It’s coming home.

[Sly Ronnie 849]

Next time, just shake their hands!

 

I think though the way the UK (i.e. English) media have ran with it stinks of sour grapes.

[Toast 15,844]

Not really sour grapes, more schadenfreude, whatever that is in Spanish

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,669]

Don’t forget the pat on the buttocks too. That deserves the death penalty at the very least.

 

His mumsie’s hunger strike isn’t going too well after two whole days. Hopefully he’ll bring her a nice, thick, long choriz… er, I mean a delicious paella.

[Toast 15,844]

3 hours ago, harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy said:

Don’t forget the pat on the buttocks too.

 

Are you sure? It looked to me like he patted her on the back. If he'd touched her arse I have no doubt we'd have heard more about it.

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,669]

You’re right, I just had another look. It’s two pats, the second a bit lower than the first. A third pat would have likely found the buttock area, but she got away just in time.

 

I’ve made many absurd posts in my time, but this definitely ranks right up there. 

[Toast 15,844]

I'm heartened by the comments under this piece which shows  "2 men explaining to a woman why this kiss should offend her when it clearly doesn't." 

Almost everyone agrees that it's a fuss about nothing.

 

 

[Toast 15,844]

I think it's worth quoting this lengthy comment from the above.  He makes some very important points.

 

Quote

 

Richard Hallas:

Regardless of who was or was not smiling, or whether or not it was premeditated… 

 

Since when has a kiss become sexual assault? Especially on the continent (i.e. not among uptight Brits), kissing has always been a very spontaneous and inconsequential action, and it really doesn't mean anything – and men also kiss other men (OK, maybe not on the lips, but even so…). As a child, on several occasions I recall being kissed ON THE LIPS by adult females, as a greeting. And yes, I really disliked the experience at the time, and think it was pretty inappropriate with hindsight – but no way did anyone think "sexual assault" or "child molestation" back then, because (a) it wasn't, and (b) in the days when I was a child, common sense still existed and people tended to keep things in proportion. A man kissing a women – OR vice versa – under circumstances of exuberance, as here, strikes me as being utterly and completely harmless. It's not something I'd do myself, but I can see absolutely no harm in it, and it's almost certainly just part of the culture in which Luis Rubiales grew up.

 

So actually, I too would be outraged – as he was – if the world were ganging up to end my career over something so spontaneous, innocuous and seemingly innocent as this. Maybe it wasn't innocent; I don't know. I know nothing about the people involved, as I'm not remotely interested in football, and hadn't even heard of them prior to this incident. I just think that this story is completely and utterly overblown and ridiculous, and my sympathies are wholly with Rubiales for being so pilloried, and having his career destroyed, for something that seems, on the face of it, to be so utterly inconsequential. Since when didn't French and Spanish people in particular kiss each other? It's part of their culture! It doesn't mean anything, other than being a form of greeting or friendly exuberance. Besides, if it were anything other than simple exuberance, would he really have done it in front of the world's media? To see something like this – a momentary expression of enthusiasm and happiness – as sexual assault and make such a big deal out of it seems a perfect example of everything that's wrong with the woke world we're living in today. Put one foot out of line, no matter how innocently or innocuously, and watch as everyone in the world teams together to destroy you. And all those people ganging up on the poor bloke and saying how wrong it was… since WHEN did innocent kissing like that become so wrong? Because it was never wrong before this incident occurred.

 

I say that even though I wouldn't have liked to be kissed in that way myself, in the player's position. But the appropriate, proportionate reaction would have been to say: "Yuck! Please don't do that again." Not to seek to end the bloke's career. (In any case, she didn't visibly cringe, tense up or pull back, and she seemed to be smiling after the kiss had happened.) So yes, I'm completely with Clare Muldoon. WHAT is the fuss all about? Besides, if a perfectly innocent kiss like that can now be treated as sexual assault, the world is now a very dangerous place indeed to live in. I hope common sense prevails, but from the totally overblown reaction, I'm sure it won't. Presumably Rubiales's career is now over. Outrageous.

 

Anyway, Clare Muldoon is quite right in my opinion. The others are just virtue signalling and being woke. And if their manufactured outrage is genuinely reflective of where our society is today, then that's the end of all kissing outside established, consensual sexual relationships. I hope someone conveys that message to the French, Spanish and Italians in particular very quickly, or else there will be an awful lot more careers and lives ruined before we're finished with this subject.