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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.
As I noted in another comment I don't think consent needs to be specifically verbal. The social context it's occurring in is important.
Yea, so? Just because I have harmed people a particular way, or that other people have commonly harmed myself or other people a particular way, doesn't mean it isn't harmful! People, myself included, aren't morally perfect and the only way we can pretend we are is blinding ourselves to the way our actions harm others.
So why is a head-tilt on a first date ironclad evidence of implied consent, but not the lifelong bond between a man and his loving son who he raised from infancy?
I just refuse to believe that the wife of the man who kissed her before she went to work actually believes she has been "harmed" in any way. And I don't think this is because she really has been harmed, but has been brainwashed by society or the patriarchy or whatever to believe that she hasn't - I believe that, in the act of a loving husband kissing his sleeping wife (who adores him) before he goes to work, no harm has been done. It's a victimless "crime" i.e. not a crime at all.
Because the head tilt is (by assumption) done consciously and deliberately to signal one's desire to be kissed. I am allergic to the notion that some kind of background relationship creates a condition of implied consent, but admittedly that is probably because my reference class is situations where that implied consent is used to override more conscious nonconsent which is not happening here.
I agree that the wife in question doesn't have a subjective experience of harm, and not for reasons of brainwashing or anything like that. I also don't think a subjective experience of harm is necessary for one to be harmed. Take another low stakes example: I am substantially late (say 30m) to some kind of activity with my friends, delaying them. Even if none of them subjectively thought of themselves as harmed by my lateness, I still think of myself as having harmed them (in a very small way) by wasting their time. I think there are lots of small ways people harm each other (in the sense that it would have been better if they did otherwise) that are also small enough that even simple reproach1 might be too much of a punishment.
If your friends feel annoyed or disrespected by you showing up late, you have harmed them (in however minor a way). If they don't (because "we'll be there around 10, but show up whenever suits, people will be coming and going"), you have not harmed them in any way. The idea that "harm" can simply exist, floating through space like luminiferous aether, in the absence of anyone who believes they have been harmed, is just too preposterous for me to even consider. Harm is either objective (a broken leg, a shattered windscreen) or subjective (hurt feelings, trauma). The loving husband kissing his sleeping wife who loves him satisfies neither criterion.
So what, the loving husband has done some nonzero amount of harm to his loving wife by "failing to respect her bodily autonomy" by kissing her on the lips at a time at which she was technically unable to give affirmative consent? Please. If anything I'd think she'd be more insulted (i.e. harmed) if he didn't kiss her goodbye. "What, you trust me so little that you're refusing to kiss me when I'm half-asleep, in case I turn around and accuse you of sexual assault down the line?"
An excellent series of posts mon frere, I couldn't have said it better myself.
It's a good thing this isn't complicated!
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