Can I get some help on a topic that seems to be the topic du jour here in DU?

[Stinky The Clown]

Touching and inappropriate touching seems to have started a bunch of threads (this is but another one of them).

I get what's being discussed, but why? Did someone touch someone in a way the first someone thought appropriate or innocent but the second someone has called for some punishment of the second someone what will now have to wear a hair shirt and heretofore approach only with eyes cast down? <---snark

Seriously. What prompted these conversations?

[treestar]

1. Right wing about 2 years ago

started a "creepy uncle Joe" meme on Biden. All things done in public and even photographed. Now that we have a primary, some primary challenges see fit to adopt this right wing smear to use in favor of their candidate. Suddenly a woman waiting to go on stage with Biden has a story and to our surprise, supports a different candidate. This is now used to benefit said candidate.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. I've not been on much here and not watching much news - but it has to be this?

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/31/politics/joe-biden-lucy-flores/index.html

[MoonRiver]

3. Biden was accused of touching a woman inappropriately.

Oh, and he was accused by the woman.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. Biden's love of physical affection is getting attention.

[demmiblue]

5. Perhaps it is about Katy Tur:

Katy Tur Writes About Being Kissed By Trump in Her New Book. His Response: 'Fake News'

Covering a presidential campaign is full of challenges—but being kissed by a candidate is not usually one of them.

In Unbelievable, the journalist’s memoir about the 2016 election, released on Tuesday, she recounts a 2015 episode in which the then-Republican nominee kissed her on the cheek after she appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss the election.

“Before I know what’s happening, his hands are on my shoulders and his lips are on my cheek. My eyes widen. My body freezes. My heart stops,” she wrote.

She also spoke about the incident in an NPR interview:

“I was powerless. I just stood there frozen thinking, Oh my god, what is this man doing? He’s not my friend. He’s not my business partner. He’s not my social acquaintance. He’s not a family member of mine. This is somebody I am covering. This is a presidential candidate, I am the reporter assigned on this beat—it just crosses a huge line. It’s so unprofessional and so inappropriate given the circumstances.”

According to Tur’s book, Trump immediately mentioned the incident on-air, telling Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, “I just saw [Tur] back there. I gave her a big kiss. She was fantastic.”

http://fortune.com/2017/09/12/katy-tur-donald-trump/

[Hekate]

7. No, Katy is just relating an experience, not lodging a complaint...

Biden, however, is about to be dismembered from the left by new puritans and from the right because he's quite a strong candidate. His "accuser" apparently worked on Sanders' campaign as well as ran for office herself.

Getting this in before the thread has to be shifted to Dem Primaries.

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Just four words from your post and it ALL makes PERFECT sense:

"Sanders supporter" and "new puritans"

[Shrike47]

6. Biden kissing the top of somebody's head while hugging her, in a group situation.

Frankly, as a female survivor of sex abuse, I am getting really tired of and offended by militarization of claims of ‘inappropriate behavior’ by women who purport to have been made uncomfortable. It cheapens the real damage that occurs.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. Why "purport"? A person can be made uncomfortable by nonsexualized contact, and plenty of us have

experience with nonsexualized contact that became sexualized without warning or consent. There is a spectrum of unwanted attention, and we should be able to talk about all of it, without feeling like it's "not enough" because it didn't reach an arbitrary level.

[Hekate]

9. Same here. Thank you.

[Ms. Toad]

11. Your post trivializes the very real harm that non-consensual touching does.

I have a number of friends for whom comforting touch has been weaponized - often as children. As survivors of sexual abuse, the only time they felt a gentle hand - rather than the back of a hand - was when they were being raped or molested. Many of these friends are re-traumatized by even innocent, well-intended later touches.

That is not to say that all peole who do not want to be hugged or otherwise touched are survivors of abuse, but the ones I know personally who are most hurt by people who hug first and ask later, if at all, generally have a histroy of sexual abuse within the family.

Your sexual abuse may not have had that impact on you, but it has for many. Every person survivor of sexual abuse or not) has the right to determine when, how, and by whom they are touched.

I am not suggesting kicking Biden out of the liberal fold. BUT it is important that he listen and learn so that when he has physical contact wtih constituents, friends, colleagues, it is consensual. Absent a conversation like this one, that prompted him to respond for the first time to conderns that were raised a few years ago, he will continue to make some of the women he touches uncomfortable.