Just when you think it can't get any goofier

[hifiguy]

Famous WWII photo of kissing sailor described as "sexual assault."

See link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/iconic-kissing-sailor-photo-sexual-assault-not-romance_n_1941127.html

From the comments section:
Readers should also know that the author of the blog on Feministing (Leopard) also has some sort of leadership role with the extremely radical feminist site: radfem.org

Radfem.org proposes genetically altering males ("If we can genetically alter corn, we can genetically alter men.&quot to make them docile domestic workers and often discuss culling the percentage of men on earth by practicing selective sex abortions, birth control methods, etc. (various arguments ensue as to whether male should be culled down to 10% of the population or could they safely be allowed to keep up to 30%)

Therefore, any blogs by Leopard should be viewed as propaganda and misandry of the first magnitude. Note that Leopard quotes the nurse as a victim, leaving out comments by the nurse which included "It was wonderful" and " "It was like New Years Eve, only better".
________________

Modern (often crabby and unhappy) feminists judging an event from the past, by standards of the present is wrong. Times were different then. People were more innocent and kind to one another. This was a world where most people did not lock their front door. Also that long war being over was a relief that femifisting.com can obviously not comprehend and chooses to denigrate to make a point. I have often read of the people who claim they are that kissing couple, none of the women ever have expressed a negative reaction. It is sad that the American world has soured in all the years since that moment. If you travel abroad you see that the rest of the world is not so jaded. It is also sad that the woman who wrote those Puritan or Calvinist-like comments has obviously never been kissed with such joy and abandon.

__________________

Needless to say the usual suspects are going apeshit about it right here on DU.

[opiate69]

1. SMH... I really shouldn`t be surprised..

edit: Found it...

[hifiguy]

2. It is most interesting to me that this post

is referenced by one of TUS in the original Lounge thread.

Is it considered good form on DU to troll/stalk other posters into even ostensibly "safe haven" groups? Any thoughts on this? I am seriously considering contacting the admins.

[opiate69]

3. Well, yeah...

I mean, the non-cowardly course of action would have been for her to come here and make her case. Or even in that thread as a direct response to you. I`m not sure if admin wants to get that deep in the trenches anymore though.

[seabeyond]

5. i post in lounge. he brings my post to mens forum. i post again in lounge.

and it is MY bad form. how about hifi bringing my post into mens forum? is that the stalking he is talking about? shouldnt he address me in the lounge thread?

sorry, this is a bit of a chuckle for me. but go at it guys. not here to disrupt.

her to come here and make her case

no case to make. the OP asked a question. i gave my opinion. hifi started an OP to insult me. it made me laugh.

if that is making a case, whatever.

[hifiguy]

6. I reposted the original here for purposes of discussion.

Why do you follow me around? What are your issues?

I posted a link, 19 lines of comments from HuffPo and one snarky - and accurate, I might add - observation of my own.

Decontextualizing a photo taken 67 years ago at the end of the largest and most destructive war in human history to try to make a very weak ideology-driven point is the height of silliness. Heaven forfend that people under the stress of that war spontaneously burst into public displays of happiness and rejoicing on hearing that the war has ended. Ever see or read about what happened to the GIs that liberated France? French women threw themselves at the men who liberated them from the tyranny of the German Reich.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. All sorts of things are brought into all sorts of groups from other groups, as I'm sure you're aware

However, your response is more suited to meta, which is the place for complaints about DU.

Please do not come into this group to attack group members.

[seabeyond]

11. your member told me to come into the group and address the issue. i was respectfully staying out

of your forum. that seemed to be the issue two of your members had with me.

[opiate69]

13. Can you differentiate between "addressing the issue" and "attacking members"?

[seabeyond]

14. yes. and i think i exactly addressed the issues raised, and i do not see "attacking" anyone.

have a good friday.

[opiate69]

15. You may have.. Warren lodged the attack complaint... I'm enjoying my friday too much to care frankly

You have a nice weekend as well.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. I didn't see the link or the post where he told you to come in here and discuss it

(Edit: I still haven't, so a link would be apprecaited. I did not see that in the lounge thread, but maybe there's more than one)

in that case, it makes sense.

Coming in here out of the blue to complain that it's being discussed in here, when that sort of thing is done all the time in HoF, for instance, would be disingenuous OTOH.

[seabeyond]

19. the non-cowardly course of action would have been for her to come here and make her case.

post #3

[Warren DeMontague]

20. That is a post in this thread, not the lounge. To read it, you had to already be here.

That is hardly "staying out".

Anyway, the thread is here. The topic is here. This group has just as much right to bring topics in from elsewhere on DU as any other group does. My point stands.

[hifiguy]

18. That is a flat out LIE and you know it is.

Last edited Fri Oct 5, 2012, 09:33 PM - Edit history (1)

[opiate69]

21. Good point.. I didn't tell her or anyone to come here

[ZenLefty]

4. I remember when I went to this high school basketball game.

Our team was the total underdog but we won in dramatic fashion: by one point, scored right at the very end of the game. Everyone went nuts. Teenagers cheering and screaming. One of the cheerleaders from our team, a total stranger that I'd never met, hugged me tight and kissed me on the cheek. I had no idea that it was sexual assault.

[hifiguy]

7. In the real world, of course, it is not.

How anyone could think it is eludes me entirely.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Is the statute of limitations up?

We might still be able to press charges against that sick fucking geezer!

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Right. That's the site where they advise mothers to starve and neglect male babies.

And where one "contributor" with a job in the child care field (!!!) talked about how a 9 year old boy who kissed a girl she was watching was a "rapist in training" and another commenter wished she could throw him out a window.

(sadly, the patriarchal legal systems of male dominated countries do not permit such brave progressive actions. sniff.)

But I'm sure that's all just "brilliant, historically necessary satire" as well.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

12. Wow

And where one "contributor" with a job in the child care field (!!!) talked about how a 9 year old boy who kissed a girl she was watching was a "rapist in training" and another commenter wished she could throw him out a window.

Wait, I thought we were ALL victims of the patriarchy, and violence and punishment is not answer, just simple education!

Guess not.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. Finally, out of the entirety of all of WWII, something WORTHY OF REAL OUTRAGE!!!!!!!!!

...cough.

[4th law of robotics]

22. That whole war was really exploitative towards women

Millions of women had to watch helplessly as their sons were sent off to die or be maimed against their will.

Can you imagine the oppression that involves? To watch someone you care about be enslaved for years upon years with no guarantee they'd ever be returned mentally or physically fit.

That war weighed heavily on women. Thousands of men died to support the patriarchal oppression of women on the home front who were forced to work (voluntarily) and not face daily threats to their lives so that privileged men could.

[hifiguy]

23. I had two uncles in the Marines

in the Pacific theatre. One was in combat, one at a base one front behind the lines for a good share of the war. My dad tried to enlist in the Army but he was in his 30s and the Army told him he was more useful as a civilian heavy equipment master mechanic on the Canadian/Artic highway projects which were probably the most brutal thing you could do in the war apart from being under live fire.

I heard my Dad's stories, my uncle Gayle's combat stories and the boggling tales told by a friend's dad, who was a tank driver in Italy, that made my hair stand on end. Another friend's dad was an Army Air Corps sergeant who was shot down by the Luftwaffe and he escaped from a German prison camp and made it back to England.

A few stolen kisses in public seem to me a damned small price to pay for the men who saved the world from Nazism and Japanese imperialism.

Ya know what I mean?

[craichead65]

24. I knew two....

men who were fought in that war.

One guy -- nicknamed Mac -- parachuted into Normandy when he was only 18 years old. When he got back from the war he married a woman whose husband was killed in action and then legally adopted her four children and took great care of all of them for the rest of his life. I used to sit on his dock sometimes and have a beer (he always had a kegerator tapped) and I'd just look at him and try to imagine this unassuming guy jumping out of a plane in the dark under fire and then fighting his way across Europe as a teenager.

The other guy was a marine who lied about his age and joined at 16. He was shot by a sniper in Iwojima and spent the rest of his life with one leg several inches shorter than the other. He helped me out when I was young and going through lots of emotional troubles by letting me live with him and his wife for a summer. Toward the end of his life he shared one piece of wisdom with me. He said:

"I wish I had more sex." LOL gotta love those guys.

[hifiguy]

27. A great story.

There's a reason they were called The Greatest Generation. All they did, all those GI Joes and Rosie the Riveters, was save the world from Nazism and Japanese imperialism. It's on us to preserve the world they fought to save.

[lumberjack_jeff]

28. +1000 n/t

[craichead65]

25. But this shows just how much we need to push back

The views of the blogger are extreme, but at the same time they are only at the extreme end of a continuum of ludicrus beliefs.

These people have an incredible influence on politics and policy and it's well beyond time to push back.

One of my pet peeves these days is the charity financing of girl specific education in developing countries. Not that I have an issue with educating girls in these places, but if you do a quick google search one of the things you'll find is that in most of these developing countries -- in Africa in particular -- their educational parity is already better than the US.

But one more thought on this:
The blogger is from England which really drives home how huge the cultural shift has been. I mean, Britain had the war right in their front yard and for someone from that country to not understand what elation it must have been to have that war over really says something.

[redqueen]

34. Citation for your claim that parity in education in Africa is better than the US.

This seems to indicate you're mistaken.
http://www.unicef.org/mdg/education.html

Or any other country, really, since you said its better in "most" developing countries.

[4th law of robotics]

35. From the website:

While most of the Millennium Development Goals face a deadline of 2015, the gender parity target was set to be achieved a full ten years earlier - an acknowledgement that equal access to education is the foundation for all other development goals. Yet recent statistics show that for every 100 boys out of school, there are still 117 girls in the same situation. Until equal numbers of girls and boys are in school, it will be impossible to build the knowledge necessary to eradicate poverty and hunger, combat disease and ensure environmental sustainability. And millions of children and women will continue to die needlessly, placing the rest of the development agenda at risk.

Interesting. And that is a disparity worthy of concern?

Here at the college level the disparity is 100 boys for every 150 girls in college (2:3).

That is not something worth addressing.

Weird.

[redqueen]

36. Primary education is rather more fundamental than college level.

And yes, just as with the wage gap, though people try to minimize it, it is "a disparity worthy of concern".

[4th law of robotics]

37. Which disparity is worthy of concern?

Only when girls are at a disadvantage or when any gender isn't in a 50/50 balance?

Because you don't seem terribly concerned about that massive disparity here for college students.

/I would argue that college education here is comparable in necessity to primary education in the developing world. You can find work in both without those respectively. But it won't be great work.

//additional the 3:2 difference in college attainment is real. The wage gap is fictitious. I put real problems ahead of fictitious ones. Surely we can agree on that?

[Major Nikon]

45. The example you gave is pretty piss-poor

There are far more people who try to maximize the wage gap issue and reduce it to an argument based at best on emotion and patriarchal conspiracy theories rather than reason and bonafide gender discrimination. So please don't start thinking your thinly veiled inclusion of one of your pet subjects can escape debate outside your protected group. If anything your example only serves to provide evidence as to why many of your arguments rarely rise to the level of those who can reason their way out of a wet paper bag.

[craichead65]

26. Wow a new twist

I was just reading up on the photo on wiki and there are several people claiming to be the sailor and nurse.

Turns out that all the men claiming to be the sailor were quite drunk, meaning that since they were intoxicated and therefore unable to give meaningful consent, the nurse must actually be the one committing a sexual assault -- right?

[4th law of robotics]

29. I would be surprised if there weren't

a few soldiers/sailors who got black out drunk and woke up with a woman they otherwise would not have consented to sleep with.

That would be date-rape would it not?

I doubt many were convicted though.

[Warren DeMontague]

30. Let me break it down:

= [font size=5]"HORRIFYING!!!!!!!!" [/font]



whereas







= "....meh."

[4th law of robotics]

31. Additionally . . .

I've pointed out on the other thread several times now that women would often run out and kiss male soldiers who had liberated their city from the nazis or japanese.

At no point was consent explicitly given.

So far none of the usual suspects have addressed that subject.

Just look at this unrepentant monster:



You can tell from his body language that the guy is horrified but unable to react. After going through the horrors of war his reward is to be subjected to unwanted assault kisses? The girl may have been young enough to escape persecution then but she's old enough to be punished now.

WE CANNOT LET THIS INJUSTICE STAND!!!

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

32. Don't you know those were all staged?

Those women were forced....and even if they did run into the street to thank them with a kiss, it's just the patriarchy telling them they should turn themselves over to them!

[4th law of robotics]

33. Ah yes of course

I forgot that women back then were not capable of independent faculty (and most today are still enthralled by the Patriarchy).

Only a small number of brilliant women have been able to escape the clutches of the dreaded patriarchy and think for themselves by adhering rigidly to the edicts of the prophets Dworkin and Mackinnon.

Any women who dares question the Holy Writ of course has proven that they cannot think for themselves and should be ridiculed and shamed.

[Warren DeMontague]

38. Finally, we have ascertained the greatest atrocity, the greatest human rights violation of WWII.

Namely, the oppressionating male gaze objectimification heteronormative patriarchal pornification optico-assault implied in the evil objectifico-pin up "art" on airplanes. It is entirely possible that during the so-called "war" when so-called "soldiers" were engaged in so-called "battle", some of them may even have experienced unauthorized priapic arousal and engaged in acts of subsequent mental phallopression, upon looking at these victims of the patriarchy!

HORRIFYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is vital that we remember the true victims of WWII, namely, the women painted on airplane noses.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

39. How could pilots even drop bombs....

....when they were eye raping those painted figures????

[Upton]

41. I guess the guy painting the picture

didn't realize he was engaging in bona fide pornified objectification..and in the future will be considered a misogynist oppressor. And all this time the poor dude thought he was just fighting a war.

[libodem]

40. Good grief!

[4th law of robotics]

42. The results of this thread in the lounge were rather encouraging

Only a fringe minority supported this notion and the usual suspects have already beaten a hasty retreat to their safe haven to avoid the constant barrage of sense coming their way.

[hifiguy]

43. Honestly, I think the Lounge thread reflected

a clear majority opinion on DU. Posters who have never had a dog in these fights before got a good, up-close and personal look at some very screwy ideas and did not like what they saw. It was sort of a "Chris Griffin" moment for them:

[4th law of robotics]

44. I would think most DUers have normal and healthy attitudes towards sex

and male/female relationships. They don't see any physical contact between the two as "gross" nor do they consider all men "pre-rapists". Yes, I am using those quote marks legitimately.

I suspect the same thing plays out on the right: most are pretty normal in this regard but they have their radical fundies that they mostly ignore. Often they are allies. But occasionally the fundies come out and say something bizarre, like all sex out of marriage is abomination and all men are wild beasts unable to control their sexual urges, and the rest just sort of stare at them in disbelief.


"Were we really harboring and allying with such nutjobs?"


Hence the need for a safe-haven that is mostly ignored by the rest. If they had to fend for themselves in the main forums they'd take an ideological beating every time they hit post. (which explains the incredibly low threshold for banning people on some forums).