The iconic photograph has inspired wedding cake toppers and a 25-ft tribute statue. But it turns out there's nothing romantic about the scene in the photo, according to interviews with the identified "couple".
On VJ day in 1945, the sailor, George Mendonsa, was, by his own admission, drunk. So drunk that even with his girlfriend and future wife in tow— she's the head peeking behind behind his shoulder in the original Life photo— he grabs a random woman and kisses her. The woman was Greta Friedman, a dental nurse. This was the first time she'd ever laid eyes on him. "Suddenly, I was grabbed by a sailor. It wasn't that much of a kiss." she said in a 2005 interview with the Veterans History Project. "I felt that he was very strong. He was just holding me tight. I'm not sure about the kiss...it was just somebody celebrating. It wasn't a romantic event."
Although the backstory has been around for years, it wasn't until the writer behind feminist blog Crates and Ribbons posted about the photograph that the story resurfaced. In a pair of posts, the blogger criticized media coverage that whitewashed how the kiss was non-consensual. The truth, unfortunately, taints what's long been seen as a perfectly romantic photo.
What's most unsettling are the clues in the photo itself. The body language is off: his clenched fist, her body swept off balance. The caption that accompanied the photo when it appeared in Life hints at something less romantic too: "In the middle of New York City's Times Square, a white-clad girl clutches her purse and skirt as an uninhibited sailor plants his lips squarely on hers." She's clutching at herself rather than embracing her kisser. The sailor is uninhibited because he's drunk. But these details were lost in the happy, romantic narrative surrounding the photograph.
By the way, there actually is a photograph of a real couple, kissing after the sailor returns home:
A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the US military's "don't ask, don't tell" rule when two women sailors became the first to share the coveted "first kiss" on the pier after one of them returned from eighty days at sea.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of Placerville, California, descended from the USS Oak Hill amphibious landing ship and shared a quick kiss in the rain with her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles, California.
Gaeta, 23, (photo, left) wore her Navy dress uniform while Snell, 22, wore a black leather jacket, scarf, and blue jeans. The crowd screamed and waved flags around them.
"It's something new, that's for sure," Gaeta told reporters after the kiss. "It's nice to be able to be myself. It's been a long time coming."
For the historical significance of the kiss, there was little to differentiate it from countless others when a Navy ship pulls into its home port following a deployment. Neither the Navy nor the couple tried to draw attention to what was happening, and many onlookers waiting for their loved ones to come off the ship were busy talking among themselves.
David Bauer, the commanding officer of the USS Oak Hill, said that Gaeta and Snell's kiss would largely be a non-event and the crew's reaction upon learning who was selected to have the first kiss was positive. "It's going to happen and the crew's going to enjoy it. We're going to move on and it won't overshadow the great things that this crew has accomplished over the past three months," Bauer said.
The ship returned to Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story following an eighty-day deployment to Central America. The crew of more than three hundred participated in exercises involving the militaries of Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, and Panama as part of Amphibious-Southern Partnership Station 2012.
Both women are Navy fire controllers, who maintain and operate weapons systems on ships. They met at training school where they were roommates and have been dating for two years, which they said was difficult under "don't ask, don't tell".
"We did have to hide it a lot in the beginning," Snell said. "A lot of people were not always supportive of it in the beginning, but we can finally be honest about who we are in our relationship, so I'm happy."
Navy officials said it was the first time on record that a same-sex couple was chosen to kiss first upon a ship's return. Sailors and their loved ones bought dollar raffle tickets for the opportunity.
Gaeta said she bought fifty dollars worth of tickets, a figure that she said pales in comparison to amounts that some other sailors and their loved ones had bought. The money was used to host a Christmas party for the children of sailors.
Snell said she believes their experience won't be the last one for gays and lesbians in the military. "I think that it's something that is going to open a lot of doors, for not just our relationship, but all the other gay and lesbian relationships that are in the military now," she said.
Snell is based on the USS Bainbridge, the guided missile destroyer that helped rescue cargo captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates in 2009.
Rico says that's the problem with history: it's never tidy... (But how times have changed, huh?)
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