If you’ve ever assumed that the famous photograph above of a sailor smooching a nurse on V-J day in 1945 was a product of romantic love, well, you’d be wrong. The pair in the pic were total strangers — and the nurse didn’t exactly invite the kiss.
The Cut, via feminist blog Crates and Ribbons, reports on a story in which Greta Zimmer Friedman, the dental nurse pictured, says:
“It wasn’t my choice to be kissed. The guy just came over and grabbed!”
“I did not see him approaching, and before I knew it, I was in this vise grip.”
“You don’t forget this guy grabbing you.”
“That man was very strong. I wasn’t kissing him. He was kissing me.”
The woman doesn’t seem to be upset by the aftermath of the kiss, but the snap isn’t exactly the Disney moment we all project onto it. Plus: “Also the sailor was on a date with a different woman at the time (she’s now his wife), and drunk,” The Cut says.
So much for idealizing the past. See the whole photo, by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, below.
[The Cut]
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