Since I’ve done none of those things with regards to Mr. Franken I can’t see why I’d do them for Mr. Trump.
I can see that I might say “I don’t think he’s touching her in that photo”, tho, if I were to offer an opinion.
If it involves sexual derision/mockery, or simulated sexual assault? Absolutely. Do you disagree with that?
For close friends the rules might be different, depending on the friendship. But they weren’t close friends.
It is? :dubious:
What if Mr. Franken had just made bunny ears behind her head with his fingers? Would that have been wrong, too? Or is it just the sex joke part that you find objectionable?
Given that she was wearing a flack jacket, I would say that the lack of depression in the material indicates, to me, at least, that even if there is actual physical contact there, he is a long way from genuinely touching her in any meaningful way.
However, she did say that the picture made her feel violated. Even if he did not grope her, the suggestion that he might have made her feel bad. Hence, the technicalities of the picture are not very important in the context of how the subject felt upon viewing it, what it might have been intended to convey and what it actually conveyed to her.
I have seen french kissing on screen. She consented to a kiss. She put no limits on the scene until after. Reasonable limits, certainly, but this was indeed* “acting” on stage. *
The picture is a diferent story, it is in extremely poor taste,* at best.
*
I do not disagree with that.
So your position has qualifiers, then?
If Mr. Franken had made bunny ears behind her head with his hands, would that be objectionable? What if he had simply sat next to her and the picture was taken?
No consent, so that would still be a violation, in your view, right?
the continuation of the puritianism of the americans is very strange.
I find a lot of it objectionable and so does Franken, who apologized. What I find most objectionable are the entitled men who are helping to maintain a culture of sexual assault.
Criminey, there have been a lot of ridiculous comments in this thread, but this one reaches a pinnacle of ridiculousness.
almost as strange as this post. Can you elaborate?
Couldn’t agree more! Losing a career years in the making has become the de rigueur punishment for any and every PC offense these days, and a more level-headed, proportionate response is long overdue.
Behaving in oafish or boorish or moderately sexually inappropriate ways with women is wrong and deserves censure, and punishment by law when appropriate, but figuratively speaking we’ve gotten to the point now where we’re cheerfully and lustfully dishing out death penalties for a whole range of offenses from jaywalking to car theft.
Why can’t anything involving social change in this country ever seem to happen with at least a modicum of reason?
And speaking of which, I’d suggest a far more effective approach would be to also focus on educating men as to why this kind of behavior is worse than they realize from the woman’s point of view. I think most men don’t have any idea that coming on too strong or groping a woman is or should be that big a deal to the women involved. They know it wouldn’t be a big deal if it happened to them, so in their mind it isn’t or shouldn’t be that big a deal to women either and at worst amounts to little more than a momentary annoyance and most likely soon forgotten about.
Men and women simply live in different worlds when it comes to sex, and if you want to change men’s attitudes toward women rather than just moderate their behavior to whatever minimal level they think they can get away with, education is the key. Otherwise it’s like you’re trying to straighten teeth with a hammer and accomplishing very little apart from appearances.
you have a very puritanical culture. It is strange to observe.
Because a large percentage of us feel that it is inappropriate to objectify women?
Aren’t you in the Middle East somewhere? I don’t remember.
Threads like this are why I never understand when people claim the Dope is a liberal board. If anything, the Dope is an old white guys’ board and the culture you can track the culture passing them by in real time.
Y’know, just last week I was thinking: “Liberal poster-boy politician to be exposed in gross & lewd conduct in 3…2…1…” Never expected to be Franken, and I am a big fanboy, oh woe.
Pretty much same. Although what with the kiss story, if someone’s a lout and a cad you call him a lout and a cad.
Irrevokably? Irredeemably? Just to clarify, since there will be many of the opinion that, depending on the offence, sufficient atonement may be made.
that a large percentage of you treat any sexuality touching on women as some potential victimization and there is the embedded idea of the woman as being damaged and victimized by sexualities…
I can assure you, in youth I had experiences here that are called with various harsh words, stupid young men… I do not feel a victim and I find the american attitudes to be very strangely prudish and puritanical.
it is strange to observe, its contradictions.
I don’t think there’s any point, the picture kills him. He was being an ass, and it was caught on film, and now there is this discussion about whether or not she was groped like that means something in terms of political capital. It is hard evidence of lewd behavior that will hang over everything he does. So I suspect he’s all done.
I’m using “violation of consent” as a shorthand for “violation of consent with regards to sexual/intimate use of one’s body and/or presence”. Bunny ears might be objectionable, or maybe not, but it has nothing to do with violation of consent in this context.
I’m not sure what your point is, though. Franken didn’t do bunny ears – he groped or pretended to grope her.
I don’t know – maybe there’s a way back with sufficient genuine contrition and long and hard effort to make amends. But in the moment just after the violation of consent is revealed? Yes – zero tolerance, which means resigning/booting. IMO.
What’s the problem with this? Why do we need to tolerate this stuff?