Know Your Boundaries And Defend The Territory

1. I love her!

2. “It was an accident!” Right – same excuse men use all the time. If she was “in your way” (which in and of itself is rude), the correct thing to do is tap her on the shoulder and say “excuse me” – NOT grab her ass. And if she was so in the moron’s way, why was he able to keep walking immediately after the ass grab? I don’t encourage violence, but in this case, the clown got what he deserved.

   1. I’ve never even tapped someone on the shoulder, if you say excuse me loudly enough, you can get their attention.

      1. My father once had to tap someone very lightly with the door he was preventing us from opening after multiple “excuse me”s elicited no response. But tapping someone on the arm or shoulder is one thing, grabbing them in a sexual place is quite another.

   2. +1,00,000. Grabbing her behind was the only way to let her know that she was “in his way”. He really is a moron and pig- the video clearly shows he just wanted to cop a feel.

3. I did something similar once in college, although the guy didn’t grab my posterior. He sneaked up behind me and poked me in the ribs like a third-grader. I turned around and clobbered him and told him never to touch me again. He slunk away like a scolded pup. Not sorry I reacted like I did. I don’t know who thought going up behind someone and poking him in the ribs was funny, but it isn’t. It’s painful and a little embarrassing when you squeal and jump. My point to this guy (and I do believe he got it) was NEVER to touch someone without his or her consent.

   Kudos to Emelia for decking that guy. My heroine!

   1. You “clobbered” someone for poking you in the ribs? I’m not sure what you mean by that, but if you actually hit him, he could’ve had you charged with assault. Rib-poking isn’t usually a prosecutable crime, in the states, anyway. I don’t know where you are, but maybe they take it a lot more seriously in some countries.

      1. It depends on how far forward on the ribs the poking is. Go far enough forward from behind and you are in breast territory.

         1. True. But I assume that if a grown woman is talking about being poked in the breast, she’ll say that and not call it her ribs.

      2. Yes. Yes, I did. Of course, it was over 30 years ago, but that’s not the point. And if that had been the first time he did it, I wouldn’t have hit him. But not only had he done it several times before, he’d been told each time NOT to do it again. He was warned to keep his hands to himself and he failed to heed that warning. In that situation, what would YOU have done?

         1. I probably would’ve included the fact that he was a repeat offender.

         2. I hope I’d have included that he was a repeat offender in my original telling of the story. Changes everything.

            1. Gee, I’m really sorry I forgot to mention that.

         3. Except for the timeline, I’d think you were talking about my ex. He thought doing that made him whimsical, and when asked/told to stop said that since I was an only child, I just didn’t appreciate the sibling dynamic. (He was right about that. Who wants a sibling dynamic with their spouse?)

            The day I moved out, we went somewhere together afterward—trying to keep things amicable—and he poked me then too!

4. A young man I used to work with liked to come up behind women and “goose” them. He even did it to the director of our group. I told him that if he ever tried that with me, the first thing I would do (after slapping him upside the head) was reporting him to HR for harassment. As far as I know, he never did that again.

5. Many years ago in a nightclub some guy grabbed my friend’s behind as we were walking by. She quickly turned and threw a punch at some guy who proclaimed it wasn’t him but the guy next to him. She just said “then you hit him” and kept walking. Glad to see such behavior is not tolerated but sad it exists at all.

   1. Ha ha ha ha ha!!!

6. Good for her!! And to all the grope-y guys out there – CCTV is EVERYWHERE. Your actions are being caught on video and they WILL be broadcast world wide. The days of secret groping are over!

7. I loved her reaction and was so delighted to see that skunk of a man put in his place. However, I would caution against recommending this kind of response in all situations. Some men wouldn’t hesitate to physically retaliate, and a bigger guy (or just one who had his wits about him) could have seriously hurt her. Not to mention the crazies carrying guns. Sometimes self-preservation is more important than winning in the moment. This website often recommends people to “not engage the crazy,” and that could be good advice in this situation as well. It turned out well for her, but it may not have.

   1. I thought that too, but he was on the floor so his ability to connect was limited. My second thought was that he was in a perfect position for her to give him a good kick right in the gentleman’s department. My third thought was that it looks like a co-worker was coming up as he went down so she had some back-up if she needed it.

   2. This was in Australia. Thankfully no one carries guns as a matter of course here.

      1. My bad, it was Georgia. Pretty sure there was a similar one in Australia.

8. I was 18 and dancing at a night club with a bunch of my girlfriends.

   This guy, who was probably in his mid twenties, grabbed me from behind, thrust his crotch against my backside and shoved his hand up my skirt trying to get his fingers under my underwear.

   I jumped and slammed the back of my head into his face giving him a nose bleed.

   It wasn’t planned or coordinated. It was just how I reacted to suddenly having someone’s hand trying to worm into my underwear. I wish I had thought it through and really tried to cause him damage.

   He proceeded to call me several foul names and insist he “just wanted to dance” with me.

   Best part? I’ve always been a plus sized girl. And several of my “friends” felt I should have been flattered that he wanted to sexually assault me (or as they put it “hit on me”). As if being anonymously groped and fingered by a random stranger in club is the best a fat girl could hope for in the way of companionship or sex.

   Personally, I hope his nose was broken. Because I’m sure I wasn’t the first nor the last girl he attacked that way.

   1. Lerah99, good for you for defending yourself. I hope you aren’t friends with those people any more. And I hope they look back now at how they reacted and what they said to you and are ashamed and embarrassed.

   2. That is so gross. And shame on your friends for thinking you should be flattered!

      I guess the best way to describe me is I was on the heavier end of “normal” growing up and in my adult life several medical conditions have caused me to be categorized as plus sized (thyroid and other hormonal issues that make maintaining what is considered a healthy weight near impossible). I still deserve respect and that includes men NOT grinding their junk into my backside and trying to stick their fingers inside me.

   3. The sadest pasrt of your story is how little it shocks me, though it never fails to sadden me how far some women will go to justify the sexist behavior of men.

   4. Another stupid male excuse. Sounds like the only dance he wanted to do with you was the horizontal mambo. And sadly, I’ve had a couple of plus-sized friends get the same attitude that you did – that the guy was complimenting you by assaulting you. No, the guy was being a pig by assaulting you – PERIOD. NO woman in ANY situation should have to put up with that.

   5. Jeez, I am so sorry that happened to you. I had something similar happen at prom, a bunch of girls and I were dancing together and some guy yelled out ‘lesbians!’ and swarmed us like a bunch of locust, trying to grind against us while dancing. I remember screaming and suddenly slamming an elbow into the guy that touched me, that quickly dispersed them, all calling me names and insisting they were just having fun… Wasn’t very fun for me and my friends.

   6. I am so sorry you had to deal not only with what was clearly a sexual assault, but your friends’ callous reactions. Glad he got a bloody nose for his trouble, though he deserved much worse.

   7. I had friends who said the same thing. “At least you’re attractive enough to get attention.” It was gross and appalling and something I could not FATHOM saying to anyone else. It didn’t matter that I was creeped out, felt like an exotic toy, nope, I should’ve been ‘flattered’.

      If any of those same friends got harrassed, I would’ve defended them. I would never think of telling them they should be flattered.

      It’s really distressing to know that this attitude seems prevalent among women. I really, really don’t care for it :(.

9. A few years ago, I witnessed this happen to someone else. I was walking down the street in manhattan, when a woman in front of me got her rear end completely grabbed by a man walking in the other direction. It was horrible. He just…full on groped her. She practically jumped out of her skin, while I and another woman started screaming at him and chasing him down the street before we turned back to the young woman to make sure she was OK. We asked her if she wanted us to call the police, but she didn’t want to bother because he had already fled, and that was going to turn into a huge ordeal for her.

   I don’t blame her for not wanting to call the police, but what I think about to this day is just how many times this guy has done this, and gotten away with it, because each individual incident is “small” enough to not be worth going through the time and hassle of filing a police report, but taken together, he’s a serial sexual assaulter.

10. The comments on the articles about this were horrific. Women were saying she was dressed slutty therefore what did she expect. I asked if it would be okay for him to do this at a beach where women are in bathing suits. Answer was of course not! Then WHY is it okay if a woman is wearing shorts and a tank top which covers MORE than a bathing suit. Nobody has the right to touch anyone like this. Then you have the men complaining they were groped before and if they had done what she did they would be arrested. Let me repeat myself….nobody has the right to grope or fondle anyone without their consent….no matter the gender. I am sick and tired of people trying to reverse the genders, blaming how the person dressed, or just saying “it wasn’t like he raped her”….I’m a rape survivor and believe me, this is how it all starts. My fiance would clobber anyone who touches me. He is one of the biggest supporters of women’s rights. It wouldn’t just have to be me…..if he saw a woman or man being sexually assaulted or harassed he would intervene. We teach our boys about respecting the bodies of others and that by being silent when you witness something like this you are being complicit which is just as bad as doing it yourself.

    1. Something I often harp on in these sorts of conversations is that there is no such thing as perfect modesty such that no man will get turned on. There’s an underlying assumption in many of these comments that if a man finds a woman sexually attractive, it’s because she did something to attract male attention, which ultimately falls back on this idea of “perfect modesty” (that doesn’t actually exist). People need to understand first of all that sexual preferences aren’t universal, secondly that women actually do make choices that aren’t about men or male attention, and thirdly that even if the woman is intentionally dressing in a sexual way, it doesn’t constitute consent nor erase the need for it.

11. This doesn’t really constitute sexual battery, but just last year as I was standing in front of a display of avocados sorting through and giving them a small squeeze to find a ripe one, a man approaches from behind and gently starts squeezing my arm in the same manner I am to the avocados. Yes, it was weird, but I just laughed it off….really wasn’t sure what else to do…

    1. What if I told you he was getting sexually aroused watching you squeeze the fruit and squeezed you as part of his sexual fantasy? Would you consider that a sexual assault?

12. I am blessed/cursed with ample cleavage and it attracts a lot of unwelcome attention, even if I am dressed to minimise it, but one occasion while at university really takes the cake. My friends and I were out at a bar and one guy kept coming up to me and asking to “feel [my] awesome tits to see if they are real”. I declined, politely at first, but after he repeatedly approached me I became more and more uncomfortable until I loudly told him to f-off because he was a creep. He returned again, a little later and somewhat drunker and simply walked up to me and grabbed both my breasts, hard, a full handful of each, and squeezed painfully hard.

    I punched him in the face, equally hard, and broke his nose, and shouted something along the lines of “I told you not to touch me”.

    He was escorted out by bar security, screaming about his nose, covered in blood, and threatening to call the police to have me jailed for assault. The bar staff quietly ignored me and people eventually went back to their conversation.

    While, fortunately, I didn’t have such twisted friends as the poor lady above who thought she “should be flattered” by such attention, all of my male friends present felt I had overreacted. The man sexually assaulted me, I defended myself with what felt at the time to be the minimum force necessary to clearly get my point across, and yet *I* was the one being unreasonable.

    Interestingly enough, not a single guy in that bar, apart from my friends I went with, would talk to me for the rest of the night. So, in defending myself, I made every man in there avoid me like the plague, and make snide comments as I passed about me being a “psycho” or “crazy” or a “bitch” or a “dyke”. No, I’m simple not someone who finds it acceptable to be manhandled when I have explicitly stated multiple times that I am not interested and someone does not have permission to touch me!

    How incredibly sad that such stories are so common and we are stigmatised for standing up for ourselves.

    1. Wow. That’s just sad that YOU were treated as a pariah, for simply defending yourself even after you specifically told the grabby creep to back off and leave you alone. I probably would have reacted in the same way you did. And I’m not sorry you probably broke his nose.

    2. Because you refused to be groped and felt up, you were “psycho”,”crazy”, a “bitch” or a “dyke”? I really worry about society. Was it really so hard for the men there to accept that women don’t enjoy being groped and have their breasts squeezed by a creepy pervert? Maybe women should start grabbing men in the crotch, telling them it’s a compliment and calling them psycho, crazy, bastard and gay if they complain?

    3. That is horrible. He should have been asked to leave the first time he approached you and asked to feel your breasts. It should not have escalated to the point of him assaulting you before security stepped in.

       And if my friends thought I “overreacted” for punching someone who sexually assaulted me, I’d find new friends.

    4. “all of my male friends present felt I had overreacted”

       How lovely of them to start having feelings about the situation AFTER you were attacked and had to defend yourself – too bad they didn’t have feelings about the way their friend was being harassed before the creep escalated to sexual battery. I am all for women feeling empowered to speak up for themselves and defend themselves, but the men in our lives should be allies. (Really, we should ALL be allies for each other regardless of sex or gender – we should all come to each others’ aid and defense if is is safe and reasonable to do so.) Do I hate the fact that men are more likely to take other men seriously and ignore me? You bet I do. But it sends a powerful message to cretins like this when other men will not tolerate their behaviour and call them out on it, and I welcome the help.

       “Overreacted” … I am seething.

    5. I wonder how your male “friends” would’ve reacted if a man had touched them somewhere that they didn’t want to be touched. THEN breaking his nose would’ve been what he asked for, etc. etc.

       1. With men like this, you have to come at it from *that* angle. I’ve found that one of the biggest issues getting men to understand women’s dislike of catcalling or groping is that they come from a place of “well, I’d love it if a hot chick did that to me!” You have to get them to see it from a perspective of A. Someone that they don’t find attractive and B. Someone who has the capability to hurt them.

          1. Totally agree. I meant if another guy groped them. Which fits both your A and B.
             I guarantee if a straight man got groped by another guy, punches would be thrown, fits pitched and it would be considered a major assault on his person, spirit, manhood and society as we know it.

13. On my 21st birthday, as I walked alone, late at night, on my way to the subway in a much more dangerous NYC(1975), a guy groped me from behind. I elbowed him in the gut, turned and confronted a pathetic looking man, not well dressed, not bigger than me. He was doubled over. I had a foot ready to kick him. I said(with a conviction I was totally faking),”Do you want to die?” ‘No.” he squeaked out. I said “Then f**k off.”
    What’s not important is that I triumphed. What I remember most was feeling guilty. Had I over reacted? What had I done that prompted that man to do what he did? Only years later, I looked back and put it all together: I was wearing jeans and had my hair in braids. They had carded me at the theater that night when I went to see an R rated move. I looked like I was 15. I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG. I HOPE I TRAUMATIZED THAT MAN INTO NEVER DOING ANYTHING LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN!

14. I agree that these kinds of reactions are perfectly within the bounds of etiquette. However I want to point out that just because someone does not react that way doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have good boundaries. There have been studies showing that often the reaction to an egregious violation of personal space is to freeze up- the victim literally can’t move or think, and it’s not her/his fault. When I was working as a young receptionist at a school there was once an older male student who picked up a stapler on my desk and proceeded to click it just a few inches from my face. What I wish I had done was to slam it out of his hand and tell him in no uncertain terms to back away. But I remember freezing. I didn’t understand what he was doing or why but I literally couldn’t react in an aggressive way. I remember in a creative writing class a fellow student who wrote about getting groped by an older male colleague, and she had the same freezing up reaction.

15. I’ve been the victim of unwanted inappropriate touching several times in my life. Most of the time, I’ve been too shocked and flustered to respond. But that was then, this is now. From now on, I will react with force. I’m older, wiser, and much stronger emotionally than when I was in the past. A few months ago at a night club a man young enough to be my son put his arm around me. I shook it off and gave him a good scolding.

16. This isn’t a story of etiquette, per se. The customer committed a crime and the waitress, who was violated, reacted. He was arrested, end of story. Even if she had not chosen to react physically, either for fear of retaliation or for her personal sense of “I just don’t DO that”, he would still have been guilty of a crime and subject to punishment as applicable under the law. Perhaps the shift here isn’t one of etiquette, but of culture, where women are more likely to INSIST that they own their own bodies and the right of consent to association, proximity or other forms of intimacy rests with them. (As, obviously, it does with me in similar situations.) I don’t know about the etiquette aspect of the story, but good for her for getting closure by reporting him! His arrest will make it more difficult for others to disregard this type of conduct under the guise of whatever eminently flawed paradigm some misguided men use to try and justify this egregious conduct. Perhaps etiquette will come into play when he attempts to interact with those in his sphere who never would have thought him to be so crass, crude and predatory as he shows himself to be in this video.

    1. OOPS! “as, obviously, it does with MEN in similar situations…” Sorry about that!

17. Didn’t we learn in kindergarten to keep our hands to ourselves???

18. In addition to the inappropriate touching, I think something does need to be said about the clothing. If the venue requires its female staff to dress in such scanty outfits, then I daresay the place is as culpable as the groper, treating its staff like toys for its male clientele.
    (No, I am not saying the waitress “was asking for it.”)

    1. Well, you kind of are. There are restaurants in particularly warm climates where outfits like that are normal for the comfort of the server. Regardless of the reason, the server has the option of saying, “No, I don’t want to work here because of the outfit.” Even if the servers were naked, it wouldn’t justify them being groped. (In fact, some of the strictest rules about physical contact from customers are in strip clubs – you touch a dancer ONCE and you get 86ed.)

    2. Nope. Nothing needs to be said about the clothing. Ever.
       No one has the right to just reach out and touch someone else without their consent, no matter what other thing you want to discuss to take focus off that basic fact.

    3. My limited experience in Georgia – it’s hot there. Especially in the summer. So if the restaurant allows the servers to wear shorts, I don’t see a problem with that. As for the restaurant being culpable if that’s the required uniform – Hooters has girls applying for jobs every day, and not one of them deserve to be groped at work, either.

       1. Yes! It’s hot. And this happened in Savannah, which means the humidity is off the charts worse than most other parts of our state.

    4. I respectfully disagree. The problem with any discussion of her clothing is that it legitimises the excuse that men “can’t help themselves” and have to touch/sexually assault women in certain circumstances. I know you say you don’t believe she – and presumably any scantily clad woman – was ‘asking for’ the abuse. But the idea that clothing or lack thereof leads to these situations can only really be seen two ways; either men legitimately can’t help themselves when they see someone, or something, they find attractive, or by dressing in a certain way a woman is sending out a subtle signal that she’s OK with being assaulted. The problem is that both views excuse the man from all culpability and put all the blame for his behaviour on to the woman. I believe men should be taught to not touch other people without their permission. I’d even go further and say that they should learn to treat women as equal human beings who deserve the right to exist in public without verbal or physical harassment. And none of that should be dependant on her clothing.

    5. I’m going to respectfully disagree with you, lkb. IMO, if a person is unable to restrain him / herself in the presence of exposed skin than he/ she should avoid going to places where people are likely to be under-dressed (beaches, night clubs, bars, etc.).

       Perhaps you would not enjoy working for an employer that requires you to wear scanty / sexy clothing. That’s fine. Don’t do it. Some women and men enjoy it and make a good living at it. No one is “culpable” here except the “groper.”

       1. Definitely agree with you, rindlrad.

          This sums up my feelings: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/dog-with-steak-shows-victim-blaming-bs

          1. “If a dog is better behaved than you are, you need to reevaluate your life.”

             Amen.

    6. I am in agreement with rindlrad. This is a form of, ‘boy will be boys – they cant control themselves,’ victim blaming. – Which is outdated for the 21st century. Dudes AND women need to control themselves – whether or not the other persons wearing 3 layers under a parka, or a loin cloth

       1. You’re so right, slh. I’ve always hated the phrase “boys will be boys.” No. Boys will be men, and it is our job as parents to teach them how to behave respectfully towards other human beings. I always found it odd the whole, “she was asking for it” defense. What is being said, in essence, is “I cannot control myself. I cannot be held responsible for what I do because I am unable to function as a thinking human being. I am at the mercy of my whims and desires, and everyone else is to blame for what I do.” This attitude is the height of entitlement.

          And holding the establishment responsible for the actions of a man (who, I believe may have been dining with his wife and small children) is the same as blaming a bank for people robbing it. “Hey, if they didn’t want to be robbed, they shouldn’t have all that money in there, laying in the vault, tempting people.”

    7. You couldn’t be more wrong about this. Men who go to strip clubs aren’t permitted to touch the dancers. EVER. And they are NAKED. You ARE saying the waitress was “asking for it” and that her employer was at fault as well. The bottom line is: NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO TOUCH ANOTHER PERSON WITHOUT HIS OR HER CONSENT. EVER. PERIOD.
       Shame on you.

    8. I am so heartened by all these comments shutting the original “but her clothing” one down. Attitudes finally seem to be changing.

    9. There is a difference to me in saying “the employer was wrong to *require* their female servers to wear clothing that contributes to the objectification of women” vs. “the employer is equally (or partially) at fault for a male customer assaulting a female server because they required her to wear skimpy clothing”.

       This customer alone is responsible for his actions. If you want to argue places like Hooters and the like contribute to the generalized objectification of women, that is a separate argument entirely.

       1. “There is a difference to me in saying “the employer was wrong to *require* their female servers to wear clothing that contributes to the objectification of women” vs. “the employer is equally (or partially) at fault for a male customer assaulting a female server because they required her to wear skimpy clothing”.”

          I understand your argument and I disagree with both points. I’ve already expressed my opinion on the second point regarding the culpability of the employer in this situation because her job required her to be scantily dressed. Regarding the first point, you have an opinion about what “objectifies” women. I don’t share your opinion. I would argue that if a woman or man enjoys showing off their body and finds an employer with a business model that allows them to make money while doing so – more power to them. If YOU find it objectifying or offensive – don’t work or do business there. What someone chooses to do with their business or with their body should be largely up to them (obvious caveats about not injuring others, etc., apply here).

          And just FYI – no, I don’t work at a job where I wear scanty clothing. I am a 50+ year-old woman with a devotion to chocolate and carbs that makes wearing scanty clothing – ummmmm – problematic. I would be uncomfortable and I suspect most everybody else would be, too.

          1. It wasn’t *my* opinion either way. I was merely expressing that there is a difference between the argument that places like Hooters objectify women by requiring their female servers to wear short shorts and cleavage shirts, vs. places like Hooters are partially responsible for any sexual assault that happens because of they way they require their servers to dress.

    10. When I was 19 I worked at a night club as a bottle service girl. Our uniforms were quite skimpy, and the club had a VERY firm no touching rule. If a guest touched you once they were kicked out and never allowed back. Just because an employer requires a uniform of little clothing doesn’t mean they encourage inappropriate behavior towards their staff. Uniforms have nothing to do with whether or not someone can touch you, and saying that something needs to be said about the uniform is a form of victim blaming. That’s like saying that because someone chose to work at a place that required her to dress that way she was choosing to be open to being groped.

19. Disneyland many years ago. In that scrum that always seems to form by the two lines of humanity flowing in opposite directions by the Tea Cups. Some older guy going the other way reached out and pinched my breast. I was so shocked I stopped and turned around (people behind me in the scrum were NOT happy). He was looking right into my eyes with this “I know you won’t do anything” grin on his face. He was right. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t get the feeling that it was sexual in any way. I think he enjoyed my embarrassment and, frankly, my willingness to allow him to get away with such behavior. Cheers to Ms Holden for doing what I wish I would have done!

    1. He could have pinched your cheek, but he chose to pinch your breast… and you think it wasn’t sexual?

       1. I understand what Rindlrad means. He touched an intimate/private part of her body not out of his own lust or desire for sexual contact, but as a means of controlling and humiliating her. (also, not to be pedantic, but breasts have functions other than sexual.)

       2. It would be odd and perhaps a little uncomfortable for a stranger to pinch my cheek, but I wouldn’t have felt violated and angry like I do about a stranger touching my breast. In fact, I might be writing a light-hearted comment on this forum about the weird experience I once had at Disneyland where an avuncular older gentleman pinched my cheek by the Tea Cups. I think he enjoyed my anger and helplessness, not touching my body. Touching my body was just what he needed to do to illicit the response. That’s what I meant when I said I didn’t think it was sexual. Of course, all of this is my guessing what he was thinking – I don’t list Mind Reader as one of my skills.

20. I’m a woman and find the customer’s actions deplorable. Absolutely not okay. But I think arresting him for assault is a bit much. Called out, shamed, thrown out, banned – fine. The woman has the right to defend herself, but the level of violence she inflicted on him was extreme. Gut reaction? Okay, fine. But when it comes right down to it, SHE assaulted him in return. His was a brief – totally unacceptable – touch. She wasn’t defending herself at that point – he was walking away. She chased him down and retaliated. Not saying I wouldn’t have wanted to do the same, but hauling HIM off to jail seems over the top. From the video, it’s likely he would have a case against her and then both likely dropped. Not everything needs to become a police matter.

    1. Correction: the guy was arrested for “sexual battery”.

    2. I don’t want to get too graphic, but it looks as though he may have touched more than just her buttocks, hence the sexual assault charge. The angle of hand and length of fingers makes it very possible indeed.

    3. I disagree. Doesn’t matter if he was walking away. If you inappropriately touch anyone, you deserve consequences. Sometimes those consequences are criminal charges and someone punching you for touching them. If someone walked up to you and groped your breasts, crotch and butt and then walked away are you going to be ok with that? Because he was walked away? He needs to learn to keep his hands to himself. If he wants to grope something he should grope his own crotch and leave the waitress alone.

    4. So where would you draw the line? He assaulted her. Assaulted. ASSAULTED. Would you have said he shouldn’t be arrested if he had come up and punched her in the face? He put his hands on her without an invitation. THAT is an ASSAULT. If we allow this jerk to get away with it, where does it end? He needed to be an example. If other guys (and girls too) don’t get the message from this, then they can just go to jail too. He deserved it. It WAS a police matter.

    5. He’s being used to set an example for all prospective gropers. He’s a little unfortunate to have been the straw that broke the camels back, but he wasn’t innocent in the matter.

       If she had only scolded him or similar, then this wouldn’t have become news, and the public discussion about stranger-groping wouldn’t be happening. Society needs these events to change our behaviors, we have at a base level a herd mentality.

    6. There’s no “tit for tat” rule of equivalency in cases like this. Nor should there be. The conduct of the groper was egregious. She can defend herself as much as she believes that the need for a strong defense exists. This isn’t a case of rational, considered response. This is a young woman, rudely violated, reacting defensively. The fact that he had already moved on probably had not even registered with her. Anyone crazy enough to commit a sexual battery in public isn’t entitled to the benefit of the doubt as to their intentions. He is despicable.

    7. I’m good with it. These guys do it because there aren’t consequences. If there are then they won’t. Same thing as the dog examples they need to be trained to control their urges.

21. While I am not in general an advocate of violent reactions to things, I can’t help but be pleased with the outcome of this. I’m glad he spent two days in jail. It might seem like a severe punishment for a small crime, but this guy has undoubtedly treated countless other women the same way, and would have done it again countless times. Maybe now he will restrain his wondering hands.

    Unfortunately, this kind of thing is ubiquitous, and really doesn’t depend on clothing, as admin said. I once had some friends who lived in Pakistan for a few years. They said that even if a woman (wearing a full burkha, mind), stood up and walked down the aisle of an airplane, men would reach out to touch her as she passed. Now, I’m a believer in dressing modestly, but if men are not taught that it is their responsibility to restrain themselves, then there will never come a point where a woman can dress modestly enough to deter unwanted advances. Again, I have nothing against men. I have many wonderful men in my life who I love dearly–but they do not grope up strange women.

22. I suppose every woman has been assaulted in this way at least once. The lady did what granny used to do with a hatpin; she defended herself. I think what we enjoyed most is seeing him grabbed, thrown onto the floor, and then her standing over him, wagging her finger and giving him the telling off of his lifetime. I do wish we could see how his wife reacted to his being hauled away in handcuffs; and what his male friends had to say about his being thrown down and then lectured by a college girl. Where’s Mr. Macho now?

23. *EVERY* (adult) woman I know has a story. And nearly every woman tells that story with some form of regret (that she didn’t kick the perpetrator’s a**) or shame (that she somehow *caused* the perpetrator to do it) or guilt (that another woman witnessed it, or was later victimized by the same person)… I have my own stories.

    But stacyizme’s comment above, about this not being an etiquette issue, intrigues me: I agree that assault does not fall into the realm of etiquette. But I know from experience that when a victim does not passively acquiesce to being assaulted (or, in some interpretations, “complimented” by the perpetrator’s attention), some cultures blame her for rudely calling attention to the transgression. How dare the victim not allow a creep to creep? How dare the victim embarrass him?

    Dare, I say.

    1. ” But I know from experience that when a victim does not passively acquiesce to being assaulted (or, in some interpretations, “complimented” by the perpetrator’s attention), some cultures blame her”

       ^^^ This times 1,000!

       In high school one of my friends had to ride the city bus because she was in the magnet program and lived too far away for the school bus. So she had MANY instances of guys telling her to smile, asking for her phone number, asking if she had a boyfriend, etc…

       She would get on the bus and immediately put on huge headphones and pull out a book to make it clear she wasn’t interested in conversation.

       One day this homeless guy wouldn’t leave her alone. He kept insisting she take off her headphones and talk to him, give him a smile, give him her number, etc….

       She refused to make eye contact or acknowledge him at all.

       Finally he lunged across the aisle at her and grabbed her screaming in her face about what a rude little b(*@% she was being. She was pinned against the window with this full grown man screaming in her face.

       The bus driver pulled over and kicked the homeless guy off the bus.
       Then the bus driver turned to her and said “You could have just smiled at him and given him a fake number, you know. No reason to hurt his feelings like that.”

       So my 14 year old friend was seen as being responsible for this homeless guy grabbing her and screaming at her because she wasn’t “nice” to him.

       That is why our society’s insistence that women carry the emotional weight of relationships is so toxic. And it’s why predators often go after teen age girls and young women in their early 20s. Because they are still so fully entrenched in the messaging that they have an obligation to be “nice”.

       Someone between 12 and 24 is far more likely to freeze in terror, or try to smile, or keep talking to try to appease the person making them uncomfortable, etc…

       By the time we’re 30, we’ve been battered enough by this world to not give a flying fig if some random creeper thinks we’re “nice”. We’re perfectly willing to be called foul names in exchanged for shutting these guys down. Because we’re done feeling scared and small and vulnerable.

24. Back in college I went to a bachelorette party for a coworker. A drunk guy at one bar kept interrupting my conversation to talk about tattoos (I have a large one on my back). Each time he did I would comment something like, “That’s great, we’re talking here” and then 5 min later he would come back. After 5 or 6 rounds of this, he said, “I’m going to the bar next door, you owe me a dance.” and smacked my butt as he was standing behind me. I turned around and punched him in the face. The bartender said, “I’m technically supposed to kick you out but that was too funny and he must have deserved it so I won’t.” My personal bubble is MY bubble. Stay out or I will help you get out.

25. Being a very large woman (height and weight) has many downfalls, it also has some benefits. One benefit is that many people, including men, are automatically afraid of me. Guys fear there will be retaliation if they assault me, so they don’t tend to. (And I’d certainly like to think that if one ever did, I would react something like that lady did.)

26. Only time waitressing that I fought back, so to speak… it was 2 am (I worked night shift in a 24 hour restaurant in a college town and we were at the offramp where two interstates crossed, so a LOT of traffic, and we had a bar across the parking lot-when they closed we got a lot of their clientele). I was the only one in the back half and had a few rather well intoxicated tables… I was walking back to check on one and one of the guys got up, he had a good foot in height and probably 100# on me, and grabbed me from the front, my breasts. I had my ticket book in hand so both hands were in front of me. I balled up both fists and gave him a double piledriver to the solar plexus… his mistake was this in the zone between my elbows and shoulders and I was very strong… He literally curled over my right shoulder as I kept walking. I’m surprised he didn’t barf up. His whole table of big guys got dead silent. He was pulling himself up and the rest of his table applauded me… they took stuff to go, took their buddy and left me a tip. No charges were filed and I never seen him or his friends again. I didn’t think, until after. He grabbed I hit back. At that hour I wasn’t taking any more garbage, after 7 or so hours on my feet and hours to go to the end of the shift…. I applaud the lady for sorting the guy out, one does NOT have to take things like that.

    1. I’m astonished there are men that think grabbing or pinching a strange woman’s breast is somehow “OK”. I’d have gone ballistic and it wouldn’t have been pretty.

       1. Some of them only “think” that when there are copious amounts of alcohol involved. No excuse. If you can’t drink and mind your manners, don’t drink.

27. I fully support the young lady’s actions in this case. If “men” like this cannot learn to keep their hands to themselves in any other way, perhaps experiencing direct and painful consequences for their actions will do the job.

    I thought some of you might appreciate this story as well: http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/2008/07/ohhh-thats-gotta-suck.html

28. When I was studying abroad my female friend and I were walking up a street in the middle of the day and two younger men approached us from the front and tried to grab us by the shoulders and pull us into them with the intent to kiss us. I began waving my arms and pushing the man who grabbed me off and he gave up rather easily (thank you mom for those few years of karate classes). My friend however had completely froze and the man who grabbed her was about to kiss her. I instinctively reacted by physically placing myself in between the man and my friend, placed my right hand on his chest, and pushed him into the wall of a nearby building holding him against the wall until my friend was able to pass. I think the fact that I reacted stunned these men because they did not follow us or continue to bother us, which I know we are very lucky about. At the time this happened all of my actions were just pure instinct and adrenaline. The whole incident probably lasted less than a minute or two.

    1. I had something similar happen to me multiple times when I was studying abroad – once, two guys approached me from either side, grabbed the sides of my external frame backpack, and tried to muscle me into an alley for a good grope. They did not expect me to react like a whirling, cursing, angry, punching ball-o-fury – and after one got clocked with the 50lb pack and the other got a nicely bloodied nose, they slunk away, telling people I was a crazy woman they were trying to help. Another time I was approached by a group of men who were “celebrating” the wedding of one of their members, and they surrounded me and told me a story that because he was getting married, he had to kiss every single girl he saw, and she had to kiss all of them, too. They tried to grab me, and again, I turned into that ball-o-fury…but this time I happened to have had a really terrible cold, and my foul language was punctuated by streams of snot gushing from my nose. Once I realized that they were grossed out by the snot, I started hurling it at them. They fled. Use your tools, eh?

29. I’ve fought back when I can prove who did it.

    Other times it’s happened so quick that I feel them touch me then turn around and can’t confirm who did it…and I feel like I’m forced to remain silent.

    The woman in this video KNOWS who did it. And hopefully she taught him a lesson. Frankly, it was self defense. She was protecting herself from further unwanted attention.

30. Apparently it is odd that I have not been groped. Ever. I’ve had people (men) who felt entitled to my attention, conversation, etc. and didn’t take me burying my nose in a book as the hint that it was. (Yes, I need to be more direct.) I was extremely taken aback the *one* time a crude pick-up line was used on me – on 9/11 which made it seem all the more inappropriate. But I haven’t been groped. Which now I feel very fortunate about.

    1. I was coming to say the same thing. Never been groped, never been catcalled, never been hit on. I don’t know why. When I was younger and thinner and prettier, I wanted some male attention but never got it. I did get married, but there was no romance or flirting. Now I’m middle aged, fat, plain (at best), and men still ignore me. I’m not saying I want to be groped, etc. But some attention might be nice 😛

31. In my late teens and early 20s, my friends and I loved to go out dancing. We eventually stopped, because we were sick and tired of being groped, grabbed, and having complete strangers sneak up behind and start grinding us. It can be hard to tell who just grabbed you on a crowded dance floor, but I managed to elbow at least of couple of idiots in the stomach.

    I’ve been told by male friends that I give off a very strong “Don’t even try” vibe, so the few jerks who try to pull crap are usually really something. Including a man at least 3 times my age who kept coming up to compliment me on my boobs. He lamented the fact that “women his age don’t have [my] rack.” I was in full awkward deer-in-headlights mode, couldn’t get away. I’m eternally grateful to my former coworker (who I had *just* met that night), who just said “Dude!” in the most disgusted tone and put himself between me and the stranger. Last I saw of that creep.

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