R.I.P. Scout26
The blogger noted comments from Greta Friedman's 2005 Veterans History Project interview. "It wasn't my choice to be kissed," Friedman said. "The guy just came over and grabbed!"Joshua Friedman told TheNews that his mother was sympathetic to that view, but held no ill will against Mendonsa. In fact, the two became friendly, even exchanging Christmas cards, after meeting in the 1980s."My mom always had an appreciation for a feminist viewpoint, and understood the premise that you don't have a right to be intimate with a stranger on the street," Josh Friedman said. "(But) she didn't assign any bad motives to George in that circumstance, that situation, that time."
The woman in the photo, whose married name was Greta Zimmer Friedman, said the kiss wasn’t consensual.“It wasn't my choice to be kissed,” she said in a 2005 interview for the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project. “The guy just came over and kissed or grabbed.”In 2016, after her death at 92, her son, Joshua Friedman, told The New York Times that, while his mother understood the contention that it was an unwanted sexual advance, she did not view it that way.In the 2005 interview, Zimmer said, "It was just somebody really celebrating. But it wasn't a romantic event. It was just an event of 'thank God the war is over' kind of thing.""It wasn't that much of a kiss, it was more of a jubilant act that he didn't have to go back," she said. "And the reason he grabbed someone dressed like a nurse was that he just felt very grateful to nurses who took care of the wounded."
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newslondon/vj-day-times-square-kiss-the-unexpected-true-story-behind-that-famous-photo/ar-BB17Zay9https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nurse-iconic-times-square-sailor-kiss-photo-dead-92-article-1.2786739https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/karinabland/2019/02/20/post-war-kiss-iconic-picture-unwanted-sexual-advance/2928622002/