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I 100% agree with your point about touch starvation and think this is a major failing of our society.
And yet I assume you wouldn't take the argument you just made as a justification for rape, even though nothing in your argument explicitly excludes it.
This is obviously a matter of degrees, some types of non-consensual touching obviously cross the line into being likely enough to be harmful/unwanted that they are not justified by your argument. The question is where you draw that line, or how you behave around this issue so that you can gauge the line better in the situation (such as, you know, asking people what they want).
Your boss, grabbing your head so you can't get away and physically pulling you in, kissing you on the mouth, in front of millions of viewers locally and on camera, seems like something you could predict would be way over the line if you don't have a pre-existing social relationship that makes it seem appropriate. Even if you don't think that should be upsetting/traumatizing in your ideal world of casual touch, even if some pairs of people can do that in the current world and aren't upset by it, it seems quite predictable that many people would be very upset by it, and it should be over the line.
And I just want to point out, I think a major reason why we have this touch starvation problem is specifically because people (esp. women) cannot trust people (esp men) to be reasonable and careful about where that line is, in precisely the way her boss and you are demonstrating here. When men will take any ambiguity about boundaries as an excuse to push further and further towards unasked and random physic intimacy, and when other men will defend their actions to the death every time, then drawing incredibly strict boundaries a mile before the actual line and being incredibly paranoid about enforcing them becomes the sane strategy towards making sure no one crosses the actual line accidentally/casually.
This is again where I say: I wish both sides could just agree that this was understandable but over the line into inappropriate, a simple apology is called for and a reminder to everyone to be more careful. One side saying it was nothing or it's good actually while the other says it's a major violation that demands a head on a spike just means we can never make progress on building a new normal where everyone can trust actual boundaries to be respected and can be more casual about everything leading up to them.
I don’t think every type of touch is okay all the time. I just think the legalistic need to constantly be seeking permission for every little connection or touch is so outside of what used to be normal human behavior that it turns humans into robots.
Again, I 100% agree with that statement, while also thinking that this particular case is very plausibly over the line in even an ideal world.
Not sure if we actually disagree on anything, or just endorse slightly different lines.
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