Outside the Caen-Normandie Museum of WWll in Caen, France.

Based on a photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt which appeared in an issue of Life magazine in 1945, this sculpture has been much criticised by women’s rights groups since it was erected at the city-owned Mémorial de Caen. The French group, Osez le Féminisme, said at the time “we cannot accept that the Mémorial de Caen holds up a sexual assault as a symbol of peace,” but the city-owned Memorial de Caen refused to take it down. They based their objection on the fact that the sailor had been observed kissing ‘all he met, young and old’.

There are many copies of this sculpture (by Seward Johnson) in other parts of the world.