Thursday, March 29, 2018

Famed Times Square V-J Day Kiss, Like, Totally Problematic Rape Culture And Stuff

Over to you, Victory Girls...

posted by Winston Smith at 9:50 PM

3 Comments:

Blogger The Mystic said...

You know, this one is actually a tough call, if you ask me. Unhesitating dismissal of the "feminist" position expressed here strikes me as plausible evidence that one is overreacting to neo-feminist insanity with some of one's own.

It's pretty unquestionable that spontaneously grabbing a random person and kissing her qualifies as some form of assault. We might fairly characterize it as sexual assault so long as we know to distinguish it properly from other forms of sexual assault (like rape). Here, the neo-feminists are obviously treading dangerous ground in characterizing this as a part of "rape culture."

And I know when I look at this image, I like to imagine that the gravity of the situation resulted in some sort of suspension of normal codes of conduct to some degree. I mean, we had just literally saved the world from Nazis. That's pretty huge. A man who was himself compelled to risk his life for this cause is now experiencing an unimaginable release of tension, and it resulted in this. At the very minimum, some leniency should be granted to his undue actions here.

Simultaneously, this does reek of exactly the kind of thing which concerns sane and insane feminists alike; it is not unreasonable to consider this an example of a woman being objectified as a spoil of war. That the kiss is due to the homecoming hero, or that the woman is obligated to provide it, is certainly not a morally permissible position.

In my estimation, this is a conversation where it is very important that cooler heads calmly prevail; where the gravity and extreme circumstances in which this kind of infraction occurs are seen to, at the very least, make understandable the infraction in a way that precludes one from going so far as to declare it evidence of "rape culture." Furthermore, that same set of circumstances makes understandable the inclination to view this action favorably; it is an iconic representation of the joy of overcoming fascism bent on destroying the world. Had the act been consensual, the image would be one of history's more perfect moments captured on film.

Nonetheless, holding that the act is morally unacceptable, seems correct to me. It is never permissible to do what the sailor here did. But, given the circumstances, I do not think it is reasonable to condemn him too strongly, so long as he does not hold the belief, in his cooler moments, that his action was completely permissible.

I think it's that position which must be articulated. We have to maintain that we recognize the incident's moral failure, while simultaneously recognizing the limits of what can be inferred from that failure when considering the circumstances in which it occurred.

9:32 AM  
Anonymous darius jedburgh said...

Winston, I want to emphasize that I agree with a great deal of what you say and am often sustained in my daily struggles by amusement at the way you say it (especially by the casual asides, actually, like 'NPR... so it's kind of cheating...', 'science and its cisobjective phallogophobic ciswhite whitewhitewhitey whiteness' etc)

Why, then, do you have an impression of me, as you surely must, as a thorn in your side, constantly carping and bitching and moaning? The answer is simple, of course: you only hear from me when I disagree!

Which brings me to this post. I'm afraid I am of virtually one mind with the esteemed Mystic on this one. And like the E. M., I do understand why this latest verdict on history issued by the always-in-session Tribunal of Enlightened Progressiveness would tend to make you lose your sh*t. For it is indeed an emblem of victory, at great cost and over monstrous evil, that is being called into question here. But I think that our traditional reading of the picture as an inspiring moment of exuberant jubilation does depend on an assumption that the kiss was at least more-or-less consensual. I say 'more-or-less' because if the sailor simply grabbed the girl (as seems to have been the case) but she found herself transported by the assault and overjoyed at being part of such a spontaneous expression of joy, this might have counted as a kind of 'lucky consent' which would not make the sailor strictly less culpable but would have made his action less bad, in an arguably morally-lucky way. (Notice that this is already a thought that feminism, for obvious and to-an-extent-understandable reasons, takes itself to be unable to afford to regard as admissible.)

But given that she really was just an unwilling participant, I don't really see any case against seeing the whole thing as a case of assault, in just the way that the Tribunal has decreed. The decree is an entirely predictable eye-roller, but, you know, even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day. And I don't think 'She should lighten up, we just defeated an actual Axis of Evil and saved the world' is really going to cut it. Speaking from experience, being forcibly kissed by a drunk person is a very unpleasant experience in any context, and I could easily imagine it putting a bit of a crimp even in one's VJ Day.

2:48 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

JEEEEEEEEEDBUUUUUUURRRRRRRGH!!!!!!

[Yelled to the skies after the style of:

https://youtu.be/wRnSnfiUI54?t=17
]

Also:

et tu, Mystic?


I'm not exactly sure why you guys think I think what you think I think on this one.

I actually thought it was kind of an interesting / unobvious case...until I read that the woman in question is obviously happy about her role in it.

Moral luck? Sorta. But I'm not exactly sure. To some extent, yes...but we're basically talking about a different culture here, and a very unusual event (V-J day, that is). Why think that we're not the weirdos for thinking that there's something intolerable about a spontaneous kiss that worked out for the best...and produced a beloved slice of history in the form of an admirable piece of art?

Moral luck is, to some extent, I think, a matter of probabilities. And it's in no way clear to me that it's reasonable to get our 21st-century, have-little-real-idea-what-it's-like-to-win-a-world-war-against-evil panties in a wad about it. Then and there...and even here and now...a lot of people might very well be just fine with it. And the actual woman in question *was* just fine with it. I rather worry that what we have here is the most uptight sector of humanity making a ruling on what the saner, more numerous sector of humanity ought to approve of.

So...while I do realize that being on the receiving end of non-consensual kissing can be bad...though I'll point out: it can also be NBD...I'm really not very sympathetic with trying to make the point with respect to this picture. It strikes me as a bit perverse and crazy, honestly. Though before finding out about the kissee's attitude, that wasn't the case.

And, at the risk of breaking character: the thorn-in-my-side act is just an act, DJ.

Y'know...mostly...

3:14 PM  

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