You can also, as Franken says happened, rehearse a "stage kiss" without mashing wet mouth or forcing tongue (since he said he remembers things differently than she claims, I'm going with that being a denial of at least the tongue allegation).
One thing I wish people would remember is that probably, as a model who has posed for photos, as a performer at bawdy USO shows, Tweeden may have a much thicker skin than a lot of women about getting catcalls or hoot and holler reactions to seeing her, but at the same time might have also developed a stronger sense of *where* her boundaries were as a result of them getting unintentionally pushed by soldiers, etc. And have potentially stronger reactions than someone might expect when they're violated, because of needing to have those boundaries so firmly drawn.
In her introduction she pretty much said all any soldier would get was a hug, and *maybe* a kiss on the cheek if she chose. That tells me she does have defined boundaries about just how far she's willing to let people take her act for the troops -- and potentially has had reasons outside of any alleged rehearsal for why she felt it was better to state outright she was willing to be eyecandy, but still demanded respect of her boundaries.
I imagine a lot of models and even strippers have very strong reactions when someone crosses their boundaries and does more than look. They might even have had enough experiences of it happening that they would have potentially violent reactions to even what they thought was a start in that direction.
At the same time, on the Tapper interview after hearing Al's statement, Tweeden didn't really push back on him saying he didn't recall the backstage incident the same way. She didn't preface her statement about accepting his apology with something snarky like "We must record memory very differently, but..." She said he seemed heartfelt and sincere. She *also* noted that the issue wasn't that Al Franken was the worst person on the planet, but that our culture finds immature juvenile asshat behavior funny.
Tapper seemed surprised she seemed so accepting and not fighting the fact he still denied the backstage answer, and fed her a reason, that "all she wanted was an apology". Which she very gladly took. Which rings warning bells for me that she knew she was using exaggerated language ("groping" ) to describe the photo, even if that might have been what seeing the photo made her immediately think of him doing.
Still, it's not entirely impossible she had learned to embrace her anger and firmly say no from previous times people had pushed boundaries, and that was why she allegedly still wanted to "punch" Franken 3 minutes before but on hearing that even if he was denying tongue for the sake of the public he had apologized and said people needed to look at themselves and what they think is funny or appropriate, she realized how much more she would want to punch a boss who did something like that, or how much she would have REALLY wanted to punch someone who hurt a child.
So. I don't know. I do think Franken is handling this perfectly. I want us to be more like Franken.
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