Statue of WW2 kiss vandalised after US sailor's death

[zukriuchen]

The argument here is "this seems to happen" and nothing else, how is anyone to address this?
I don't know what you're getting at, though it looks like a bit of a contradiction. Why yes, we can speak on how things should have been, the fact that people throughout history have done so is why things are no longer that way. You say the culture of the time silenced women from speaking out, and we can call it awful... but we can't call it awful if it's an example from that time? Am I getting this right, as if, we had to live by those standards forever?

A historian should set aside modern-day moral judgments when studying a period, yes, and everyone, historian or not, should understand these standards forever, which is different from using them forever, the same way we do not use the standards of the slavery period and judge blacks as subhumans when looking at that era, because that'd be insane
People aren't disagreeing with you because they're too dumb to understand you. That's the message you deliver when you assume it's not that they have a well thought out issue with how you present these points, but that they require it explained in "the most laymans terms possible". Even though it isn't your intention to convey that you think you're arguing with idiots, it's conveyed nonetheless.

Likewise, the sailor had nothing but good intentions. Many men, from a period where predatory sexual conquest was the norm, thought their intentions were good when grabbing women like objects. Many from a period where beating your wife was expected for the sake of "discipline" imagined they had good intentions, too. And at a time when marital rape was not even considered real, as it was a wife's "duty" to submit to her husband, I am sure plenty of rapists figured they were only doing what was correct. Intentions do not always translate into consequence. The statue here memorializes assault, whether intentional or not, and if the popular opinion becomes seeing it for what it was, rather than what it was perceived to be, intention won't change that.
There is a single person in this thread saying the picture should not be a part of history, and he got dumbed to hell and back, including by me. But even he isn't demanding we cut it out of history books, no one is. So why this argument? It will remain something that should, and will, be studied. Its iconography is undeniable, the point here is simply whether its meaning will remain the same, not that its previous one will be erased.

Here's a Reddit comment that was featured in an extra episode of The Great War, on YT, about the 1989 British sitcom "Blackadder Goes Forth"

People have a tendency to attribute to Blackadder military history, when what we should be attributing to that show is cultural history. It is a product of the attitudes and concerns of its time. It exists to speak to a specific audience and tell them a story which has meaning for them. In some ways it sets what people think of the history of the First World War, but in many other ways it simply reflects it.
What people believed happened has as real a set of consequences as what actually did happen. Historians would be incredibly foolish to study the one without the other.

And I agree! There is no reason why the sailor's picture shouldn't be taught in school books, lectures and documentaries. It did become symbolic of a romantic moment, even though it was an uncomfortable, predatory one. It came to represent the end of the war, the joy and excitement that came with it, that is how it was perceived, and that perception matters. I don't want to erase that and I think very few people would, and you shouldn't presume that's what you're arguing against unless it has been said. I'd have no problem, however, with these 2005 statues being taken down, their historical value is not the same as the picture's, and the new revelations mean that what they immortalize is extremely awkward and quite sexist, whether or not that's the intention. However that's up for the local populace to decide.

[W4S9]

I see.

Thank you for explaining in depth.