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If that's the case, then who the hell is going around interpreting pats on the back as romantic or sexual?
I mentioned the sexual or romantic aspect because the question is whether the commenter kissing their dad was sexual harassment. Nonconsensually touching someone can be bad even it if isn't sexual harassment.
Okay, so /u/Fruck kissing his comatose father on the forehead was "bad" even though it wasn't sexual harassment?
Correct, although I think it is bad in a pretty minor way.
How?
I think nonconsensually touching people is bad simpliciter. Sometimes there are good reasons to do it that outweigh the harm of doing so (carrying someone unconscious to safety from a fire or something) but generally I think it is bad.
I'm just baffled by the theory of harm here. Do you really think that if /u/Fruck's father came out of his coma and found out that his son had kissed him on the forehead during his coma, he'd be outraged and feel that his son had violated his personal boundaries? I find that essentially impossible to believe. Crimes do actually require a victim you know.
"Outraged" is a strong word. I would expect him to be somewhat uncomfortable with his child's touching his unconscious body, but I would also expect him to consider this violation of personal boundaries to be extremely minor and easily forgiven, given the obvious depths of the child's love and grief from which it sprang.
Really? Are /u/Fruck and I the only people in this thread who think that this is a totally normal (even commendable) way to behave, and that the father would not have been even slightly bothered by this?
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No I do not think that, which is why I think the harm or badness in this case is small. I agree that thinking about how the person subject to the nonconsensual touching would feel about that touching is important in evaluating its morality.
But you think a nonzero amount of "harm" has been committed by a man tenderly kissing his comatose father as he lies in a hospital bed. You think the world would have been a better place had /u/Fruck not done that.
I find this worldview almost impossible to fathom. A man wakes up, showers and gets dressed. Just before he leaves for work, he kisses his sleeping wife (who he adores) on the lips. You think some small but nonzero amount of "harm" has been committed here.
Later that day, the same man comes home from work. His wife greets him at the door, and kisses him - quelle horreur! - without asking for consent first! She should have said "Dearest husband to whom I've been married for a decade, may I please kiss you?"
God, what a bizarre standard of behaviour. You realise that literally everyone you've met in your life has violated this ridiculous rule you've set up at some point in their life (including you, most probably)? If you're too scared to kiss your girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse on the lips while they're asleep - well, I shudder to think of how cold and lacking in intimacy your "ideal" romantic relationship is.
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