Spanish police incite sexual harassment (not really)
We live in politically correct times. Don’t get me wrong; I’m totally in favor of using the correct terms, burying unpleasant clichés, and ending hostility and degrading treatment of anybody on the basis of their gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion. What’s more, there is nothing wrong with pausing to think for a second before saying or writing something in case it can be misinterpreted.
Here in Spain, perhaps we have been a little slow to catch up with the United States or our neighbors in northern Europe in this regard, but fear not: Spain too has its moral guardians keen to protect us from any taint of political incorrectness.
On February 14, a date celebrated in much of the world as Saint Valentine’s Day, the national police force, which runs an extremely successful Twitter account that has garnered international praise for its efforts in reaching out to the general public, decided to post this tweet, which reads: “If somebody “steals” a kiss from you, it’s not robbery. Happy Saint Valentine’s.”
It didn’t take long for the complainers to take to the twittersphere, with comments suggesting the police were encouraging sexual harassment, with others going so far as to interpret it as an invitation to necrophilia. Note that the language used by the Spanish police avoids mentioning gender, as well as making sure to put “steal”. But after the first replies, and fearful its words were being misinterpreted and that a twitterstorm was about to engulf it, the police quickly published what amounts to a retraction:
“If your loved one “steals” a kiss by surprise, enjoy it. If somebody steals a kiss without your permission, report it.”
I’m sorry to have to say this, but the whole episode strikes me as monumentally stupid. I can understand the temptation to have a go at the authorities, but allow me to say that anybody who sees this as incitement to harassment, crime, sexual aggression, or anything else other than a rather prim tweet needs to take a long, hard look at themselves in the mirror. Because anybody who interprets this along the lines of “Are you telling me to go out and “steal” kisses from every passerby?” is deliberately twisting things. Time was when such idiots could be dealt with by bringing one’s open hand sharply into contact with their face. But of course in the politically correct times we live, what I have just written could be interpreted as an incitement to violence, so now I have to put an asterisk* or publish a retraction as quickly as possible.
* The author wishes to make clear that in no way has he intended to incite violence through his words and that this was simply a manner of speaking designed to evoke the practices of previous generations that have fortunately long since been banished from our society.
Not content with the police’s attempt to rectify its monstrous first tweet with a second, some people continued to find fault, suggesting that the use of the word “your” capitalized implied possessiveness. At this point one finds oneself asking: “How come you never have a gun to hand when you need one?” **
** The author wishes to make clear that in no way are his words an incitement to violence and that this is simply a manner of speaking used by other people. The author would like to expressly condemn the use of violence and firearms as a way of resolving differences of opinion.
I understand that Twitter is a public space. I understand that the police force is a public body that has to be careful about what it says. Fine. It could well be that the problem with Twitter, which allows people to say what they want quickly and easily, isn’t so much Twitter itself, but the society we find ourselves living in. We seem to be moving toward something like a police state, although in this case not one run by the police per se, but instead by the thought police, the commissars of political correctness, whose job it is to put everything anybody says under the microscope and then launch a witch hunt.
And just let me say, in case anybody has any doubts: I agree that we need to fight gender-specific violence, along with discrimination of any kind, as well as the objectification of personal relations. But please, can we keep things in perspective? At this rate, all we’re going to achieve is that more and more people take these issues less and less seriously. And that really would be something to take offense at.
(En español, aquí)
