the important point, as far as I’m concerned, is that this photo is still widely romanticized. and even once people actually know what’s going on in it – that a man grabbed a strange woman and mashed his mouth into her mouth with some degree of force – they still write it off as fundamentally innocent. that’s what indicates the rape culture at play here, and that’s what worries me. because frankly, if a strange man grabbed me in a headlock and kissed me (and very similar things have happened to me in public when I wasn’t expecting them, and it’s terrifying every time), I’d be absolutely freaked out no matter the circumstances, and it’s a major concern to me that so many people seem to be wondering what the big problem is. the thing that a lot of men don’t seem to understand is that, when something like this happens, we’re probably not assuming that the guy involved has the best possible intentions; we’re assuming that this violation is about to lead to a far more invasive and painful violation, and that the best thing to do might be to just let it happen lest we make the man angry and more violent.