The one question we shouldn’t be asking about THAT World Cup kiss…

In a weirdly interesting timing of events, the same week Spanish football official Luis Rubiales kissed World Cup winner Jennifer Hermoso without consent, a story began circulating online that “Jockey Sean Kirrane was left ‘surprised’ by a shock kiss from horse owner Jolene De’Lemos after he won the Ebor Festival by a length”.

It was reported that Kirrane was “taken aback by the quick scene and had a smile on his face as he basked in his moment of glory”.

Now, it’s important to point out that Kirrane has not complained or reported the kiss as non-consensual, as a sexual assault or as harmful. But the internet never skips a beat when there is an opportunity to cry “what about men”, does it?

With one, well-worn phrase, people successfully derail any topic about male violence or female sexual assault, which is (presumably) the point. Those defending Rubiales on social media have used the video of De’Lemos running up to Kirrane and kissing him to detract from Hermoso’s complaints against Rubiales.

It is a false equivalance; a “see? Nothing wrong with it, is there? You don’t see him complaining.” But mostly it is an entirely predictable response, if nothing else.

These two incidents may look the same, but they’re actually very different.

Firstly, Hermoso clearly and consistently reported that the kiss was aggressive, was part of a wider set of misogynistic behaviours, and that she was kissed without consent by a man who had power over her.

Ultimately, it is her voice that is the most important here. She can say clearly whether something is consensual or not, and she can set her own boundaries on what is acceptable and what is not when done to her body by another human being.

But Kirrane has not said the same.

If Kirrane felt that the kiss from De’Lemos was non-consensual, aggressive and harmed him, I would support him, and I hope everyone else would stand by him in the same way. But he has not said any of these things – and so, to my mind, it is disingenuous to use this example to derail an important conversation around Spanish Football, misogyny and sexual violence in women’s sport.

When this kind of derailing happens, it smacks of that old trope of “whataboutism”. You know: when you detail an experience a woman has had, and someone hits back with the phrase: “what about men?” (You hear the same thing each International Women’s Day – and the answer to that question is... every day is International Men’s Day).

Rather than holding the two instances as unique and separate, one is used to belittle the assault of a woman – and turn the issue on its head, as if to say “Look! Women do it too!”

But “women do it too!” is the answer to a point no one is actually making. There is no need to ignite the tired old “battle of the sexes” by trying to find an equal assault by a woman. It isn’t helpful to reposition men as victims, or to somehow “level the playing field”.

Beneath every article about Hermoso, I see men shouting: “Where is the outrage for Sean Kirrane?” – but Kirrane is the owner of his story. And we cannot frame him as a victim of a non-consensual assault if that’s not how he viewed or experienced the kiss from De’Lemos.

Similarly, if Hermoso had been comfortable with that kiss from Rubiales, knew him well, and it was received as a gesture of affection and celebration, then none of us would be in a position to claim it was sexual assault.

That’s how I know the uproar about De’Lemos kissing Kirrane is disingenuous. That’s how I know it’s derailment.

But this tactic is nothing new. Men murder three women a week, and other men on the internet excitedly drag up a case from two years ago where a woman murdered a man so they can say, “Aha! But what about this time when a woman did it?”

To my mind, as a psychologist, this is so they don’t have to address the gritty issue of systemic male violence, nor the fact that men are plainly more likely to kill women than women are to kill men. The same excuses come when men rape, abuse, assault and harass women – even when they attack children.

The sad and simple statistical fact is: men are more likely to commit these acts. Women are more likely to be the victims of these acts. I’m not sure why we are even still debating something that is proven, year on year, in every statistic we collect on these offences.

Derailment is a common tactic when it comes to women trying to discuss male violence – and in my opinion, the men on the internet who are hellbent on creating a false equivalence between these two incidents don’t really care about any victims of sexual assault. They don’t really care whether they are men or women. They just want to keep the patriarchy alive and kicking.

To them, my simplest argument would be: even if Kirrane had been assaulted by De’Lemos last week, it doesn’t detract from what Rubiales did to Hermoso – so why is the comparison needed at all?

Dr Jessica Taylor is a Sunday Times Bestselling author, chartered psychologist and CEO of VictimFocus