A quicky doesn’t count
The ten second rule is meeting some resistance.
Does it count as sexual harassment if an assault lasts less than 10 seconds?
Many young people in Italy are expressing outrage on social media, after a judge cleared a school caretaker of groping a teenager, because it did not last long enough.
That’s such an interesting idea. Apparently if a guy grabs a woman’s breast or crotch for only 9 seconds it’s legal and fine and just what women and girls have to expect because of their foolish choice to be born female.
I beg to differ. Nobody should touch anybody anywhere no matter how briefly. Period. The only exception should be physical safety – if someone is about to step in front of a speeding cyclist on the sidewalk [pavement] then it’s ok, indeed imperative, to grab. Other than that: no touching without invitation. (The rules are different among friends, of course, but this is about street/school/stairway harassment.)
Francesco Cicconetti wrote on TikTok: “Who decides that 10 seconds is not a long time? Who times the seconds, while you’re being harassed? Men don’t have the right to touch women’s bodies, not even for a second – let alone 5 or 10.” He goes on to say that the judges’ decision to acquit the caretaker shows just how normalised sexual harassment is in Italian society.
Quite so. Apparently Italian women are supposed to stay inside, just as women are in Afghanistan and Iran and so on. If they’re out in public, they’re whores by definition, so they positively welcome being leered at and followed and grabbed. Plus they hate it and it serves them right for going outside, the sluts.
Clearly you don’t understand those sophisticated European attitudes towards sex.
I’m willing to grant a certain amount of touching (even though I personally hate it) because we’re social primates, but this ain’t it. We’re chimpanzees, not bonobos…
Ten seconds is a long time. A peck on the cheek, or a handshake, or a friendly hug, any of these could be veering well into strange territory if they lasted for ten seconds.
My granddaughter, 15 years old and already a victim of sexual assault, recently had her breast groped in a class by a boy. The teacher laughed it off. It took all my willpower to refrain from going to the school and grabbing the teacher’s breasts. I am 100% sure that would not have been laughed off and would probably have resulted in me being charged with sexual assault.
One rule for the “boys” when it comes to girls …
Actually, we are equally closely related to both. That doesn’t make it okay, though, because actually we’re neither and we have established rules for living in society…rules that are broken with impunity far too often when it comes to male/female interactions.
Rev, I was once told I should be flattered. I wasn’t.
Related maybe, but which does the third chimpanzee more closely resemble?