To think this isn't sexual assault...

[harerunner]

I saw a story on the BBC about Jenni Hermoso testifying in a sexual assault case about her kiss with Luis Rubiales. Not having seen the kiss, I decided to look at a video of it, a link of which I've put below.

Firstly, i need to say I think sexual assault is extremely serious, and it's appalling how low the conviction rate is for sexual crimes. Men get away with far too much, and it's sickening.

However, in all honesty, i wouldn't class the kiss here as sexual assault. This is a lengthy full body embrace followed by a very brief peck of a kiss.

If something like this is classed as sexual assault, then it surely makes it impossible to initiate anything physical at all without explicit verbal consent.

Surely there's much more to this... i reckon she hated the guy before this incident and this was a way to get him back for other shitty and belittling treatment from him over the years.

AIBU?

Male footballers do it all the time and it's not considered sexual assault. I mean, they're usually laddish working class guys so a pretty macho demographic.

You get worse & worse with every post. Dear God.

Actually, I agree. I wasn't thinking straight. Someone did this to me in a pub about a month ago and I was so taken aback I did not know what to say or do. Didn't kiss me but put his arms around me as if I was ok with it - someone I only know at the pub. DH asked why I had let it happen - he was sitting a bit away and I was standing, going to the bar and he did not have time to intervene - and I said I had not realised what was happening till it happened. Felt an utter twit and will be extremely wary of this man next time I see him at the pub. (NB he left at once and not seen him since).

I mean, if it is sexual assault then it's clear that nobody takes males victims seriously.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2016/04/13/570e7dade2704ede688b4621.html

OP you keep saying "she's gone to court" "she's pressing charges".

She's not. It's the Spanish legal system that has deemed a crime has potentially taken place. It's the Spanish prosecutors who are pursuing a trial. She's a witness.

This thread stinks of misogynistic blaming "why is she being so difficult about a little kiss". None of this is her decision. Disagree with the Spanish prosecutors if you like but your argument is with them. Hermoso has no ability to say a crime has taken place, she can only describe what happened to her, which she has.

Literally nobody is stopping them complaining about it if they want to.

I for one would fully support a man who said he felt that being grabbed and held by the head and kissed against his will was assault.

Why is it important to you that women don't see being grabbed and held by the head in order that they are forced to accept a kiss as assault?

@ElephantMilk
I was referring to your comment about your relatives kissing you and you've now realised that it was sexual assault. That comment was definitely minimising sexual assault

Male footballers grab each others heads and kiss each other on the lips all of the time? Not at any of matches I've been to.

Of course it was sexual, otherwise where are all of the videos of him kissing male footballers after their successes?

YABU

He was absolutely out of order. Whether it's criminal or not I suppose that's a decision for the courts.

YABU. And with that attitude it's no wonder more women don't come forward. It was unwanted sexual contact.

Well saying there isn’t an actual poll we can vote on. It’s a resounding YABU.

The video doesn't show how the hug was instigated, so I can't comment on that, but forcibly grabbing someone's head with both hands and kissing them on the lips is not normal or acceptable behaviour, and yes, I would class it as assault.

If you look at ElephantMilk's list, one entry says that the player who did it got a yellow card for kissing an opposition player. It was his second yellow of the match, so he was sent off afterwards.

@SouthLondonMum22

To be clear, if he or anyone else kissed a man in the same way, without consent, it is sexual assault.

The added dimension of a man, in a position of a authority, kissing a women, is power & possible physical imbalance, as well as the legacy of social conditioning, so ably demonstrated in @ElephantMilk inane posts, that deems it acceptable to do this to a woman.

Kissing on the lips is an extremely common form of celebration in football and one that many managers would probably do without thought in a moment of elation, especially if they've been doing this to men for years. This is just the truth.

It may be something that needs relegated to the history books if players start to find it inappropriate but there's no sexual intent there. It just reminds me of all the fuss about the Lioness who took her shirt off and ran around in her bra as a goal celebration. People were aghast but it's exactly what male footballers have done for years.

The manager just needs a good talking to and if he continues then that's a different matter. But framing this as sexual assault is just an insult to genuine victims IMO.

One of the list is also actually a bite, not a kiss.

I wouldn't feel as if I had been sexually assaulted if this happened to me.

Each to their own though.

It is definitely sexual assault.

Of course. I agree.

What makes it any less a sexual assault than what the footballer endured? I was a minor and it happened countless times over a number of years.

@ElephantMilk

It's utterly irrelevant what you deem as 'extremely common'

Unwanted sexual contact, without agreement, is not acceptable. It has never been acceptable - it's just that slowly, more is being done about it.

Whether physical contact takes place between male players / managers or not is not the issue here. If it happened and was unwanted, it's also assault.

But there's a specific case of assault here so stop engaging in whataboutery.

So me saying it's likely inappropriate in today's world is 'deeming it acceptable'?

It's entirely possible for it to be inappropriate without being sexual in any way. Unless we're saying he sexually assaulted her by accident without any sexual intent.

'then it surely makes it impossible to initiate anything physical at all without explicit verbal consent.'

I'm astounded you think this is an outlandish idea. Yes YABU, it was sexual assault, she had no choice in whether to take part in this intimate act, she was forced and that is assault.

Don’t need to watch the video. It was SA