few things in a roaring stadium.
Also
This is how every public facing representative apologises. Minimise everything that happened. Nobody was hurt by it, it was just a mistake. And yet, he does own up to his mistakes. He calls them his mistakes, he says he is embarrassed for distracting from the team's victory. Should he have busted out a whip and struck his sin away? Obviously Rubiales desperately needs some pr person by his side to slap the side of his head every time he opens his mouth, but once again it feels like we are razing the countryside over a minor interpersonal conflict, which is what nearly every msm cancel culture crusade turns out to be.
Say what. So you think she didn't think it was a big deal except he said she said yes and that made it a big deal, because she was ok with the non consensual kiss but not ok with him claiming it was consensual, so after days of silence she released a statement denouncing the nonconsensual kiss?
Also why did this need a new thread?
Who politely asks for a kiss as a celebration?
Far more likely that he made a snap judgment that she wouldn’t mind and went for it. Which is the story she’s telling.
I’d find her less credible if she’d been righteously wading into the culture war side, but she’s been pretty reluctant.
More options
Context Copy link
have you ever won anything and celebrated ? You can barely hear you own voice. Now imagine that at WC scale in the greatest moment of your life.
You think in that moment, he went : "May I kiss you on the lips, deeply while shoving your face into mine mademoiselle ?" Ofc not. I would doubt his statement even if she corroborated it.
I haven't won a world cup, but I have been in roaring stadiums and arenas before. It reminds me of a Slayer concert I went to when I was young, because it was packed full of giant hairy angry dudes. But because nobody could hear anything over the music, people were having to talk right in each other's ears. And the way it evolved was incredible. At the start of the night it was awkward, and you'd watch the angry giants flinch constantly whenever they came close to contact with another angry giant. But as the alcohol flowed and the haze bloomed people got more comfortable, and by the end of the night everyone was hugging everyone. Sometimes to speak about something, but sometimes they just felt like a hug. It was beautiful. I hate the idea of throwing that away.
But back to this shit, if you watch the video there is a beat between the hug and the kiss where he appears to say two or three syllables. From what I'd heard he wasn't alleged to have said "May I kiss you on the lips, deeply while shoving your face into mine mademoiselle ?", he said "un beso?" and she smiled and nodded assent. I assumed this was going to come down to "he was holding her head and the movement of his hands made it look like she was nodding but she wasn't", but either way we will never know what exactly went down, and in situations like that I default to 'then it's none of my business'.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Well, if I'm honest part of my judgement is based on simply my experience of watching firsthand the Spanish-language videos, and my personal judgement of who to believe, but also there are two videos of different angles (which I saw but now can't find clean zoomed out links of because googling for original videos is a fucking horrible experience) that don't seem to support any real conversation between them. But it's also possible they had the conversation he claimed but she thought it would be a cheek kiss or a head kiss or something so it's not like any reasonable person is going to expect grabbing your whole head and planting a full on kiss on the lips in that situation?
I don't know how it comes across in my clumsy translation but all of his apologies were basically linked grammatically with some other excuse or with a connotation of "I have to" rather than "I want to". It's kind of the apology equivalent of being passive-aggressive.
That's pretty much right. She was fine being like, a little mistreated for the sake of not distracting from an awesome victory and celebrations. But when it morphed into a huge and deliberate misrepresentation, and him being so belligerent about it all, she felt she had to say something. My reading of her comments focuses on how she thinks it's more about him lacking respect for others than the actual vulnerability or any harm from the act itself. That Rubiales has created a "manipulative culture". And she realized that staying silent, rather than being a noble act, is in fact sending a message of impunity for bad actors to other women who might find themselves in similar situations. That's perfectly in keeping with for example the Wednesday release with the union, where she seems more interested in improving overall player conditions and a general sense of justice and being respected than an extraction of a specific punishment.
Because if there were true respect between the players and Rubiales, a kiss like that would be unthinkable.
I know next to nothing about the situation or the people involved. For all I know you're absolutely right about Rubiales, and he's an absolute creep. I'm actually quite inclined to believe that, as my opinion on people in elite positions tends to be rather low, but this single sentence made me do a hard-format and wipe everything you said prior to it from my mind.
To say that I disagree would be the understatement of the year, it's stuff like this that makes me believe progressivism is downright inhumane, and it's goal is to maximize human misery. Even granting you every other premise, and accepting your version of the events, this sentence is completely wrong. There's nothing unthinkable about a kiss like that, and there's no way it contradicts respect, even if it was unwanted and was the wrong thing to do. If there's warm blood running through your veins, you should at least be able to see a possible non-disrespectful reason for his actions.
There is an axiom in certain strains of Western feminism that male lust is inherently dehumanizing. That the male (lustful) gaze objectifies any and all women towards whom it is directed.
This academic paradigm has filtered out to the masses in various forms. Young men have all been exposed to the message that their sexual desires are in some way problematic and expressing them to women is in some way harmful to those women. "It is disrespectful to have any sexual desire for your female colleagues." is an unsurprising belief to come out of that environment. It obviously isn't a true belief, sexual desire and respect aren't actually linked in our psyche that way, but it's probably a useful belief in the post metoo era.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I like the new thread, he collected a lot more relevant information into one place where more people will see it.
Yeah but aside from this being a he said she said situation that can only end with everyone disappointed in everyone else (so I think we should talk about it less), any time we get multiple threads on a current hot topic I can't help but wonder what we might have talked about if everything had remained in one thread.
That said, I was pretty keen to read the new posts in that thread this morning myself, I understand the allure and the desire to get engagement you are unlikely to get in an older thread. And I agree this was a good op, whatever I think of the conclusions.
It could have been an error on my part. I just reached like 14k characters and was like, is this big enough to be its own thing? Certainly I put the effort in (translating sucks). I'm not sure that pure length + effort is a great heuristic for a top level comment but it seemed acceptable at the time to me, especially considering my point is more about the reaction to the kiss, rather than the dynamics of the kiss itself, though that might get lost in discussion.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link