• World Cup TV kiss sparks social media debate on sexual harassment in China
    67 replies, posted
You are removing someone's autonomy when you assume that you know what they'll be okay with and judge others based on that assumption. The entire point of unsolicited sexual advances being bad is that you do not get to assume that someone wants it. It is entirely up to the recipient. What you're saying is that it's fine to remove someone's autonomy if you think they'll enjoy it. The issue is less how much they enjoy it and more they didn't have a choice.
He looked incredibly uncomfortable to me, like "how the fuck do I react in this situation?" He looked embarrassed and not appreciative at all, because he obviously didn't ask for those two women to kiss him and his body language in no way showed that he wanted that to happen in the first place. He might have a girlfriend, be married, or simply not appreciate random people invading his personal space, so why is it somehow okay to assume he's want to be kissed by an attractive woman? It's different than being in a party, drunk and having a good time - he was not giving off the impression he would be okay with that spontaneously happening, and assuming because he's a guy he'd appreciate it is ignorant. Have some empathy. Not everyone appreciates random physical contact regardless of the attractiveness of the person. Believing he should be okay with it builds a culture where people who aren't okay with it have to pretend they aren't bothered by it and bury those hurt feelings.
If we're going to accept that "it isn't as bad because the person probably wanted it done to them anyway" is a valid argument, I could use that logic to justify a whole lot of shit I don't think anyone here could get behind. Consent is a big deal.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to call a televised cheek peck an unwanted sexual advance considering there's obviously no intent to progress past the prank. As a general rule of thumb, if the sexual assault is comparable to something your grandmother would do, it's probably not very sexual. I also don't think it's an issue of "removing autonomy". Removing autonomy would be trying to deny someone the ability to react or behave how they wish. If he wants to tell them to fuck off or deny the kiss he's welcome to. All I'm saying is that we're looking at an instance where nobody was hurt or upset and trying to suppose that people should be upset about it.
I feel for the guy because if he is bothered by it he can't say so without being shit talked for being a pussy by a bunch of dumb asses.
It really does depress me that you guys think a kiss on the cheek is equivalent to sexual assault. Realise that if you'd feel uncomfortable in that situation then you're in a tiny minority of people, and if you asked them to stop they most likely would. It's about as sexually charged as a pat on the back. Like jesus christ, is this really the world we want to live in? Completely sterilised, devoid of human interaction and spontaneity?
Yes because spontaneity is bad and takes away peoples autonomy duh. Gotta ask for permission for everything these days because someone is gonna be mentally scarred forever because of a peck on the cheek.
God forbid you're ever greeted by a European. I suppose you'll be calling for them to be jailed too.
I'm sure as a reporter who presumably goes in the field often, this isn't the first time something like has happened to him. He might just be used to it happening.
a peck on the cheek is not sexual assault
amen
*Unless its a woman.
again this is just the constant regurgitation of grouping an entire gender suggesting they MUST respond in a certain way. you fail to respond as an individual. this korean man was smiling. you might not smile the same way but you are causing a non-issue argument. "it's not fair that women can complain and men cannot", this is a peck on the cheek.
You know what, you're right Duckmaster. Next time I'm kissed on the cheek by either a man or woman (it'll be happening at pride soon) I'll go straight to the police and demand that they're charged with sexual assault. They're reprehensible scum who deserve a place on the sex offenders registry and several years of imprisonment. (this is a future that you're advocating)
This thread is getting covered in snow because of you snowflakes! https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/460/9b4fb723-e147-4a52-b43e-485b9f370c77/download.jpg
I mean I may agree with that sentiment, but do you think a random man kissing a female reporter on the cheek would be taken so lightly? I'm all for spontaneity. What I'm against is double standards.
A peck on the check is as harmless as a hug. But maybe I'm just getting old.
I wouldn't consider this sexual assault, but I still think it shouldn't have happened. I don't think these women should go to jail for it, just like I wouldn't think a guy doing the same should, but I consider it wholly inappropriate and it shouldn't be waived off as "not a big deal." It's basically just a shit thing to do to a random person because you're assuming they'd be okay with it and putting them on the spot.
To everyone saying a peck on the cheek is harmless, I would like to remind them of the double standard: if a woman was kissed on the cheek by some random dude we'd be calling him an asshole and rightly so therefore the same must be said for the other sex
It wouldn't and hasn't been taken as lightly, but I don't think the right way of going about this is punishing innocent people in the name of upholding a single standard. There's also the consideration that women have to put up with creepy and dangerous behaviour by men on a daily basis. I'm not saying this doesn't happen to men by any means, but we're generally not in a constant state of having to keep our guard up. I don't have much interest in engaging in another debate about this, but that does need to be considered. The notion of abolishing double standards is certainly an admirable ideal that we should be working towards, but we need to consider the current societal context.
While both a peck on the cheek and a hug are mundane ways to greet someone, at the same time there's some level of interpersonal relation that justifies that. When you have someone's direct attention, something that could be considered undesired can be pushed away and prevented. When it happens without their attention, there's really no way to gauge their reaction because they're caught off-guard regardless of whether you know them or if they would have given you an 'okay'. The guy went to his job expecting world-cup reporting and expecting people to be celebrating, so within the context he's not taken aback by the situation. He played it off rather calmly because he was more-or-less prepared for people to be doing celebratory things -- probably not expecting himself to be involved with those things even tangentially, but still prepared. While not even close to sexual assault, it should've at the very least been a 2-sided interaction instead of one where it was put upon him spontaneously. Even as simple as grabbing his attention beforehand rather than approaching from his blindspot.
That reasoning is reminiscent of the "can't be racist against whites" rhetoric. You don't get to use "context" as an excuse to enforce double standards. If women want this sort of stuff to be considered sexual harassment when it's done against them, then they should abide by it as well. I agree with you that this would lead to a sexless, boring society (and from what I've heard some countries like Germany are heading that way), but anybody who's up in arms about sexual harassment against women even when it's just benign shit like this should condemn this as well.
Why are we not able to just recognize that it's way creepier and aggressive for a man to kiss a woman unsolicited than the other way around? It's so obvious and intuitive and you're ignoring it to make a political point.
I don't really agree with men being punished for doing it to women either though, whether in a court of law or public opinion. I'm just saying its worth considering why women may not be as comfortable with it, thus why men should arguably be more cautious of doing it than women. Either way, if I was kissed on the cheek by someone I didn't wish to be kissed by, I'd ask them politely to stop and escalate matters if they refused. I think this is generally good practice for either gender.
Because if that's all you're going to characterize the comparison with, it's not? What's creepier about a man celebrating and pecking some woman's cheek by surprise before going about his business and never bothering her again, than a woman doing the exact same thing? If it's so obvious to you, you shouldn't have any issue with explaining why one is creepier despite both having the exact same motivations and behavior.
I'd suggest you talk to some women about how frequently they have to deal with sexual harrassment in comparison to their male counterparts, and then you should understand why they're more wary. Like you said, it's likely that the intention is completely innocuous and I'm a strong proponent of giving people the benefit of the doubt, I'm simply stating that men should understand why they should exercise more caution. You're approaching this from a completely egalitarian ideal that I wholeheartedly share, but unfortunately society currently isn't egalitarian. It's only in the past few years that women have been in a position to fight back and call out the bullshit that they've had to endure over the years. That being said, I do think that the woman in this video is overreacting. A simple "please don't do that" would have sufficed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSS8Z0rGDK0
Because men sexually assault women more than vice versa, men are typically more sexually aggressive and/or sexually desperate, men are generally more violent in general, men are generally bigger and stronger than most women? You're being intentionally obtuse for the sake of making a point and ignoring the reality of the world we live in. Double standards are typically bullshit but in this case its less of a double standard and more of a common sense understanding of reality and the fact that sexual violence against men and women, while both valid and existing, aren't directly comparable phenomena.
At the end of the day everyone's boundaries should be respected and nobody should have to tell "don't do that" more than once, but I disagree. Men shouldn't have to exercise any more caution than women. Context doesn't justify putting more responsibilities on one's shoulders while letting the other do as they please. Saying that respectful men should be more cautious when approaching women than women when approaching men just because females deal with harassment more often is the same reasoning as saying that law-abiding black men should be more cautious when interacting with police officers than white people just because black men are statistically more likely to commit crime. Neither should have to. In both situations, the other party is guilty of fundamental attribution error. It's not the man/black person's fault they are being perceived wrongly.
I'm not so sure if it was in the exact context and not a drunk football fan coming in for a huge smooch or something.
Idk, you make a very good logical argument but I still feel unchanged in my view of the situation. The comparison to racial bias is a really good point but at the same time I can't really help but view this double standard as being justified. Maybe someone else can rationalize my thought process better than I can, maybe not, but I find it reasonable and intuitive that a man kissing a woman out of the blue is worse than the reverse. Maybe because the trope of women giving celebratory cheek pecks to men is something of a cultural symbol? I don't know, but I'll at least grant that the pure logic of your post is solid. I guess I just don't want to live in a world that's purely logical in areas like these, to the point that I'm willing to make an exception and ignore logic here. That's probably not a good thing.
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