I have a feeling that the US laws are a tad more heavy handed than the UK ones (my only point of reference), but even with regard to the US I see that wiki says “In the United States, criminal battery, or simply battery, is the use of force against another, resulting in harmful, offensive or sexual contact”
So if we’re agreeing that it wasn’t really sexual, then actually I don’t even think it counts as battery. I got a bit confused looking into the difference between battery and assault: “Battery is a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact, distinct from assault which is the apprehension, not fear, of such contact.” That sentence contradicts itself for me, but maybe that’s because it’s nearly 5pm on a Monday.
I suppose so. If I attempt to shake someones hand, or hug them, I guess there are physical cues that act as consent. Although if I’m in a position of authority it may change your reaction to the situation, whether you were comfortable with it or not. I bet I could go hug one of my employees right now, but if questioned in private they’d rather not hug me (don’t worry, I won’t test this).
What I think we can agree on is that someone kissing you, even on the helmet (whey!), is, technically, some form of assault. I don’t consider it sexual though. Although I appreciate it could make someone quite uncomfortable, which is uncool. In this case that person still holds a lot of the power though, which distorts things, but admittedly doesn’t change the accusation itself.
(I’ve been informed by the commenting system that I’m contributing too much to the discussion, so I’ll leave it there for a while, as that can’t be a good sign.)
That’s battery, not assault. IANAL, though I’d like to be one someday- and everyone and their brother makes this mistake. The way I like to describe it, is that assault is the step before battery, where if you do nothing, a battery would occur. That’s not exactly the definition, but in this context, it fits.
Meanwhile. I don’t care about “what would happen if the genders were reversed.” I really don’t. Trying to kiss someone who does not want to be kissed is a form of sexual assault. I don’t just mean legally but morally. If she had bashed him with over the head with so much as a piece of chalk, helmet or no helmet, she’d be taken into custody. Why is this different?
Note the “or” there–this likely counts as offensive contact. The bar for that is relatively low. My recollection is that under U.S. law, it’s a reasonable-person standard (i.e., something a reasonable person would find offensive in the circumstances). I suspect it’s similar or the same under U.K. law. Italian law, though, is based on an entirely different legal framework (the Civil Law, as opposed to the Common Law that underpins U.K. and U.S. law), so your guess is as good as mine what happens there.
Assault happens when, for example, you swing your fist at me and I think you’re going to actually hit me but you miss. Battery happens when you connect. And my fear that you might swing your fist at me, without more, is neither assault nor battery. Does that make sense?
I guess I don’t really care if it’s sexual or not. I’m not sure if that has a role in cases like this. It’s such a subjective word. I can’t think of anything on the spectrum of unwanted contact that I would characterize as “sexual.” All of it is either a prelude to violence, or violence. Whether genitals are involved, or have the potential to be, is irrelevant.
All this said, I think the prosecutor could take the high road by deciding not to prosecute this case. My guess is that the psychological impact of this assault is minimal.
Ok, let’s recontextualize this. Let’s say that the kiss recipient was the protester, perhaps wearing one of those giant politician caricature helmet-masks, which would be similar to what the cop was wearing. Now let’s say someone kissed the mask. I think it’s likely it would be considered funny, or perhaps weird and inappropriate at worst (especially if the kisser was a police officer, someone who is - rightly - held to a different standard of behavior while on duty). It certainly would not be treated as sexual assault, and if the costumed person did treat it as such, the police would absolutely ignore them. Let’s not forget that Italy is one of those countries where it’s hard to get the criminal justice system to take actual rapes seriously (it was only in the '80s that the law allowing rapists to avoid jail by marrying their victim was overturned).
Have you ever ridden the bus or train during rush hour?
I say this as a woman who has been groped many times on such conveyances, even while wearing (filthy) worker’s coveralls and other such “sexy” attire. There’s physical contact, and then there’s physical contact.
edit: forgot to copy hungryjoe’s statement that I was responding to:
This is my position:
Consent is always necessary for physical contact between two humans.
This is slightly ridiculous. Should Bugs Bunny be charged for kissing Elmer Fudd? The act itself is harmless, a political statement if anything.
Mind you they killed that guy Ian Tomlinson in London for walking slowly past a police officer during protests in London in 2011. She’s lucky she didn’t get her lips tasered.
The police should be there to keep the peace not punish people who protest peacefully against a government policy.
There’s a reason it’s called civil “disobedience.” Why do people presume that because they’re breaking a law based on their principles that they’re somehow immune from prosecution? Don’t get me wrong, peaceful protest is one thing- this was not peaceful protest. I’m not even morally opposed to less-than-peaceful protest if the circumstances seem to warrant it, but if you’re going to engage in it, you better come to it with a serious understanding of the implications and the potential consequences. If you’re not going to take your mode of protest seriously, no one is going to take your protest seriously. If you think you’re justified, the answer isn’t to cower behind the law, but to say, “Yes. I did it, and I would do it again.”
Because I don’t believe that to be true. Go kiss a random stranger and see how long it takes for you to be tried for sexual assault, something tells me that unless there’s more to it, or you do it a lot, that it would go no where. Especially in Italy where this ‘crime’ was committed. I find it in unfathomable that anyone doubts the reasoning behind this charge.
But it does make me think I should start phoning the police about my mother kissing me when she sees me, I don’t know how many times I’ve told her not to do that.
… Sorry that was silly. But in contrast if I called the police to report that my mother kept touching my penis I think that’d pique their interest, because that would actually be sexual assault.
Thanks for the explanation re battery and assault though, I couldn’t make head nor tail of it on Wikipedia.
You’re right, that was silly, but what if it wasn’t your mother? What if it was someone you couldn’t help but run into? You kind of make my point for me.
And it’s a sad, sad thing if I was never tried. This is why weakening standards for sexual assault for anyone ultimately has the effect of weakening them for everyone. This can’t stand.
ETA: If the powerful can’t be victims under the law, do you suppose, even for an instant, that the weak will ever see justice?
I find a big shotgun in my face provocative… Conversely a disproportionate response to a peaceful protest can seem provocative. Someone’s already posted the famous sixties photo of the hippy putting the flower into the National Guardsmens rifle. I see this in the same way. Heavy handed state response to people exercising the right to protest kicked this off, not a helmet-snog.
One other thought on this–as a means of protest, I would say that this was not an effective way to affect change. At least here on the BoingBoing, we’re only talking about what she did, and not why she did it.
