Woman gropes mall Santa
Sandrama Lamy, 33, of Danbury, Connecticut, was charged with fourth-degree sexual assault on Santa Claus. Apparently, she allegedly groped Santa while seated on his lap at the Danbury Fair Mall. As BB pal Vann Hall said, at least he knows who's been naughty. From the News Times:
"I don't know what the deal was. It was just bizarre," the mall Santa told a reporter, referring all other questions about the incident to Cherry Hill Photo, the company that runs the Danbury Fair mall Santa photo setup...Link
Earlier this month in Missoula, Mont., a mall Santa was assaulted with a pumpkin pie.
Meanwhile, a department store Santa in Australia claims he lost his job earlier this month because he said "Ho, ho, ho."
His bosses had asked him to say "Hi, hi, hi."
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"As BB pal Vann Hall said, at least he knows who's been naughty."
If Santa had groped her, would that have been treated in an equally lighthearted manner?
Kind of time to retire the "ho ho ho" being taken out of Santa's jolly already -- I heard this on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" too -- because Snopes has debunked it:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/hohoho.asp
Not that the NewsTimes should pass up a good UL to round out their "Santa Under Attack" trilogy, of course.
#1: Call me sexist, but I see a difference.
RugerRedhawk: OK, you're sexist.
The only reason you see a difference, is because you've been culturally trained to consider women the weaker sex. As a result, inappropriate sexual behavior by women can be ignored; after all, they're just women. Men on the other hand are perceived to be in power, so inappropriate sexual behavior is also an abuse of that position.
If you consider men and women to be equal, the inappropriate behavior should be treated the same. As much as we like to think otherwise, we are a long way from accepting that perspective.
Men on the other hand are perceived to be in power
Thats only because we own everything.
Seriously now. Most men are usually much stronger than most women. So when we hear about a weaker person grabbing a stronger person by the crotch we tend to not think of it as bad as the other way around.
I know common sense is an unpopular thing.
Even when the women is clearly the stronger one, as in the case of women molesting young boys, the crime is typically treated with a tsk! tsk! and a shake of the head.
Contrast that with the lifetime of harassment and persecution that follows men who molest, well, anyone.
(Though to be fair, male victims of female aggressors seem less likely to complain about it much.)
In response to the somewhat subtopic of gender and 'victimhood;' strength is a non-issue. If true, this was opportunistic. Santa certainly never saw it coming.
From http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_212120371.shtml ...
The un-named Santa is 65 and "was apparently shocked and embarrassed by the whole incident," according to Capt. Myles.
So much for the nonsense that a woman can't sexually assault a man, or that a man can't be victimized by a woman, or it's somehow funny.
Oh, and as if 33-year-old Sandrama Lamy of Danbury, Conn. wasn't stupid enough, it was easy for security/police to catch her because she was on crutches!
Oh, come on now. That "Ho, ho ho" vs. "Hi, hi, hi" thing is so obviously an invention of the neocon media to bolster their stupid fake War! on! Christmas!!! non-issue.
#1 - I agree with you. It's interesting; I totally have a kneejerk reaction to consider it not as serious when a woman molests a man as when a man molests a woman. Then I think about it, and I realize that's pretty much bullshit. Although I can't help but think it's more threatening for a man to molest a woman, because it's exponentially more likely that he'll rape her than that a woman molesting a man would rape him.
There's also probably something to be said about the fact that women harassing men is much less widespread and gets way more media coverage. If you look at the statutory rapists listed on Wikipedia, for example, they're almost all women, even though there are way more male statutory rapists than female ones. It sucks that men who harass women are considered so average that it barely warrants any media attention.
That "at least he knows who's been naughty" remark is pretty icky, but at least she was actually charged with something, so it wasn't laughed off entirely.
#10: "Although I can't help but think it's more threatening for a man to molest a woman, because it's exponentially more likely that he'll rape her than that a woman molesting a man would rape him."
You're assuming that molestation is somehow less harmful than rape. The reason being groped, being verbally assaulted, and being raped are all lumped together is the target has the same reaction and the same after effects. The feelings of helplessness, shame, and loss of power and control over your own body are the same whether or not someone stuck their dick in your whatever or stuck your dick in their whatever or not.
I'd guess the reason she thought it was ok to do this is exactly the standard argument about objectification. The guy isn't a person; he's Santa, a character, not a guy, and therefore she felt free to do what she would probably never consider doing to some random man standing around on the street wearing dockers and a sweater. Probably the same reason those poor people dressed up like Disney characters get punched so much.
Heh, I live in Danbury (and have been to the mall MANY times). Never figured the day I'd see this relatively tedious town make it on to boingboing. Alabeit for a decisively less than wonderful reason :p
I suspect there's an unspoken belief that men actually secretly enjoy a woman's uninvited grope, regardless of circumstances. Falls in line with the stereotype of men being total slaves to lust.
how come women never hit me up with inappropriate sexual behavior? can they actually tell you won't mind?
at least this gives the News Times message board regulars something different to discuss other than "invading hordes" of immigrants.
I live in Australia and they interviewed the Santa (from Cairns, QLD) for a morning program here called 'Sunrise'.
During the course of the interview he actually admitted that his dismissal may have had less to do with the 'ho ho ho' business and more to do with him telling a little girl that approached him 'you are very pretty, and your mum is too', which the owners of the shopping centre interpreted as borderline lewd behaviour. (The mother may have made a formal complaint).
The interview was aired around early December I think.