Because apparently some people still need a reminder, it is not OK to grab another person by the genitals without their consent.
At this stage, you’d think that we’ve moved passed this, but last week a Republican politician from Connecticut was arrested for calling a woman a “lazy, bloodsucking union employee” and then allegedly reaching between her legs and pinching her crotch.
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The politician in question, Christopher von Keyserling, 71, has served on the Greenwich Representative Town Meeting board since 1985 according to News 12 Connecticut.
If we as a society have learned anything from the October release of the 2005 Access Hollywood tape starring Donald Trump and featuring Billy Bush, it’s that a man can openly brag about sexually assaulting women and not only get away with it, but go on to be president of the United States.
Like other misogynists, von Keyserling may feel emboldened by the Trump-era pivot back to more of a widespread acceptance of violating women’s bodily autonomy.
According to the Greenwich Daily Voice, pre-vag grab, von Keyserling discussed politics with the 57-year-old woman, and she told him that “it was a new world politically” and that he had to educate his fellow politicians, the warrant said.
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To which he allegedly replied: “I love this new world, I no longer have to be politically correct,” according to the warrant.
She responded by saying that if he was “proud of that I can’t help you,” at which point he called her a “lazy, bloodsucking union employee,” the warrant read. She left the room, he followed her, then he allegedly “pinched her groin area” as she went to exit the room again. The woman threatened to punch him if he ever did that again, and then moved forward with her complaint against von Keyserling.
She said that she had heard of von Keyserling acting similarly toward other employees and referring to the incident of sexual assault as a “joke” so she felt obligated to file a complaint in order to prevent this from happening to other women, according to the warrant.
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Phil Russell, von Keyserling’s attorney referred to the sex crime as a “misunderstanding,” saying that his client “playfully gave a lady who he knew for 30 years a pinch” and yet “somehow, everybody’s wringing their hands and carrying on that this is a crime, and it just isn’t.”
Except that it definitely is.
Deploying a favorite technique of sexual assaulters, von Keyserling allegedly told the woman that “it would be your word against mine and nobody will believe you.” While he does have a point regarding people traditionally not believing women who have been attacked, it won’t cut it this time: Police said that video footage from a surveillance camera operating the day of the alleged incident is consistent with the sequence of events described by the woman.
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