Mistletoe Fumble Without Consent Is Rape, Police Warn

[DSJ]

Mistletoe fumble without consent is rape, police warn. That is a headline in today's 'Times' newspaper.

I always thought that I understood the word 'rape' and what it meant but obviously not.

[Peter Pedant]

// o my best knowledge, that photo was taken at a parade in New York, //

yeah they have tracked down Rating X and Miss Y
winnowing out the also-kissed hopefuls who wanted any 15m of fame.

she said - I was just a good time girl who wanted to have fun
or something

[sp1814]

This is the problem with news today.

It goes like this:

Newspapers are run by bean-counters. They need to fill pages (both online and offline), and employing journalists to work up real stories, all editors need to do is point their staff at Twitter.

The great thing about Twitter is that every day there are literally billions of tweets. Within this there will be thousands of insane tweets, and ‘journalists’ will use these to create stories.

They print the ‘story’ (which isn’t really a story), people will react to it with incredulity, and then everything is reset until the next news cycle.

This is literally what we have now. We have no Woodward and Bernstein in the UK news industry...just semi-literate copy and paste heroes, scraping Twitter for our next fix.

[naomi24]

Does anyone else feel that life is being systematically drained of a great deal of its joy? Only days ago someone suggested that the Sleeping Beauty's prince was, by kissing her without her permission (she was asleep at the time!), guilty of sexual assault or some such nonsense.

'Now where's that mistletoe', said Naomi..... puckering up! Mwah!!!

[naomi24]

Coo, got so excited there I missed the question mark!

'Now where's that mistletoe?' Mwah!!

[Mamyalynne]

Good point you make Naomi, but life will only be drained if we let some sad soul sat in an office Tweeting without thinking suck the joy away.

I for one won't.

[naomi24]

Mamyalynne, But we do let them ..... that's why the police are saying what they're saying.

[Mamyalynne]

They are denying it's a blunder then?

I'll research it more.

[Mamyalynne]

Police Service of Northern Ireland have now removed the tweet and say it has been taken out of context.

[jim360]

Ah, the old "taken out of context" = "we said something wrong but want to pretend otherwise to save at least some face" excuse.

[Mamyalynne]

They should make sure all message whatever medium they use to send them are checked - stupid thing to come out with.

[sp1814]

Life will only be drained of its joy if we pay attention to Twitter.

In real life, we are all getting along perfectly happily.

In our office Christmas party, Steve and Ed will no doubt have mistletoe tied to their reindeer hats without comment.

There will also be unfortunate tales of taxi snogs, and no-one will accuse anyone of sexual harassment.

There will be people singing Mary's Boy Child without anyone saying that this is cultural appropriation.

All this will happen all over the country.

However, on Twitter there will be countless tweets from nobodies which newspapers will pick up on, in order for their readers to puff their cheeks out, clench their fists and holler about political correctness gone mad.

Twitter can be an amazing resource, and very useful when used correctly.

However, it's also a great way for idiots to mind-dump.

We should all be careful not to allow people to dump on us.

There's a word for that...

[pixie374]

... Answerbank... :-)

[shoota]

Pixie, mistletoe.
Mistletoe, Pixie....
How exciting!

[pixie374]

You've tied it on your waist... :-)

[Mamyalynne]

Never alters does he?

[pixie374]

Thankfully:-)

[shoota]

Speaking of alters.....
'As anyone seen my 'arness?

[david small]

Didn’t we used to be more discriminating regarding newspaper reporters. Common sense, and sound judgment safeguarding our opinions.
All now gone to hell in a handcart. Lies, statistics, interpretation, and click bait. Integrity r.i.p.

[sp1814]

david small

I honestly believe it's down to economics.

Back in the heyday of newspapers, national titles had dozens of journalists who would work up and down the country, developing sources and writing stories based on first hand contact.

Now, because papers have to fill their online presence with content, they rely on social media, 'churnalism' and PR from marketing companies.

We used to have about a dozen news agencies in the country. We are now down to two (Reuters and the the Associated Press). That means the same stories get disseminated across our papers with the same mistakes and the same level of journalistic rigour (ie. bog all).

We live in a time of Ctl-C, Ctl-V.

Twitter is king.

We are all poorer for it.

[-Talbot-]

What if the assailant has a mouth full of salted peanuts at the time ... can I press other charges too?