March 29, 2024 - 10:00am
What should the penalty be for an unwanted kiss? A slap in the gob? A public shaming? How about a couple of years in jail? This is what Luis Rubiales, Spain’s notorious football federation president, could be facing if he is charged with sexual assault and coercion for kissing footballer Jenni Hermoso.
Rubiales, who has always maintained that the kiss was consensual, refused to step down or act contrite despite international condemnation and disownment by the women’s team. Hermoso, in contrast, is not only arguing that the kiss was an assault, but that Rubiales and senior managers and directors attempted to coerce her into agreeing that it was consensual. Things aren’t looking good for Rubiales — even if he escapes the cell, he could face heavy damages and a criminal record.
Context is key to this kiss. Watching the clip, the interaction might be considered in a long line of football double-handed smooches, complete with macho backslap to finish it off. Gary Neville and Paul Scholes, Claudio Caniggia and Diego Maradona, Anna Tamminen and Rosa Herreros? In the spring before The Kiss, the Guardian even wrote a defence of football kissing, arguing in favour of the practice as “an everyday human interaction”. The difference is that while Tamminen and Herreros were a couple, and Scholes and Neville fellow teammates, Rubiales was Hermoso’s boss. You don’t have to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that the reaction from Hermoso and the rest of the team to a two-second kiss possibly suggests something unsaid about Rubiales’s conduct behind the scenes.
It can be tempting to cheer on the burning of witches — or football bosses. When the #MeToo movement kicked off in 2017, the French took a much more direct approach. #BalanceTonPorc — or “out your pig” — went viral, with women making public allegations against ill-behaved men. Hermoso and her team clearly think this is the Spanish pork’s moment to be fried.
Rubiales going to jail might satisfy the women he used to work with, but a feminist victory it is not. The most depressing thing about that moment in Sydney was that the Women’s World Cup suddenly became all about one man. Commentary ignored the previously lionised Lionesses, and forgot about Hermoso’s Silver Ball award. Instead, column inches were dedicated to who could make the biggest deal out of Rubiales. Irene Montero, Spain’s equality minister, made international headlines by describing the kiss as a “form of sexual violence”. Spain’s acting prime minister even got in on the act — everyone had something to say about a bald guy in a suit, with women’s football a distant memory.
Feminism has had a lot of iterations, but the contemporary understanding of what it means to be feminist seems to be to encourage a climate of fear about women’s safety. The Rubialeses of this world still exist, but we seem to want to magnify them out of all proportion. In doing so, we endanger women’s freedom, frightening us out of public life and engagement. When sexism rears its head, we should stick the cleat in. But a two-and-a-half-year jail sentence over a kiss? That doesn’t feel like girl power.
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SubscribeThis political movement, feminism, needs to decide on what women are, their nature, and what rights/privileges they want from government and society.
Are they Marvel-level girl bosses, able to duke it out with men in every facet of life – office, sports, etc. Or are they perpetually vulnerable, soon-to-be victims of various ‘harms’ – many of which need not even be *actual* violence. Or something else entirely?
What a confused movement.
“What a confused movement.”
Precisely.
Leave aside the fact that nobody would have cared if it was the other round, or that the Spanish coach was humiliated after winning the title with his hysterical bunch of women.
What sums up feminism is that the potential jail term of two years is pretty much the jail sentence in Germany for ONE of the nine men (the others got probation of something), who gang raped a woman repeatedly for three hours and showed no remorse.
The judge, the quack who provided “expert evidence” to exonerate the rapists, the senior official who supported the judge….all obviously feminist women who, if this man got away with a kiss, would be shrieking about “violence” against women and the patriarchy.
I doubt it has much to do with feminism except as a pretext. It has much more to do with the rise of mob culture, which demands retribution in the public square for moral infringements. Public floggings, hangings and the stocks used to be the humiliating spectacle the mob demanded, but now it’s, well, what you see here.
Floggings and the stocks had the key feature of being locally administered. Small groups could police their social issues without having to appeal to distant power structures with very different priorities and cultural preferences. Community helplessness as experienced currently is a consequence of this inability to enforce community mores.
Over the top ‘justice’ for the rich and famous. Meanwhile spiking and rapes are commonplace and unpunished (in the UK anyway, maybe it’s not so bad in Spain). That’s not a good legal system – it’s like we’re living in the 19C.
So, this is a serious and wicked crime but I wonder what you mean by commonplace and unpunished.
How often is commonplace?
How do you know that an allegation is wrongly unpunished?
I know they say that 90% or more of rapes do not lead to convictions but how do they know?
The thing is that unlike, say, murder, physical evidence of rape is very difficult to establish.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t believe that some men get way with rape and sexual assault (some certainly do) and it doesn’t mean that, God help us, it might not be commonplace (90% of rapes might be unpunished) but I just don’t understand how we can know save “believe all women”.
The kiss in question should be heavily punished through public condemnation; the man’s behaviour was disgraceful. Jail seems a bit excessive but who am I to judge?
My daughter is at university, so I hear about what happens. Spiking seems especially common, rape less so but still occurring and not even getting close to being punished.
Obviously this is anecdotal so take it or leave it, but it’s ridiculous a kiss might carry a jail term when put into that context.
To be fair, this is probably the only way to keep the interminably dull, boring, woke spectacle that is women’s football, in the public consciousness. And let’s face it, once this has blown over, we are never going to hear about this Hermoso woman again (unless she becomes a George Floyd-like icon).
Using “to be fair” is anything but – it’s pretty meaningless in fact, when women’s football is enjoyed by millions of all ages and sexes.
If you don’t enjoy it, don’t watch, simples, to be fair…
Thank you. I don’t. And I never will.
All sexes?
Absolutely. Could have said it better. It’s dead easy to ignore the game but when a bloke forces his lips on a woman’s he needs to be exposed as a git.
I find women’s football as exciting and entertaining as men’s. And at present women aren’t rolling on the ground in pretend pain!
When the traditional gender structure undermined(never was perfect anyway), protection of women has to come from the state. It comes clumsy, impersonal and also with a state punishment in the end.
When protection of women comes from the state, it means they have no protection at all. Remember transgenders in women’s prisons – that’s what the “state protection” means
So much nonsense. I watched the clip some time ago and I immediately thought, “Is that it? Is there another clip with the *actual* incident?”
While I think a jail sentence might be a bit overdone, I for one was very happy to see this guy towed through the muck a bit.
Possibly because, when it comes to being the object of unwanted “handling” by overbearing and entitled men and feeling like you can’t say “I don’t like that, please stop”, I’ve got a big old lump of pork to fry.
I’ll never forget watching a male co-worker start massaging the neck of a female co-worker about 20 years ago. One of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen.
Interestingly a female friend described this as happening at her workplace (booze sales, a few years back) and saw it as perfectly normal and ok. I thought it was creepy.
Out of curiosity – how did she respond?
She was fine with it. I was creeped out.
Perhaps you’ve lived a sheltered life.
Urgh. And I bet that woman was having to weigh up very carefully in her head whether objecting to that (I assume unwelcome, unrequested but def inappropriate) physical contact was going to have a detrimental effect on her career. I bet the guy wasn’t thinking anything except how much HE was enjoying it.
Every time I’ve had to do that weighing up in my mind, it’s added a little bit more rage. I now have quite a bit of rage, and the Rubiales incident and outrage did feel like a kind of late-stage collective acknowledgement and a release.
I find it creepy and inappropriate, but we have to be careful when attempting mind reading that we aren’t simply projecting our own feelings into the heads of others. Not all women react with rage, and I suspect that some men feel they are just projecting confidence.
Some work cultures are more accepting of this than others, and some kinds of work attract quite particular types of personality. One might expect different attitudes in sales to those in social work, for example.
Your comment is a typical example of boorish imposition of your own culture on a culture far from you. For Mediterranean residents, physical contacts, hugs, and kisses are the norm. And your hysteria is reminiscent of the fine that was slapped on Kavani, who answered his fellow compatriot “Thank you, Negrito.” In Uruguay this is an affectionate, friendly term, but in England the FA threw a whole tantrum with accusations of racism.
Ignorance combined with narcissism is a terrible thing.
A culture my Italian wife was pleased to leave.
She was often sexually harassed in public in Italy, almost never in the UK.
It’s about your wife, not about Mediterranean life.
As for me, yes, I prefer the cheerful, slightly lazy and dispensable Mediterranean residents who live on the street, sitting at tables, chatting with each other, joking, watching women pass by.
For me, this is the real life, not the meaningless run of people with gloomy faces along the streets of northern capitals
It’s her fault that middle aged men grabbed her arse?
Give him a slap. That’s all. But if a woman who gets her butt spanked feels like her life is ruined, I don’t feel sorry for her.
.
There’s a great quote from The Good Soldier Švejk:
One young girl, about sixteen years old, did something similar to this: during a dance lesson, she burst into tears and said to one high school student who pinched her shoulder: “You have taken off, sir, the pollen of my virginity!” Well, it’s clear, everyone laughed, and the mother, who was looking after her, took the fool out into the corridor in the “Beseda” and kicked her.
A very good observation.
It wasn’t like that. She was find with it. I thought it was creepy though.
I’m with you on this one Katharine – but entitled women do it too. And not all women find it as creepy and unpleasant as you and I. Some genuinely do seem to like the attention.
Try to solve this problem yourself – instead of carefully selected makeup, apply a layer of stinking dirt to your face. Believe me, all your problems with your work colleagues will be solved immediately.
I appreciate your perspective. I am an older guy and have witnessed numerous times other men getting physical with women in a way that seems innocent but actually corners the women. I think men have to be deferential and let women initiate physical contact.
But still, the ease with which society throws men in jail is horrible. Especially here in America. This incident is worthy of discussion and maybe Rubiales should lose his job, but jail for what he did, especially 2 and a half years is a sign of a cruel society. Most people do not understand how bad jail really is.
It’s frightening that someone could actually go to jail for that kiss. IDK know the legal system in Spain, but in Canada someone convicted of full blown rape has a good chance of getting off without a jail sentence for the first conviction.
Trying to coerce the victim is another matter altogether. That crap deserves jail time.
Except that it would take a lot of context and detail to distinguish ‘coercing’ her from ‘asking’ or ‘persuading’ her… context and detail that is rarely available when allegations like this are made. The only evidence is ‘systemic’ or ‘cultural’ or the like.
Coercion is blood-boiling indeed.
Victoria Police in Melbourne Australia forced me to fight at court in an admitted silencing attempt in 2019-2020 about crimes I witnessed as a public servant, tried to entrap me twice, while they openly participated in the serious crimes they still try to silence me about.
Bikers like the MEEHANs, MARCUCCIs, Jesse MARROGI etc. form lynch-mobs trying to coerce people into aiding crime. Coercion methods involve acts violating the Geneva Convention.
In the leafy suburbs of Clare O’Neil’s electorate.
In our own homes. My last forced war-crime experience at 4:11am today on my own, behind locked doors. Today is Easter Sunday.
Because Australia has never been able to control information, rogue government insiders e.g. cops, or technology.
This is Spain. All he has to do is declare himself to be a woman.
Just go to the Civil Register Office, put in a request and 3 months later he will officially be a woman, and she will then be able to kiss as many women as desired, with no consequences.
The key factor here is that he is well known and the incident was very public. It’s more like a politically motivated public lynching. Setting an example to rest of us.
It was all very predictable.
A google search for “sports coaches abusing position of trust” reveals a large number of sports from archery to yachting warning sports personnel about the law on ‘positions of trust’.
Rubiales’ sexual assault on footballer Jenni Hermoso will doubtless be called as a defence by sports personnel who have abused their position of trust, – “well the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation and one of UEFA’s vice-presidents got away with it”, unless he is given a sentence that will act as a sufficient deterrent.
On an individual level he ruined what should have been the greatest moment of triumph in Jenni Hermoso’s life, and for that alone he deserves football’s equivalent of ‘the Spanish Inquisition’
Jenni Hermoso showed amazing restraint in the circumstances, after all many would have reacted like this,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um1xGF-GFhg
especially as she was accompanied by a team of ultra fit women.
Why didn’t Rubiales just apologise? All this could just have been nipped at the bud. Silly arrogant man!
The proportionate response is a slap – not enough to hospitalise but enough to humiliate – and then to relax and enjoy your win/life in the knowledge that you have dealt with it yourself, without subjecting yourself to the torment and tedium of getting officialdom to sort it for you.
The problem is that in the UK at least, a slap, however reasonable in the circumstances, is now also considered assault.
Having seen the video of the kiss, it didn’t look likely that Rubiales got any pleasure out of it. It looked more like a spontaneous ‘thank you’ for winning. That such a small gesture should be interpreted as an assault is incredible. Sending the man to jail would be an outrage–unfortunately one that will probably come to pass.
Maybe so, doesn’t mean he should do it.
.
There are lots of things we shouldn’t do, or do in the heat of the moment, or even just make a mistake. Some are frankly slight, others serious. This is slight. It clearly should not result in a jail term.
The Victorians had some great words which sound pretty comical now. Men like Rubiales are cads and bounders and you really would not want your daughter to marry one.
Decent men would not do something like this, cads, think that they’re entitled to do so. The fear with a cad is that he will do worse; any wife facing unwanted sexual advances and cruelty – that why you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry one.
He outed himself as a cad; he’s a man to be avoided. Even if this is the worst of his crimes, even if he treats his own wife with total respect and love, it’s a bad signal.
Pubic disgrace for men like this is good. Prison seems over the top.
He outed himself as a cad, you’ve demonstrated that you’re a prude.
What is truth?
I understand that hugs and general body contact forms of celebration were, as usual, going on at the time. Perhaps the coach got a bit too celebratory? Should two seconds of a man’s life ruin the rest of it? Did I hear that she had just finished picking him up off the ground? Did he give written consent to that? It’s F’ing ridiculous.
Generally speaking, those more familiar with the details of this episode know that her teammates were thoroughly amused by the episode, and Hermoso did not feel offended at all.
Only later did idiots on social media elevate the incident to the level of a criminal offense, and Hermoso was forced to declare that she was deeply offended.
The hypocrisy of the meToo movement is incredible, and you shouldn’t cry about Europe depopulation, you are doing everything for it
I never thought that Unherd would stoop so low as to print a picture of a woman being sexually assaulted.
Are you being ironic?
It was wrong of him to kiss her but western feminism has become a joke. People that lose their minds over an unwanted kiss but have nothing to say about Jewish women & girls being gangraped to death – not to mention the mistreatment of millions of Muslim women across the globe – cannot be taken seriously.
Do women realise that ultimately they will be the victims of this madness?
What this is boiling down to,he is a white heterosexuell man.Just get used to it.