For Spanish justice, a forced kiss is indeed sexual assault

“The key is consent, to the point that if there wasn’t consent, there was sexual assault.” Spanish justice ruled on Tuesday June 25 that a kiss given “without express or tacit consent” constituted sexual assault. This decision comes a few months before the trial of the former strongman of Spanish football Luis Rubiales for having kissed player Jenni Hermoso on the mouth in August 2023 in Sydney, after the coronation of the Spanish football team during the Women’s World Cup.

For the Supreme Court, the highest judicial body in the country, “it is obvious that the fleeting contact of a non-consensual kiss represents a bodily invasion of the aggressor on the victim”. It thus confirms a first judgment of an Andalusian court which had sentenced to one year and nine months in prison a police officer who kissed a woman in police custody.

The former president of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Luis Rubiales, will be tried from February 3 to 19, 2025 in Madrid. The prosecution, which presents its submissions in Spain before the start of the trial, announced that it would request two and a half years in prison against Luis Rubiales: one year for sexual assault and one and a half years for the pressure exerted on the player to affirm that the kiss was consensual.