It’s happened to me. Anecdotal, I know. (and I did not know her)
Even if unwelcome I would not call the cops on her and have her jailed for sexual assault.
ETA: Happened twice
She just did it again while you were posting?
I’m sorry that happened to you. We obviously travel in different circles.
I didn’t call the cops when a stranger groped me on the subway, either. It was still wrong of him to do it. When my friend was pickpocketed in Paris he didn’t call the cops, either. That doesn’t mean he’s okay with strangers taking stuff from his pockets. Your focus on “calling the cops” seems a little weird. Lots of minor aggressions aren’t worth calling in authorities.
It really was not memorable because I didn’t spend the rest of my life thinking I was sexually assaulted.
Have you considered that you might feel differently if it had been a man much bigger and stronger than you who held your head so you couldn’t move while he kissed you on the lips?
As in the OP? I’d be fine. I would not feel assaulted. Sexually or otherwise. It was a MWAH. A peck. Not tongue wrestling.
If that guy has a history of skeevy behavior fine. I don’t think this is the straw on the camel’s back.
And that is entirely your choice.
ISTM in the thread sone people are assuming some sort of absolute binary in which the only choices are everybody in every instance gets criminally punished hard, or nobody does. Just because this sort of assault MAY carry a 1-4 year penalty does not mean it always must.
But if the law says behavior X is punishable, the person who finds him/herself subjected to it is legally and morally justified in pursuing that redress. Let the court decide what is deserved.
…
I also see here a bit of something I’ve noticed, in many of these discussions: because in English we tend to refer to any lawbreaking that carries a penal sanction as “crime”, we often forget that within this there are different gradations of misconduct (felony, misdemeanor (and degrees within those), administrative infraction, etc) that anyway do merit corrective or punitive action.
And we all very often assume that the severity of sanction expected under our own country’s laws or our own social group’s mores is the “right” one.
I remember having a desperate crush on a girl when I was fifteen. As I sat beside her at a club (the eighties were a different time), she said, “If a guy likes me, I just want him to kiss me, he doesn’t need to moon about,” or something like that.
I didn’t, because I was painfully shy; instead, I just sat there feeling miserable and humiliated. It wasn’t until much later that I started thinking about how what she was asking for was for guys to violate consent.
The laws and norms now are much better; and I certainly don’t rely on a teenage girl to have a deep and incisive analysis of consent, much less a teenage girl growing up in the eighties.
But I do wonder how common her attitude is, today, among women.
Yeah, that doesn’t change the sexual aspect, but it makes the assault portion much worse.
A guy who had a crush on me once leaned in and kissed me unexpectedly, and then ran off. (We’d been saying goodbye.) He didn’t get consent, but that wasn’t really expected by the standards of the time. That wasn’t at all threatening. I knew him, his intent was obvious, and he certainly didn’t restrain me. If he had given me time to consent, i would have.
I would advise young men of today not to do that, because our social guidelines around consent have improved a lot in the 50 years since that incident. But if i ran into that guy today, i wouldn’t hold it against him.
…do you think that the legal system should hinge on what you personally feel and believe?
It worries me more that it should hinge on what you believe.
Moderating:
Back off of the personal exchanges here. Debate the subject and not the posters please.
This was from the above exchange by @Banquet_Bear & @Whack-a-Mole but applies to all in the thread.
This topic was automatically opened after 21 minutes.
Morgana, the kissing bandit: Example in popular culture of a woman jumping in to kiss a man without consent. Many times. Very publicly.
AFAIK she did not forcibly grab anyone’s head nor kiss them on the lips, but it’s still sexual assault. I do not condone, merely providing the example asked for.
There is a video of him apparently groping a female staffer. And he did grab his crotch on the field, which is certainly questionable conduct IMHO.
Yeah, that was typical growing up in the 80s around here. The idea of asking for a kiss was – by the girls I knew – considered to be a thing, um, let’s use the word “cowards” did. Thankfully, those attitudes are changing. (Though I went along with them, growing up in that culture.) Also, if a girl kissed you or touched you out of the blue – as a male – it was considered a knock on your manlihood if you complained about it. It’s happened to me three times (and one more time when a male did that to me), but none involving people with a power dynamic (as in the OP). I grew up with it, so in my cultural context, I really didn’t think anything of it, but, nowadays, I’m glad that bodily autonomy is becoming more respected and the norm. (Hopefully.) It’s just better for everyone involved.
If he had grabbed a 14 year old girl and done that I’d start considering jail time. In this case I don’t think jail is appropriate based on just the simple act of kissing a woman on the lips without her permission in this circumstance, but if he has shown a pattern of disrespecting people’s physical autonomy in broader circumstances then there could be more to consider. And now in the COVID era this act is more offensive and potentially harmful. If the act meets the simple description of a rude man acting inappropriately then jail is not justified for a single offense. Let’s see if the picture gets more complicated.
That is not Rubiales, that is the coach of the women’s team Jorge Vilda, who has already been fired. I believe Rubiales was his direct boss.
Ah, you’re right. I conflated the two in my head. Still, it doesn’t speak well for the atmosphere on the team.