On 5 October 2017, shocking allegations were published about Harvey Weinstein, detailing decades of sexual abuse. Eighteen months on, the fingers of condemnation now point towards Joe Biden, the putative presidential candidate. So far, seven women have made allegations against him, recalling a hug that went on too long, a shoulder pat, or a kiss on the head. On social media, Uncle Joe is now described as ‘creepy’. How quickly and confidently we judge.
Make no mistake, Weinstein is a sexual predator who deserves a long spell behind bars. Biden, however, is something different. He seems to be a man who punctuates his emotions with physical contact. He probably needs to rein it in, and he definitely needs to apologise to those who found his gestures unwelcome. But I doubt there’s anything inherently evil in his behaviour. I suspect Biden is a victim of his own empathy.
“Joe has a deep desire to share in the lives of others – their grief, pain, and joy” the former Missouri Senator Jean Carnahan recently tweeted. She had experienced the therapeutic power of Biden’s empathy after she lost her husband and son in a plane crash. “He reaches out… to connect and express … feelings. … it’s part of who he is. Like everything else about his big, Irish personality, he expresses those feelings with exuberance and sincerity.”
And that worries me. Carnahan’s description of Biden sounds a little bit like me. I’m certainly far more restrained when it comes to physicality, but I do sometimes express emotions with contact – a tap to the forearm for instance. I, too, convey feelings with exuberance and I involve myself in the lives of others.
Let’s make it clear: I’m not talking about touch – the sort of thing that got Biden into trouble. I’m talking about connectedness: I open myself emotionally to people and welcome it when they open themselves to me. Compassion is a two-way street. This, for me, is simple humanity, something devoid of sexual intent and applied equally to men and women.
But I’m worried now. Standards of acceptable behaviour seem suddenly to have shifted. Empathy – with or without that touch on the arm – is hazardous.
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