Syracuse University Considers Ditching Kiss Cam Over 'Forced' Affection

Syracuse University recently removed its kiss cam feature for a game after a student complaint. The school is now looking into eliminating the kiss cam altogether.

The kiss cam is, of course, intended to be a harmless diversion at sports events—two random people pop on the Jumbotron and are urged to kiss. But it’s also one of the most awkward invasions of personal space.

Syracuse student Steve Port wrote a letter to the editor, stating his objections to the kiss cam and citing a football game on September 12 against Wake Forest. Port says male students were kissing women who rejected their advances.

Fox News reports:

In one of two examples, he said a woman’s head shake was met with “no less than six sets of hands from the seats around her shov(ing) her unwilling face into his.” The crowd cheered, he wrote in a letter to the editor, which generated hundreds of comments on Syracuse.com, both agreeing and disagreeing with him.

“Honestly, I wasn’t out to kill the kiss cam,” Port said by phone Tuesday. “I was just out to raise an important issue that I saw happening and that’s important to me. I’ve always kind of been a little put off by it anyway, but never witnessed an actual act of — oh, my God, this woman is saying no and it didn’t matter.”

Syracuse’s athletics spokeswoman Sue Edson told Fox that the school is “taking the time to assess the concerns expressed in the letter to the editor.”

Senior Elaina Crockett notes that in the context of campus sexual assault, the kiss cam can pose issues. “Just because I’m sitting somewhere doesn’t mean that I’m entitled to kiss this stranger,” she says. “That’s a horrible assumption that we’ve created.”