Lilly Jay, sexual assault survivor, in Slate, emphasis added:
“Now I know,” I thought to myself, “what a vice president’s breath smells like—coffee.” An interesting fact gleaned on a surreal day. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that perhaps he should not have been close enough to me that I could smell him at all.
[...]
Why had I so quickly discredited my annoyance at having to hold hands with him like I was a little girl?
[...]
Erring on the side of asking before touching is a guideline so simple it might just work. And had he asked me that day: “Can I hold your hand?” I don’t know what I would have said. I was so electric with nerves, I may have said yes and received his hand in mine warmly. I was also so enamored with the chance to publicly assert that I was independent, unbroken, and whole that I may have declined. It’s hard to imagine in retrospect what I wanted in that moment, but I know I would have appreciated the opportunity to decide for myself.
In what I’ve read here on Daily Kos about Joe Biden and the touching issue, I’ve noticed a lack of understanding, discernment and nuance about men touching women in some diaries and comments that, frankly, I find very surprising. This diary is intended to clarify some points and debunk some myths.
How am I qualified? First, I have the experience of every woman presenting as woman, with some aspects that, fortunately, are not universal. I have experienced and performed all sorts of touching, ranging from handshakes to friendly hugs to smacks on my rear and hands by my mother to smacks on my sons’ rears and hands by me to thumping good sex to ongoing oral rape by my father. Second, I am a martial artist and former women’s self-defense teacher, which involved becoming familiar with a whole other realm of touching, including many bruises and the odd fat lip. I’ve also had a little extra sensitivity training in recent years, courtesy of a dear friend who is blind.
I know instinctively what every kind of touch means and how it feels at a subconscious level, as does everyone of sound mind, whether they are consciously aware of it or not. Our faculty of empathy—instinctive understanding of how other people feel—ensures this. I’m maybe somewhat more self-aware about it than most.
I do not want to fight in the primary wars. I have no strong bias aside from being firmly in the “Can’t We Put AOC in a Tardis and Age Her Six Years?” club. I’m not and have never been a dedicated supporter of any declared or putative Dem candidate. I am no one’s operative. What I am trying to do here is educate.
Let’s start with some background realities about touching.
Depending on whose stats you believe, from 1 in 3 to 1 in 2 women have been sexually abused or assaulted. Touching a former victim in a way that makes them feel at all helpless can be uncomfortable at best, retraumatizing at worst. And you never know who is one.
The great Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale, once did an informal survey, asking men what they most feared from women and vice-versa. Men said being laughed at. Women said being killed (more than 1,806 women were murdered by men in the USA in 2016), but of course there’s also being raped, beaten, stalked, sexually abused in ways other than rape, threatened with any of the above—all of which have severe aftereffects. Men who touch women should be aware that, while there has been improvement since the 20th century, the reality of women’s lives in our culture is that every woman takes measures and precautions against these things, out of necessity.
Physically, women are not nearly as helpless in the face of hostile touch as many think they are. However, as they tend to be raised, they are taught they are helpless, and that it’s their role and duty and destiny to be helpless. In a situation of actual danger, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our culture does this in innumerable ways, putting girls and women in danger and making them live in constant vigilance at best, fear at worst.
There is a world of difference between being touched by someone you know and being touched the same way by someone you don’t know. This is why it is customary to start by that most cautious and formal of touches, the handshake.
Consider the word “creepy” as in “The way he touched me was creepy,” and probably the adjective most often used in this context for Biden. The other usage of the word relates to horror movies or fiction. That is because it is about fear. In the context of touching it means “his touch made me a little bit afraid.” Such touching, because it produces fear, even to a small degree, is hostile, not friendly, affectionate or supportive, however it is intended, or the person doing it claims it is intended.
Because the actual process of guarding personal space is very visual, there is a world of difference between being touched by someone in front of you and by someone behind, Here an incident with my blind friend was instructive. Spotting a bit of lint on the front of her sweater, I unthinkingly plucked it off. She jolted somewhat and said “What did you do?” When I told her, she snapped, “You could have told me you were going to!” I apologized and have always asked permission before touching her ever since.
Thinking about it, I realized that a sighted person sees your hand coming and so knows to expect to feel something, and also knows by how the hand is positioned and moving whether it’s a hostile touch. My blind friend’s first awareness she was being touched came at the same time as the touch. It’s the same when you touch someone from behind, which is why if you’re plucking lint from the back of someone’s sweater, you’ll usually warn or ask them, if they don’t know you well. The back is vulnerable because it is not protected visually. There’s a reason we have the expression “I got your back.”
A factor which commenters here have seemed entirely unaware: there are parts of the body which, if they are touched or, especially, gripped, are associated with physical, not sexual, vulnerability, and therefore should be avoided except in intimate or formal situations with highly trusted people.
So now let’s get specifically instructive, using the four some of the seven eight existing complaints about Biden and a couple of photos as examples.
Lucy Flores, The Cut:
Just before the speeches, we were ushered to the side of the stage where we were lined up by order of introduction. As I was taking deep breaths and preparing myself to make my case to the crowd, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. “Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?”
I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, “tragame tierra,” it means, “earth, swallow me whole.” I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me….. The vice-president of the United States of America had just touched me in an intimate way reserved for close friends, family, or romantic partners — and I felt powerless to do anything about it.
1) Do not sneak up behind someone you do not know and touch them. See point above about being behind someone.
2) Do not grip the shoulders of anyone you don’t know, especially both of them. A grip on the shoulders enables you to move a person’s whole body, especially if you are larger than her. This is how teachers traditionally move children around, so we are all aware of it. Any touch that enables a you to move someone feels controlling and makes her feel helpless.
2) Do not inhale anyone’s hair. That is intimate, bordering on sexual.
3) Do not kiss someone you do not know on any part of their body, especially not from behind. There’s an old custom of men kissing women’s hands upon meeting, and the kisses exchanged in greetings in European or Latin American countries, but these are mutual, consensual and formal, same as a handshake. They are never done from behind.
Hartford Courant:
"It wasn't sexual, but he did grab me by the head," Amy Lappos told The Courant Monday. "He put his hand around my neck and pulled me in to rub noses with me. When he was pulling me in, I thought he was going to kiss me on the mouth."
1) Do not take hold of a person you do not know by the head or neck. Remember the point above about parts of the body which, if they are touched or seized, put a person in a vulnerable position? The neck is one, because a severe enough grip on it is fatal. The head is another, because it has many sensitive, vital parts, and you can also be killed by hands over parts of it (e.g. mouth and nose). Also, head and neck are like shoulders in terms of ability to move a person: by gripping either part or both firmly (as in a headlock) you can take full control of a person’s body. Notice he was able to pull her in though she did not want to be pulled in.
2) Do not pull a person you do not know closer to you. Their body’s proximity to your body should be totally by agreement, i.e. their choice; taking away that choice immediately triggers fear of intrusion, sexual or violent or both. Notice she thought he was going to kiss her.
New York Times:
Caitlyn Caruso, a former college student and sexual assault survivor, said Mr. Biden rested his hand on her thigh — even as she squirmed in her seat to show her discomfort — and hugged her “just a little bit too long” at an event on sexual assault at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She was 19.
Ms. Caruso, now 22, said she chalked up the encounter at the time to how men act, and did not say anything publicly. But she said it was particularly uncomfortable because she had just shared her own story of sexual assault...
1) An event about combatting sexual assault is a powderkeg, touchwise. Assume that every woman there is a former victim, and maybe all the men too, and touch with appropriate caution. If a former victim has just told her story, she’ll be feeling even more raw and vulnerable than usual. Any touch that has even a whiff of being controlling might take her right back. Shake hands gently, nothing more.
2) Do not touch the thigh of a person you are not intimate with with your hand. Again, it borders on sexual.
3) We all give signals with body language, and if a woman’s “let go” body language isn’t picked up upon by a man touching her, it’s an immediate threat. If someone squirms at your touch, cease touching, create some distance and apologize immediately.
4) A greeting hug has a customary length which is quite short. Dear friends or family who haven’t seen each other for a long time might cling longer in joy. Likewise people consoling, for comfort. But these are all people who know each other. Biden possibly felt he was consoling, but he was not known well enough to Caruso. When a man keeps a woman in his grip too long, it becomes threatening as there is sudden doubt that he will let go before committing some other violation. If you are a man hugging a woman you have only just met, let go at the same time she does. (Or at least when she repeated taps out.)
Same NYT story:
D. J. Hill, 59, a writer who recalled meeting Mr. Biden in 2012 at a fund-raising event in Minneapolis, said that when she and her husband, Robert, stepped up to take their photograph with the vice president, he put his hand on her shoulder and then started dropping it down her back, which made her “very uncomfortable.”
Her husband, seeing the movement, put his hand on Mr. Biden’s shoulder and interrupted with a joke. Ms. Hill did not say anything at the time and acknowledged that she does not know what Mr. Biden’s intention was or whether he was aware of her discomfit.
1) Moving your hand from someone’s shoulder down their back is a stroke. Also, it is headed for a sexual area (the buttocks) which is threatening when you do not know whether the motion will stop. Notice she did not know and still doesn’t know Biden’s intention. Notice also her husband’s protective reaction. Do not stroke someone who you’ve only just met.
Here’s an anti-Biden doctored photo, original on the left, shopped version on the right (notice the bottle of booze in Biden’s pocket, also added). It was created by a satirical website (my source: Snopes, scroll way down).
The breast-grab is fake news, but the original photo is real. The woman is Amie Barnes, a White House reporter and therefore a business acquaintance of Biden’s only, the setting a WH Christmas party in 2013, therefore not an intimate relationship or situation. Notice she has felt it necessary to put one hand (and maybe the other, we can’t tell) over his as a defensive maneuver, to feel more in control of the situation.
1) Never take hold of someone you don’t know around the waist, especially from behind. It is another of those vulnerable spots on the body because your vertical centre of gravity is there, so it’s again easy for someone to move you around at their will. Watch a male/female pair of dancers or ice skaters performing and you’ll see that whenever it’s time for the man to lift the woman or throw her into an airborne move, he grips her by the waist/hips. (Spectacular examples.)
2) Never get behind someone when you should be beside her. It is no surprise that many of Biden’s encroachments take place during that moment of mandatory physical proximity, the taking of a group photo. However, the acceptable place to be in a small group is beside, as closeness from the side doesn’t make anyone particularly vulnerable. Notice the other couple did it right.
Washington Post:
I’m going to invent a new slogan: Console, don’t control. The woman here, Sofie Karasek, had just shared with Biden about a sexual abuse victim who had committed suicide, at a sexual-abuse-related event where she outed herself as a survivor. Another powderkeg.
1) Again, the head, a vulnerable part of the body: don’t get too close to it. That’s for when people are intimate.
2) Don’t hold any part of anyone’s body in a controlling way. He is holding her hands in supposed supportiveness, but look at the positions. I was so surprised I had to look several times to be sure. Her hands are turned upwards and outwards, a position of relative weakness, and only slightly clasping his; his hands are fully enveloping hers and appear to have a firm grip with wrists locked straight. It’s not far at all from this to a submission hold. In short, the grip is very controlling. If she wanted to pull her hands free and he refused to let them go, she’d have a relatively hard time doing it, but that’s not the case for him. Notice his hands are also quite close to her body. That’s because he’s put his whole body too close to her body. All these things, she can feel happening, and knows he can feel happening. No wonder she was uncomfortable.
Same WaPo story:
“He then put his hand on the back of my head and pressed his forehead to my forehead while he talked to me. I was so shocked that it was hard to focus on what he was saying. I remember he told me I was a ‘pretty girl,’ ” [Vail] Kohnert-Yount said in a statement to The Post.
Moving your head to close to another’s head and holding the head (notice it’s the back of her head so she can’t get away) we’ve already covered.
1) A female person 18 or over is a woman, not a girl. Calling her a girl in a professional context in which she holds a responsible position is infantilizing, hence disrespectful. Notice the newspaper gets it right.
More examples will get redundant so we’ll leave it here.
So what’s up with Biden?
First of all, this is not a rat-fucking by Bernie Sanders supports, Republicans, or anyone. Else we wouldn’t have so many examples in pictures and videos ( 1) Do not repeatedly stroke or caress the hair of someone you don’t know, even a small girl. You are conditioning her to believe it’s acceptable for a man to do that no matter how a woman feels about it).
Second, my feeling is that Biden is not a sexual predator if a sexual predator is defined as one who attempts to touch another’s private parts without consent; if he’d done that I’m sure we’d be hearing about it. However, the touches that have made women uncomfortable do have sexual overtones, as when he compliments the woman’s looks, or does things that you’d only expect in an intimate or sexual interaction, such as sniffing hair, putting hands on a neck, stroking a back, laying a hand on a thigh. He clearly draws the line at anything more sexual. However, he also clearly takes pleasure is these touches and does not want the recipient to be able to escape them, unthinkingly exerting control over women’s and children’s bodies without consideration of their feelings, as evidenced by his ignoring cues such as squirming or averting the eyes.
Third, Biden felt at the time that what he was doing was acceptable, else, again, we wouldn’t have so many visual examples; he’s been fine with cameras recording it. (He might be intending a message here of “See? I’m so powerful I can do this.”) He still feels it’s basically acceptable, and that he’s only getting complaints because the goalposts have been moved, as he has said. (Spoiler: they haven’t. Discomfort due to fear is discomfort due to fear, and always was.) He feels he has the right, that it is an acceptable way of “connecting” with people. If you make someone uncomfortable, though, the connection is negative.
Biden is the product of a time in which it was socially acceptable among men to take pleasure in handling women in a controlling way without regard to their feelings. Whether the women considered it socially acceptable, we do not know, because it was not safe for them to say so. In fact it still isn’t; commenters right here on Daily Kos have implied that today’s women making objections are lying, despite photo and video evidence showing a consistent pattern. We can assume that women have always been made uncomfortable by controlling touch from men despite not complaining at the time, however, because none of the eight women now complaining did so at the time. Several of them clearly explain their reasons, including in some cases their fear and awe of his power as vice-president. So why complain now, when Biden is poised to announce a presidential run? Probably because he is poised to announce a presidential run. The presidency is very much about character. And they are provided cover by #MeToo.
Many commenters have called them down for complaining now instead of at the time. What these commenters don’t understand is that the #MeToo movement is a kind of critical mass of collective empowerment of women to speak openly about uncomfortable touching and support each other in doing so, the tipping point of a shift in the balance of power. It was inevitable, as women have gradually become more empowered generally, that it would happen at a particular time. Not fair that a man thought it was safe to make a woman uncomfortable three or five or ten or twenty or fifty years ago, and now it turns out it wasn’t? Too bad. There is no statute of limitations on her anger, or the damage to his reputation.
Many commenters here have also said that they don’t interpret a woman doing these same things to a man in the workplace as a threat. But it does not have the same meaning. You perhaps need to have been in a karate class I heard about, in which the sensei decided to do some sensitivity training with his male students.
“How would you like to be raped?” he asked them, evoking only the second-worst thing that women fear from men. They all agreed that it wouldn’t be any fun, but it couldn’t possibly happen to them. “Oh yeah?” he said. “I could do it to you if I wanted to.” Needless to say there was a very, very dead silence. Every woman in my self-defense classes loved hearing this story. “For just one moment,” they’d say, “some men knew how it was to be us.”
Commenters are also lamenting that touch itself is being abolished, and in fact Biden himself attempted the same confusing of the issue in his response video. Nonsense — of course you can touch, just follow the rules! With people you know well, it’s no problem. With people you don’t know, if the above rules are too complicated, just ask. The body-language way to ask for a hug is to throw your arms open while facing the person. The body-language way to ask to hold a hand is to reach yours gently toward hers wide open, then stop (and pull back if she doesn’t take it). Whispering in a person’s ear can be done perfectly audibly without touching her ear or hair with your nose or any other part. Pay attention for signs of discomfort from your touchee (this should be instinctive!) and act accordingly. If these things are not instinctive, train yourself.
There is no reason why touch can’t always be safe, for both toucher and touchee.
I hope Joe Biden learns this.
Tuesday, Apr 9, 2019 · 12:07:56 PM +00:00 · KM Wehrstein
In the comments, Desert Denizen mentioned a term that I should have in the diary: dominance behaviour. Many other commenters picked up on this too, even noting, when I wrote in a comment that dominance behaviour can be disguised as affection, that animals do this.
I suspect that Joe Biden considers himself more effective at consoling or reassuring when he touches in a dominating or authoritative way. But man is that playing with fire when it’s 1) a woman and 2) a sexual assault survivor.
He should have known better back then, but he should really know better now.
Wednesday, Apr 10, 2019 · 10:17:56 AM +00:00 · KM Wehrstein
A number of commenters have claimed this whole thing is a purposeful attack on Biden for political reasons.
Such a huge conspiracy! What genius in co-ordination! All those women, most of whom seem to be Dems, from different parts of the country reporting consistent experiences, all those photos, going back years and confirming what the women are saying cleverly photoshopped by what must be an army of skilful photo artists, all those videos deviously altered by an even more technologically-savvy army to show same, the thousands of conspirators who must have been involved in fabricating Biden’s decades-long reputation for handsy-ness… wow! Clearly Hillary was in on it by somehow inducing Biden to give her this over-long hug despite her firmly doing the wrestler’s tap, twice, to get out of it. And this girl (1:31 to skip the commentary) had a clear plan in 2015 to destroy Biden’s 2020 presidential ambitions by squirming away from his kiss with that look on her face. I could go on, so much conspiracy there is!
This is a plot beyond Roger Stone’s wildest ambitions or Alex Jones’ most insane dreams.
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