He did something that would have been unacceptable then and now, however: a) war had just finished, making the circumstances just a tad unusual, and b) it was only a damn kiss. Something that, even today, although you might not believe it when all you do is read policor morality disguised as newspaper columns, people easily get over with.

Trillian Astra: I love when threads like this devolve into something horribly polarized

Should he have kissed a random woman? No. Just because it was a different time with different values and different norms, doesn't mean it was right.

Should we take the photo as a piece of history and stop trying to over analyze it? Definitely. For f*cks sake, it happened how long ago? It's a picture that has been turned into a piece of art and is therefore different things to different people. If someone wants to think it's romantic, let them.

Are women better off now than they were back in 40s as far as rights, power, and equality? Yes. The feminist movement has done a lot for women as far as rights and equality goes. There's still room for improvement, but it won't happen until some people realize not every feminist is a man-hating spinster and until other people realize not every man who has misconceptions about feminism is a misogynistic cad.

I like you a lot. The only thing I'd like to address is your middle point. As a budding academic, I increasingly deal in completely esoteric and boring things. The kinds of things I bust my ass to write at 3am for my supervisor have little to no bearing on the politics of the world or even the mainstream interests of the public. I'm not doing any harm, even if I write a blog about it (which I don't... no time). If I was a feminist art historian or the like, I can easily see myself looking into romantic photography, or the depiction of sexual behaviour pre-1950 in photography, or anything similar. I may well write a blog post describing how the 'run-up-and-kiss-a-stranger' photographs are actually a bit creepy when viewed in this day and age.

Now, I wouldn't intend for that to end up reported in a national newspaper. I wouldn't be saying that it's more important that the wage gap or 'legitimate rape'. I would just be going about my esoteric, mildly-interesting feminist academic business. I don't think this woman, whether her argument is baseless or not, should be vilified as though she's decided that this is the most important issue in the world today, and as if she has power over whether the Daily Mail writes an article on her, or even that she thought more than 2 people would read her blog post.

tl/dr: academics (and bloggers) write on unimportant things all the time. We don't claim they're important. It's the newspapers and traffic that makes it so.

rape hysteria has no bounds it seems.

/i sexually assaulted the gf not 30 mins ago.

theoutlaw: wage gap

is a complete myth that has been debunked so thoroughly and so many times that i am amazed people still parrot it.

Bathia_Mapes: bojon: I would think that if she did not like it, she would not have met up with him several times over the years to discuss the photo.

Exactly.

Unless she wanted to quietly let people know that she did not want that kiss and had no control over it, like she is quoted as saying in the article.

Big Man On Campus: [media.thespec.com image 400x300]

5-to-1 that ten years from now, feminists will be calling this rape.

I think at least one has.

With a name like Greta Zimmer Friedman, I would bet she was beyond excited that WWII ended.

You can always tell when a "movement" has jumped the shark when it starts running out of things to wipe it's ass on. Sadly, we're in about decade three of that. Ladies? The actual movement achieved it's goals rather early on. The billion dollar industry and "ewww wah!", entitlement and misandry fest it's become demeans us all. And I pity the cheapness of the dime store drama that those who carry on sifting through the ashes so keenly need to stir up.

Genevieve Marie: Yea, this isn't worth it. I'm going to go back to watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on netflix.

I am a little confused by Fark's application of the hate speech rule in threads.

Ah feminists, their own worst enemies.

StreetlightInTheGhetto: ComicBookGuy: Doesn't an erect dick need to be slamming into an unwilling vagina or asshole for something to be sexual assault?

No. Off the top of my f--king head a broomstick and the nypd would beg to differ. This woman is overreacting to get attention which is what she wants. That doesn't f--king discount actual sexual assault which is more than rape-rape, or for that matter harassment.

Yeah, catcalls are 'fun'. But when you can't go on a goddamn run or bike ride w/o hearing one, or can't walk five blocks to an important job interview w/o hearing one... it unsettles you *and* gets tiring as f--k.

/GettingTFO of this thread before I have an aneurysm.

It must SUCK to be hot!!!!! Never not being including in social gatherings, never having sexual frustration, getting paid more than your non not colleagues, etc!!!

Wait...non not ...you iknow where

Wait, that's a chick?

EchoMike: Better, real, also staged, but more recent:

[itsconceivablenow.com image 614x305]

No where close to being better. you can tell by the smiles on their face that it is a staged photo. the original displays the emotion of the war being over and the joy of being home much better

zedster: ComicBookGuy: Abe Lincoln and William Howard Taft will corner me in a men's room stall at some truck stop in Alabama.

Go on...

OK, I had something quite clever and filthy to write, but thought better of it.

So it's a photo of a drunk-ass sailor on a date with another woman grabbing a complete stranger and sucking her face.

Why is anyone surprised by this? Feminism is a hate movement

feffer: WMittensRomney: Actual post(s) are good, tho I feel uncomfortable. Here and here.

Excerpt:

The articles even give us Greta's own words:

"It wasn't my choice to be kissed. The guy just came over and grabbed!"

"I did not see him approaching, and before I knew it, I was in this vice grip. [sic]"

"You don't forget this guy grabbing you."

"That man was very strong. I wasn't kissing him. He was kissing me."

It seems pretty clear, then, that what George had committed was sexual assault. Yet, in an amazing feat of willful blindness, none of the articles comment on this, even as they reproduce Greta's words for us. Without a single acknowledgement of the problematic nature of the photo that her comments reveal, they continue to talk about the picture in a whimsical, reverent manner, "still mesmerized by his timeless kiss." George's actions are romanticized and glorified; it is almost as if Greta had never spoken.

QFT. I'm kind of surprised by some of the women here commenting that the blog writer is a feminazi, not to mention the numerous people calling her a whore for no apparent reason. If you look at the picture the nurse does not look like she's enjoying it. Her fist is balled up and at her side, not around him. He's hanging on to her too tight.

Neither does it show after the kiss what her reaction is to him. Does she smile and laugh and understand the moment or does she want to hit him. depending on her reaction after kiss is just as important as the kiss

FirstNationalBastard: Waldo Pepper: EchoMike: Better, real, also staged, but more recent:

[itsconceivablenow.com image 614x305]

No where close to being better. you can tell by the smiles on their face that it is a staged photo. the original displays the emotion of the war being over and the joy of being home much better

and Rape. Don't forget rape.

what that woman raped the other woman, i did not know that

Waldo Pepper: Neither does it show after the kiss what her reaction is to him. Does she smile and laugh and understand the moment or does she want to hit him. depending on her reaction after kiss is just as important as the kiss

Maybe she belted him one in the chops. He surely had it coming. Maybe she laughed it off and figured he just promised to "plant one on the first dame I see when we get off the ship". But if irreparable psychological harm was done to this woman, I can't fathom what she would have felt after being ass deep in war, mayhem, blood and the stink of gunpowder and death for four years.

There was a war on, you see.

Bad ideas were the order of the day.

To be fair, bad ideas are still the order of the day, only we don't need to sail off to foreign soil to participate in them. Sad, that.

Virtue: Why is anyone surprised by this? Feminism is a hate movement

Stupid women thinking that all humans should be treated equally...
What a bunch of violent, hateful thugs.

educated: Stupid women thinking that all humans should be treated equally...

Equality isn't a pillow under your ass. It's the same sized shovel.

cman: Many of the founding fathers owned slaves, yet no one calls them evil.

"Civic education turned away from concentrating on the Founding to concentrating on openness based on history and social science. There was even a general tendency to debunk the Founding, to prove the beginnings were flawed in order to license a greater openness to the new. What began in Charles Beard's Marxism and Carl Becker's historicism became routine. We are used to hearing the Founders charged with being racists, murderers of Indians, representatives of class interests. I asked my first history professor in the university, a very famous scholar, whether the picture he gave us of George Washington did not have the effect of making us despise our regime. "Not at all," he said, "it doesn't depend on individuals but on our having good democratic values." To which I rejoined, "But you just showed us that Washington was only using those values to further the class interests of the Virginia squirearchy." He got angry, and that was the end of it. He was comforted by a gentle assurance that the values of democracy are part of the movement of history and did not require his elucidation or defense. He could carry on his historical studies with the moral certitude that they would lead to greater openness and hence more democracy. The lessons of fascism and the vulnerability of democracy, which we had all just experienced, had no effect on him."
-- Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (1986)

DRTFA... Would hope that someone plants one on the bloggers lips... All five knuckles.

/gawdam ahole revisionists

bunner: educated: Stupid women thinking that all humans should be treated equally...

Equality isn't a pillow under your ass. It's the same sized shovel.

I agree with that statement but tend to do so in a less hyperbolic and negative manner.

Leads people to take the statement a little more seriously.

educated: Leads people to take the statement a little more seriously.

An easy assumption, I'm sure.

Pockafrusta: DRTFA... Would hope that someone plants one on the bloggers lips... All five knuckles.

/gawdam ahole revisionists

Advocating violence towards human based on human's opinion!

Woo!

bunner: educated: Leads people to take the statement a little more seriously.

An easy assumption, I'm sure.

Correct!

bunner: educated: Leads people to take the statement a little more seriously.

An easy assumption, I'm sure.

And I think it is funny that you ignored the part where I agreed with you.

FirstNationalBastard: educated: Virtue: Why is anyone surprised by this? Feminism is a hate movement

Stupid women thinking that all humans should be treated equally...
What a bunch of violent, hateful thugs.

Ah, but your vocal feminists don't want to be treated equally, do they? They want women to be treated better and recognized as superior to men.

I am not sure where you get that, first national bastard, sir, but something tells me a conversation with you will not be an entirely rational one so I must regretfully decline.

I take it the feminist blogger in question hasn't gotten the TSA grope yet.

bojon: I would think that if she did not like it, she would not have met up with him several times over the years to discuss the photo.

Ah but that's where you're wrong. See, she was so traumatized by the incident that she couldn't say no for fear of retribution by the womyn haters.

/I meed
//Farkin extremists
///This is why we can't have nice things

educated: bunner: educated: Leads people to take the statement a little more seriously.

An easy assumption, I'm sure.

And I think it is funny that you ignored the part where I agreed with you.

I did not. Nor did I ignore the part where you seemed to project some inherent flaw or detriment to the statement. It matters neither way. The statement stands in and of itself and, if there is some negativity inferred aspect to the way I stated it, it may be because of the overwrought sense of entitlement that the tattered remains of a one noble movement has become. I ain't selling shoes. If you find one that fits, see the cashier.

FirstNationalBastard: educated: FirstNationalBastard: educated: Virtue: Why is anyone surprised by this? Feminism is a hate movement

Stupid women thinking that all humans should be treated equally...
What a bunch of violent, hateful thugs.

Ah, but your vocal feminists don't want to be treated equally, do they? They want women to be treated better and recognized as superior to men.

I am not sure where you get that, first national bastard, sir, but something tells me a conversation with you will not be an entirely rational one so I must regretfully decline.

I haven't seen projection like this since the last time I was in an imax theater.

Make up your mind, do you want to attack women irrationally or do you want to attack me irrationally? Having it both ways will only weaken both fronts, soldier. I suggest you choose and commit for the best chance at victory!

All we see is the activity occurring during the fraction of a second. How long did this drunken, exultant swabbo attempt to `hold the pose'? I'm guessing it didn't last much longer than it took to snap the shot.

He was just back from the Pacific, she was an Austrian Jew who got out just in time to miss Adolph's kind attentions of another sort. And would this even be an issue had the female grabbed and kissed the gob? Swabbo's future fiance was with him (he probably paid for this `brief interlude' over and over again "what do you expect! I have to keep seeing you kissing that Biatch, again and again!!!).

I rate the level of this `offense' right up there with being knocked into a wall by some ms/mr rushing past me on the sidewalk to get to work on time - a bit farked, but expected.

/excellent shot, regardless

educated: Having it both ways will only weaken both fronts, soldier. I suggest you choose and commit for the best chance at victory!

Oh, dear. Let's not start a war. We can see the horrid cases of kissrape that occurred in the wake of the last big one. : )

bunner: educated: bunner: educated: Leads people to take the statement a little more seriously.

An easy assumption, I'm sure.

And I think it is funny that you ignored the part where I agreed with you.

I did not. Nor did I ignore the part where you seemed to project some inherent flaw or detriment to the statement. It matters neither way. The statement stands in and of itself and, if there is some negativity inferred aspect to the way I stated it, it may be because of the overwrought sense of entitlement that the tattered remains of a one noble movement has become. I ain't selling shoes. If you find one that fits, see the cashier.

I agree with you. Why are you sassing me?

bunner: educated: Having it both ways will only weaken both fronts, soldier. I suggest you choose and commit for the best chance at victory!

Oh, dear. Let's not start a war. We can see the horrid cases of kissrape that occurred in the wake of the last big one. : )

Do NOT make me put my sailor costume on and find you!

educated: Why are you sassing me?

Sassing you? Your posture of authority needs work. Seriously. "Sass". I hope to kiss a pig. I've already sat through this movie so I will leave you to your last word and let you move on to your next target. Adieu.

She's making a really good point, which is probably why there are so many empty nasty replies here.

The blogger is right if it happened today. Back then it is just a sailor kissing a pretty dame. The blogger need to get over it.

Just_a_Bear: She's making a really good point, which is probably why there are so many empty nasty replies here.

Empty, nasty tripe requires such.

Bill Evans at Mariposa: Just Another OC Homeless Guy: FormlessOne: And, speaking of attention whoring, Wikipedia's article on the photo is already updated with the blogger's claim of sexual assault...

Seriously, I don't see that. Here's the link I'm reading; where is that claim?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-J_Day_in_Times_Square

That claim lasted in the Wikipedia article for six minutes before it was reverted. To see the claim, go here.

Thanks for that.

Just for the hell of it, I Googled "The Kissing Sailor, or 'The Selective Blindness of Rape" and got back 61,000 results. I'm thinking that, over the normal course of people quoting each other, it should be10X that by tonight. So this woman is getting the attention she craves.

Here's a statement that caught my eye from one of the sites.

http://eyelaa.tumblr.com/post/32937345002/the-kissing-sailor-or-the-s e lective-blindness-of-rape

"I am against all forms of oppression. Anyone who tries to suppress any faucet of the way I identify as a Bi, Bipolar, Agnostic, Black/German, Feminist, Woman shall have some problems..."

She forgot to add "dwarf", "nun" "biker"and "nazi".

Her next statement: "We are all human beings and we should unite as one species."

Wow. How could we possibly do that, splintered into tiny labeled groups?