Originally published at: Rep. who touched MTG gives icky reply
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I like Empty G as little as anyone else around the BBS, but non-consensual touching of people is not OK.
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But there are edge cases.
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In this instance, grabbing a woman without consent absolutely drips with misogyny, and that’s what I’m reacting to.
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Good touch or bad touch, it shows poor sense of judgment to even be near EmptyG
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As someone who hates unwanted touching - my personal experience is that the ‘shoulder grab’ isn’t one sided - but personalities that do this seem to share many similarities - if you discount gender.
No one should have to deal with unwanted touching. Frankly a bigger issue here is seeing someone with enough personal power (as much as I dislike her) as MTG is still unable to tell some jerk to keep their hands to themselves.
This screams into the void about how little woman in this country can keep control over their own bodies, when a congresswoman isn’t even able to handle it without appeal to authorities - it’s honestly a sharp condemnation of our culture.
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I’m sorry, but where did @IronEdithKidd say that ONLY women experience unwanted touching? Of course it’s always bad, but in this case, we are talking about a woman. So, no, you can’t “discount gender” in this case. 
And that’s why we can’t “discount” gender here.
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I had never heard of him, so I looked him up. I watched the video, first. He’s copying that, “Well, shucks, I’m just a simple country boy” accent that John Kennedy has adopted. He sounds like he’s from Georgia. But he was born in Las Vegas, grew up in Portland, Oregon, graduated from Oregon State, and then joined the Marines, and later the Navy. He has lived in Georgia since at least 2007, I would guess, since he graduated from med school at Morehouse School of Medicine in 2010. Anyway, I doubt that accent is genuine.
Also, he’s talking about touching people as a doctor, and while that certainly happens without consent in the ER when you have unconscious patients, I’m pretty sure doctors are otherwise required to get consent…informed consent, in fact…before touching a patient. The concept should be familiar to him.
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I think the big problem when people try to discount gender is that it tends to discount the experience of being of that gender.
Like there is both a difference in the way and frequency of men touching women and there are differences in how that experience is received among men and women (and within those groups too of course). There are always power dynamics to the way we treat other people’s bodies after all.
You really can’t talk about it at all stripped of gender without also stripping away some of those experiences that come from being of that gender.
McCormick is being gross, clueless, and classically defensive about it; but I also think Greene will likely not reflect on all the women she and the party she represents has harmed directly through her own misogyny. And it is also galling when people are shocked to get cut themselves by the sword they swing around.
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He’s a morehouse man? 
All of that, yes!!!
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Apparently. At least according to him. Others say he shouldn’t call himself that because Morehouse School of Medicine has been a separate institution from Morehouse College since 1981, and he didn’t go to Morehouse College. It looks like it was an issue in his election.
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Since that was my neighboring district at the time (they moved it further south, and it is now my district, until we got moved again), I’m surprised I missed all that! I hadn’t realized it was considered a separate institution since 81! Thanks!
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Their fight brought up a memory.
One afternoon I witnessed a life-or-death battle between a big scary spider and a huge wasp, which took place on the sidewalk right in front of me. I have been a major arachnophobe practically since birth, and wasps have stung me enough times to make plain they V much dislike me.
It was horrifying. Whichever way I started to move to avoid them, they went the same direction. After several attempts I was finally able to get around and away from them.
I don’t know which of these evil two-legged critters is the spider, and which is the wasp.
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That kind of inappropriate touching is a power thing. Men have more power than women in today’s society, so it often expresses as a gender thing, but it isn’t.
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I’m an E.R. Doctor. I believe in the power of touch. I give people hugs
Translation:
I work with a population who are in extreme distress and need medical services, and are dealing with with shock and often grief. Because of this, I assume I can touch anyone I want without seeking consent. The patients don’t call me on my shit because they’re afraid they’ll get substandard care if they do so. I’m high up in hospital hierarchy, so coworkers don’t call me on my shit. I’ve likely hugged survivors of sexual assault and triggered them to remember the shittiest day of their lives, and have been shittily unaware of it. I routinely sprain my shoulder patting myself on the back for being a swell guy.
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“I’m an E.R. Doctor. I believe in the power of touch. I give people hugs. I shake people’s hands. If you look on the [House] floor…and see how much touching there is. Everybody touches everybody,”
Makes me wonder how many unconscious patients he’s inappropriately touched.
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