Jamie: It is an instant separator between men and women when this happens, when it’s a handshake for a man, and a kiss for a woman. On so many levels, it sends a message: you’re different, so I’m not going to take you as seriously, and I’m the dominant one, and will invade your personal space whether you like it or not.

Isabella: In professional settings, I go in for the handshake, although kissing on the cheeks happens occasionally. If it does, I’ve noticed that both professionally or socially, it almost always involves women. I don’t often see men kissing men as a greeting before business meetings.

This incident reminded me of sports reporters doing their job who often have to fend off kisses from zealous fans or players high on the victory of winning a game. As Jamie said, it’s an instant separator in situations when you’re not even thinking about gender — suddenly you’re a woman first, professional second.

Damien: We can all agree that an unwanted kiss on the lips is wrong. But the divide between handshaking and a cheek kiss? I don’t know. I don’t feel that it always has to be about power dynamics. In the Anglosphere, where touching of any kind tends to carry a lot of weight, that may be true.

But I’ve also lived in Mediterranean countries and in Latin America, and there — though they have serious issues with sexism too — I’m not sure it is quite so heavy. The rules of the road are clearer: Cheek kisses between men and women (and women and women) are for people you know, and there’s less a sense of dominance so much as warmth. Men hug more, men and women touch more just in casual conversation. Maybe the rules for these sorts of things need to adjust based on location and culture, and maybe we need to interpret each act with an eye toward intent rather than see every iteration of the act as wrong?

Isabella: Context is everything, isn’t it?

Damien: It is. The problem seems to be when men (and it’s usually men) can’t or don’t read the context and assume more power than they should.

Jamie: I’m thinking about it in the work context, where those dynamics send a lot of messages. Obviously in a personal or social environment that wouldn’t necessarily be the case. But if you’re in a meeting for an interview or a business lunch and everyone else gets a handshake and the woman gets a kiss, I just don’t like the presumption behind it. And I also think it doesn’t work the other way around, if a woman was doing the kissing either.