Rubiales’ Suspension Sends Message About Unwanted Kisses

Luis Rubiales, president of Spain’s soccer federation, was suspended Saturday for planting an unwanted kiss on star forward Jennifer Hermoso last week.

Hermoso is not the first to be on the receiving end of a cringe-worthy unwanted smooch caught by media cameras. Halle Berry, Uma Thurman and most recently, a councilwoman from Brooklyn have all been there. But Rubiales’ suspension suggests that attitudes may be starting to change.

Rubiales kissed Hermoso after Spain’s Women’s World Cup victory last Sunday. He described it as a peck and said it was consensual. Hermoso disagreed. On social media, Hermoso explained, “I felt vulnerable and a victim of an impulse-driven, sexist, out-of-place act without any consent on my part.”

Describing the kiss as “spontaneous” and “without any bad intention,” Rubiales seemed to have missed out on a major tenet of #MeToo—that his intentions aren’t relevant. Fortunately, FIFA understood and took action. In a statement, FIFA said that Mr. Rubiales would be suspended “from all football-related activities” for 90 days. One sports official from Spain called this, the “Me Too moment of Spanish football.”

Rubiales is not the first and likely won’t be the last to be caught on camera planting an unwelcome smooch. The media has caught many unwanted kisses in action. What’s different in this case is the reaction and public outcry on behalf of Hermoso.

Back in 2003, Adrien Brody surprised everyone when he grabbed presenter Halle Berry and kissed her passionately while accepting his Best Actor Oscar for his role in The Pianist. After the kiss, Berry looked visibly uncomfortable. Years later, Berry said in an interview, “That was not planned. I knew nothing about it.” When asked what was going through her mind then, Berry added, “I was like, ‘What the fuck is happening right now?’ That is what was going through my mind.”

On the Oscars Youtube channel, the scene of Berry receiving the nonconsensual kiss was named a “favorite Oscar moment.”

Actress Uma Thurman reported feeling “violated” after Italian entrepreneur Lapo Elkann kissed her at amFAR’s Cinema Against AIDS gala in 2016. The businessman decided to go for the kiss after winning a Victoria’s Secret show package costing $196,000. “It’s opportunism at its worst. She wasn’t complicit in it,” Thurman’s representative said in a statement to The Huffington Post.

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was also alleged to have provided unwelcome kisses on the cheek to two women. Complaints of sexual misconduct from these and other women resulted in Cuomo’s resignation.

Unwelcome kisses aren’t reserved for the famous. Last week, Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov was kissed on the cheek by a passerby while giving a TV interview. Vernikov tracked down the individual and pressed charges against him.

Unwanted smooches can come from women’s lips, too. Katy Perry planted one on American Idol contestant Benjamin Glaze just before his audition in 2018. “I was a tad bit uncomfortable,” Glaze, who had never been kissed before, told the New York Times. “I wanted to save it for my first relationship,” he said. “I wanted it to be special.” In the same interview, he clarified that the contact was not welcome. “Would I have done it if she said, ‘Would you kiss me?’ No, I would have said no,” he said.

Even Alfred Eisenstaedt’s iconic photograph of a sailor kissing a woman in Times Square depicts a nonconsensual kiss. The famous photo was taken after news of the 1945 Japanese surrender in World War II and was published in Life magazine. Years later, in an interview, the nurse, Greta Zimmer Friedman, revealed that the kiss was not consensual. At the time, she didn’t even know the man that had kissed her. “It wasn’t my choice to be kissed,” she said in an interview for the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project. “The guy just came over and kissed or grabbed.”

The situation has improved since the V-J Day photo was published almost 80 years ago. Unwelcome kisses still happen, but those on the receiving end, like Hermoso, are becoming more comfortable speaking out about their discomfort. And they are being heard. Let’s hope that those who don’t have media coverage and photographs of their unwanted kisses are also listened to.