If she told Biden to back off and he didnât, heâs got a problem. Other than that, I donât see much there.
And she believes it is responsible to try to derail Bidenâs presidential run over a personal space issue? Sheâs triggered? The media covers this?
The earlier Biden/Flores thred had a good point: has Joe listened and learned?
A reporter could actually, you know, REPORT a timeline. We have lots of pics of Joe touching, align with #metoo and with public comments made about Joe specifically. Any changes in his behavior at those inflection points?
Ok, this is getting stupid. What next? âhe was undressing me with his eyesââŚ
Me too.
I am disturbed that we are putting serious stuff in with the sort of things that people really should tolerate if they expect to share the planet with other humans. It makes us look like delicate flowers who can not be far from the fainting couch.
Heâs a touch feely guy. Iâm not a fan of those types, but when it bothers me I just ask them to stop. I donât call the newspapers. This is ridiculous.
I guess itâs cheaper than seeing a shrink.
It never happened.
This is kind of like being served leftovers.
I believe we spent most of yesterday exhausting this subject.
Nothing new to add. Ya know TPM, yâall couldâve posted Stephanie Carterâs response to everyone misinterpreting her Biden photo instead.
I want Biden to go away for other reasons, not this nothingburger. I believe we have some great female candidates this year. Anyone of them would be preferable over Biden,
Of course they do so, gossip about Dems is a thing they can never pass up. Itâs dog-bites-man with a Republican.
I am glad she âdowngradedâ her remarks to space, but then she ramps up with âtriggeringâ which should only be used with trauma. So, I donât like Joeâs behavior if he is still doing it, but I donât think much of her either.
Nevada is one of the early primary/caucus states and she obviously supports someone other than Joe Biden.
Some of us need to actually have standards. Youâd all be duly outraged, I have zero doubt, if a Republican was going around doing this. You canât just slide up to women and kiss them and put your hands on them, for Godâs sake, that goes without saying. Iâm sorry but youâre giving him a huge pass on something he should damn well know heâs been lucky to have gotten away with for so long. And if you think heâs our only hope, take a longer look at the team weâve got out on the field. He never did a damn thing in a presidential race without a running mate named Obama. And this isnât the Republicans ambushing him, and it isnât âeating our own.â He does this to himself and he seems to have a problem.
Ooops! There it is.
Biden seems to have a fetish for burying his nose in women or girlâs hair to smell their scalps.
I hope Biden learns from it going forward. Calling it âBiden being Bidenâ will not suffice, and it never should have sufficed in the past either.
Intentions are not the only factor in determining whether someone has been violated and cannot be used to excuse inappropriate behavior. The way an event is experienced by the recipient of a gesture, touch, etc., is important. Invasion of personal space is not a sexual issue, per se, but it is often a dominance-power issue. Women experience these interactions on a regular basis, and it should not be our responsibility to discern what menâs intentions are. Men must take responsibility for recognizing that they donât have the right to invade personal space, or make any other gesture, such as a kiss on the head, of a woman, without explicit permission to do so.
Would Biden have smelled a manâs hair and kissed him on the head in a similar situation? If not, why not? Because it would have been perceived as either sexual (even if vaguely), or demeaning of the other man, a means of emasculating or belittling him? If the latter, then itâs a dominance move. If Biden wants to survive the primaries, let alone be president, he just has to stop. Now.
Mike Pence was lobbed a ton of grief and snark over his reveal he preferred not to be alone with a woman other than his wife. Yeah, heâs a prude, and Evangelical, and thatâs a bit in the extreme. But on some level he has a point. Just as the only 100% safe way to avoid pregnancy is to abstain from sex, the sure fire method to avoid charges of sexual harrassment or âinvading my personal spaceâ is to have witnesses around, or forego the opposite sex altogether as to small or private meetings. A man could simply shake a peerâs hand, in view of others, and later on be accused of secretly tickling her palm in a sexually suggestives way during the shake. Women donât make these accusation lightly, and Iâm sure the false accusation rate is exceedingly low, but lies do get told, and it only takes one to destroy a political career, a business or teaching career, or a marriage. And itâs a very good thing women feel empowered enough to come out with these incidents and expose the creeps out there. But if I was a man with a lot on the line, and had the means to do so, Iâd have an aide escort me everywhere, and maintain 3 feet between me and all other women at all times. Otherwise the simplest physical gesture may get turned into a harrassment charge.
âHe touched my shoulder, and left his hand there waaaay too long, like for a few seconds!!! Ewww!!â
âHe looked at me with his eyes a certain way, and I KNOW he was undressing me, Iâve seen that look before!!â
âHe glanced away from my face as we spoke, looking downward briefly to my chest, and I know ***HE WAS OGLING MY BREASTS!!***â
Maybe there is no way to interact with the other sex safely. Weâve all heard that despite all the protections afforded a President if someone was really determined to kill him/her they could probably do it. I suppose if a person has it out for someone the same could be said of ruining them with accusations of sexual impropriety. If they want to do it they will, and youâre powerless to stop it, or even unable to plausibly deny it in the face of zero supporting evidence on the accuserâs part. Once itâs out there youâre screwed.
There were witnesses. It didnât happen.
This is a big deal. If he did what she saysâand I have no reason to think she would lieâthen what he did was a form of power game. Intimidation. Men can feel uncomfortable when someone gets too close without a good reason. Think about, âHe was in my face.â What does that mean? It means that your space was invaded. And when men do that to women it is, in general, more serious, because women are smaller on average than men, and face many instances of men attempting to intimidate them, and are still socialized to think of themselves as less powerful than men.