{"id":107274,"date":"2016-09-20T07:16:51","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T15:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=107274"},"modified":"2016-09-20T07:16:51","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T15:16:51","slug":"did-the-famous-sailor-sexually-assault-the-famous-nurse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=107274","title":{"rendered":"Did the Famous Sailor Sexually Assault the Famous Nurse?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dennis Prager writes<\/a>: The most famous American photo of World War II is undoubtedly that of the four Marines planting the American flag on Iwo Jima. The second most famous is probably the legendary photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt\u2019s picture of an American sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square in New York City, when people were celebrating Japan\u2019s surrender.
\nThe kiss was not, of course, merely a peck on the cheek. If it were, no photo would have been taken. And if one were, no one would have remembered it. The sailor clearly grabbed the nurse. She is leaning backward, bent at the waist; he is holding her up with both hands around her waist.
\nThe photo has been back in the news because the woman, identified as Greta Zimmer Friedman, died on Sept. 8, at age 92. She was 21 when the picture was taken.
\nThe sailor, later identified as George Mendonsa, mistook Friedman\u2019s dental assistant uniform for that of a nurse. He later explained that he hugged and kissed her because of his overwhelming gratitude for the work nurses had performed while he was in combat in the Navy, because of his elation over the war ending and because he had had a few drinks. As he put it, when he and Friedman were reunited in 2012 at the spot of their kiss, it was \u201cthe excitement of the war bein\u2019 over, plus I had a few drinks, so when I saw the nurse I grabbed her, and I kissed her.\u201d
\nAny American who looks at that photo today realizes just how different a time we live in.
\nIf a man were to do that to a woman today, he would likely be charged with sexual assault, found guilty, be ordered to pay a serious sum of money to the woman, be sent to prison, be civilly sued and be labeled a sex offender \u2014 effectively ruining much of his life.
\nShe, on the other hand, would be regarded as victim of sexual assault and labelled a survivor, and would seek psychological counseling.
\nLiving in pre-feminist darkness, Friedman did not see it this way. As her son told the New York Daily News, \u201cMy mom always had an appreciation for a feminist viewpoint, and understood the premise that you don\u2019t have a right to be intimate with a stranger on the street. \u2026(But) she didn\u2019t assign any bad motives to George in that circumstance, that situation, that time.\u201d
\nOne reason might be that she was a Jewish refugee from Hitler\u2019s Europe, and, unlike feminists in America, she knew real evil.
\nGiven the context, the act was essentially innocent. Reinforcing its innocence are the facts that the kiss was very brief and Mendonsa\u2019s wife can be seen smiling in the background.
\nBut in the feminist age of enlightenment in which we live, when it comes to any act of physical intimacy by a man with a woman, there is no such thing as \u201ccontext.\u201d Unless there is a verbal \u201cyes\u201d accompanying every act by the man, the presumption is that the intimacy was a sexual assault, a form of rape.
\nThus, in today\u2019s America, George Mendonsa is deemed to have committed an act of sexual assault. Context has no say.
\nOn the Sarasota, Florida, waterfront there is a 28-foot statue of Mendonsa kissing Friedman. It clearly offends at least one Sarasota Herald-Tribune columnist. A few days after Friedman\u2019s death, Chris Anderson acknowledged that the statue \u201crepresents euphoria, innocence, romance, nostalgia and a level of unity and pride this country arguably has not seen since V-J Day.\u201d But as a someone who surely attended college and probably graduate school, he sees the darker side, saying, \u201cIs it possible that thousands upon thousands of people over the last seven years have come to the Sarasota waterfront to unwittingly pose in front of a giant depiction of a sexual assault?\u201d
\nLikewise, the writer of the New York Times obituary of Friedman felt compelled to note that \u201cIn recent years, some have noted its darker undertones.\u201d Among the examples cited was Time Magazine, which in 2014 had written, \u201cmany people view the photo as little more than the documentation of a very public sexual assault, and not something to be celebrated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dennis Prager writes: The most famous American photo of World War II is undoubtedly that of the four Marines planting the American flag on Iwo Jima. The second most famous is probably the legendary photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt\u2019s picture of an … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21791],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t