Excellent summary and explanation of your view. Thanks for doing this.
Thank you! The Guardian writes it better than me:
No sister, just four brothers. A hug and a peck on the lips in our circle is a-okay for mom, nana, brothers, dad, close friends. Interesting when I read your and others’ posts, because ours is a very kissy subculture, no sexual nuance to these hello-and-goodbye pecks.
I have to wonder how Mrs. Rubiales felt seeing this happen.
I definitely know how I’d have felt seeing my husband force a kiss like that on an employee. Not to mention the look he gave her backside as she walked away.
I think Mr. Rubiales was feeling “sexy or horny” in his excitement and he behaved badly. I am glad that he will no longer be a boss of these young women.
Speaking for me only, I find it easy to imagine that many female athletes are lesbians. In fact, I know that many female athletes are lesbians. What I find hard to fathom is that a kiss from a man forced on a straight woman is somehow less upsetting than a kiss forced on a lesbian. I just don’t understand the perspective that makes that plausible.
Speaking as a straight woman, I would be less upset from an unwanted kiss from a woman than from a man. I’m not entirely sure why that is, honestly. Probably because the man is scarier.
I’m old enough that anything that happened in the 21th century seems recent to me.
If you look at that famous picture again, notice that her hand is balled into a fist. She’s trying to punch him in the face. Meanwhile, his left hand is braced to prevent her head from moving, while his right hand has a tight grip on her dress. I see it as a clear display of restricting her movement and forcing himself on her.
(What, in my opinion, creates the juxtaposition in the picture is that everybody in the background is smiling, and since you can’t see their faces, but they have youthful healthy looking bodies, there’s a lot of beauty in their embrace)
[https://veteransbreakfastclub.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Eisenstadt-photo.jpg]
That’s not how the U.S. justice system works. Presuming no prior criminal history (or other documentation) showing that this has been an ongoing problem with violating other people, he’d probably expect some form of probation (maybe a year), during which he might have to do things like have a psychological examination and complete any recommended treatment, abstain from alcohol and drugs (since his excuse was that he was really sauced), and maybe do some community service. And, of course, stay out of trouble.
The only time a person typically goes to prison on a first offense is when somebody is seriously hurt (if your first DUI kills somebody, you are going to prison. You might do jail if you cause other injuries). In the realm of sexual assault, first time prison might apply in serious cases, such as when accompanied by violence or threats of violence, or actual penetration, or when there is an especially vulnerable victim, such as a child or a mentally deficient person.
So, 1-4 years for a forced kiss by a first time offender isn’t likely.
But that doesn’t mean that sanctions aren’t appropriate, and it’s not invalidated by the copious examples where people got away with it.
Yeah–people are individuals with individual responses, and an actual response can vary from a predicted response. It’s possible that a straight woman would have a more traumatic response to a sexual assault from a man than a gay woman would, for example. A straight woman might find that the assault fucks up her previously-happy sex life by rendering certain acts triggering, in a way that a gay woman wouldn’t.
The victim’s general sexual preference is a distraction, nothing more; and the more it gets focused on, the closer we get to the victim blame game.
Yeah, i agree with this. It seems like an unhelpful thing to consider.
Yup. That said, I don’t think @Biffster is being intentionally victim-blamey or anything; it’s not bizarre to think that sexual orientation might be important. It’s not, but understanding why isn’t immediately obvious.
I disagree. I read Biffster’s post and immediately thought, “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” It was immediately obvious - to me, anyway - that the salient point was that Rubiales kissed and hugged Hermoso without her consent; her sexual orientation is irrelevant.
I perhaps should have said it isn’t immediately obvious “to everyone.”
IIRC the nurse in that picture did consider it a sexual assault.
Since it’s the dope and all, I have to comment that apparently she was not a nurse, but a dental assistant wearing the white uniform typical of her profession for the time.
ETA: her description reminds me of what happened in the Spanish football kiss. Except, she lived in a different time, where she had no agency over the matter.
They are divorced.
That was quick.
Well, no. She wasnt happy with it, but of course the words “sexual assault” were not used or even thought of back then. It was not consensual if that’s what you mean. And to her it was no big deal. That doesn’t mean it was okay.
The body language in Eisenstaedt’s shot contrasts sharply with the photographs of consensual kissing that appeared alongside it. Other couples are pictured collapsing into each other. Women are at ease, kicking their heels or hiking their knees into the air. Their arms are not trapped against their torsos. Men do not immobilize them in headlocks. Viewing all four of Eisenstaedt’s exposures in sequence, it becomes especially clear that Zimmer was defensively pulling down her skirt, not swooning in his embrace.
“It wasn’t my choice to be kissed,” she told one interviewer. “The guy just came over and grabbed!” Another reporter asked what she was thinking at that moment. “I hope I can breathe,” she said in local news footage since removed from the Internet: “I mean somebody much bigger than you and much stronger, where you’ve lost control of yourself, I’m not sure that makes you happy.”
But specific to your point about “sexual assault”. Maybe she didn’t use those specific words but whatever you call it, it was still assault and in modern terms she would probably use that word to describe the incident. And everything I have seen on it it was a big deal to her.
You must remember this
A kiss is not a kiss
A sigh is not a sigh
I was primarily asking for the opinion of others.
I will say, if I was on the bus and saw her smiling and showing off the kissing photo like that I would have been very surprised to later hear she had filed charges.