By Win McNamee/Getty Images.
In the post-#MeToo era, Joe Biden’s strange lack of personal boundaries, particularly around women, no longer appears so innocuous—the sort of cringey, old-man quirk worthy of jokey slideshows and late-night compilation videos. (The Daily Show famously produced a segment on Biden’s proclivity for invading women’s personal space entitled “The Audacity of Grope.”) So perhaps it was only a matter of time, with Biden contemplating another run for president, that a fresh allegation of unwanted touching would prompt a ferocious, Twitter-wide reassessment of the beloved former vice president.
On Friday, New York magazine’s The Cut published an anguished personal essay by former Nevada assemblywoman Lucy Flores, who alleged a “blatantly inappropriate and unnerving” 2014 encounter with the then-vice president. At the time, Flores was a 35-year-old candidate running against the odds for lieutenant governor in Nevada. Then, she caught a lucky break: somehow, her team swung a Biden appearance three days before the election. On the day of their joint appearance, Flores arrived at the venue, where she met briefly with Biden in the speakers’ lounge before going onstage. Biden, according to her account, was uncomfortably over-familiar:
Just before the speeches, we were ushered to the side of the stage where we were lined up by order of introduction. As I was taking deep breaths and preparing myself to make my case to the crowd, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. “Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?”
I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, “tragame tierra,” it means, “earth, swallow me whole.” I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me. My name was called and I was never happier to get on stage in front of an audience.
Flores said she decided to go public after witnessing how Biden’s public image has remained largely unaffected by a number of similar stories over the years. Indeed, it is easy to find photos of Biden appearing overly handsy with women (and a few men), as well as hours of video footage on C-Span and across the Internet. In spite of the occasional commentary about Biden’s behavior, there has never been much of an outcry. “Despite the steady stream of pictures and the occasional article, Biden retained his title of America’s Favorite Uncle,” Flores wrote. “On occasion that title was downgraded to America’s Creepy Uncle but that in and of itself implied a certain level of acceptance. . . . In this case, it shows a lack of empathy for the women and young girls whose space he is invading, and ignores the power imbalance that exists between Biden and the women he chooses to get cozy with.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Biden said that neither Biden nor his staff had “an inkling that Ms. Flores had been at any time uncomfortable, nor do they recall what she describes,” but did not refute her story. “But Vice President Biden believes that Ms. Flores has every right to share her own recollection and reflections, and that it is a change for better in our society that she has the opportunity to do so.”)
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