^^^^ LOOOOOLLook at his hands, look at her balance. She’s not daintily placing her foot in the air, she is off-kilter. The placement of his legs and the force he is exerting on her is pulling her off of her feet. Look at his hand on her waist. He’s forcing her hips into that position. Look at her head in the crook of his elbow, he has entire control over the position of her head. Look at the way they kiss, look at his closed fist. This wasn’t a gentle advance with an opportunity for dissent (or consent), this was a woman ripped off of her feet and molested. This is rape culture.
Man, shut the fuck up.
Are you fucking kidding me? This does NOT look like “rape culture” you bastard. It looks like two people who are in love, and the man took charge and was like “bitch Im gonna kiss you and Im gonna kiss you hard” except the bitch part, sorry. xD Pure love right here, not “rape culture.”
You’d better be fucking shitting me.
You do realize that its well documented that that guy walked up to that woman and kissed her without knowing her or even talking to her beforehand.
The OP is completely right and the fact that this picture has picked up such a romantic stigma over the years just proves her point.
Assholes.
just looking at his arm around her head there gives me the creeps
ARE YOU KIDDING ME.
ARE YOU.
FUCKING.
KIDDING ME.
Now listen up, here.
I heard Edith Shain, the nurse in this photo, speak at a WWII reunion at the Midway in San Diego Harbor in 2010, a couple of months before she died. I met with her afterwards, and got a chance to speak with her—about her experiences, about her life, and yes, about this picture.
I witnessed the way she acted with the soldiers who were present at the reunion. I witnessed the laughs, the casual flirting, the remembrance of an important day and an image that has since become an iconic part of American photographic history.
She expressed no anger, frustration, or sadness over this image, or towards the sailor who kissed her. She considered it amusing, spontaneous, and a part of the celebration. No, she did not know the sailor, that is true. It is not a wholly romantic image. But it is not what you assholes are trying to make it into. How dare you even begin to equate a kiss in the heat of the moment to something as horrible as rape?
Yes—rape culture and the like are perfectly all right things to talk about, and should be talked about and addressed. But appropriating a completely innocent image, and appropriating an entire person’s life and legacy and ignoring how /she/ felt about this event in her life is so completely wrong and disgusting that I can’t even begin to fathom it.
Hell, you can even have this quote I just pulled off the very first article I found searching her name, if you don’t believe me: “The happiness was indescribable,” Mrs. Shain said of the original V-J Day celebration. “It was a very long kiss.”
Meeting Edith Shain and hearing her share her experience was one of the most pivotal moments of my life. Don’t you dare try to erase her and her memory like this.
(Source: esotericalesbians)
