How would you react if someone felt you up?

I was at the bar when I felt the hand on my arse. This was no ordinary grope. He didn’t playfully slap my cheeks or grab a handful of flesh to give it a squeeze. Instead, despite the barriers presented by my skirt, tights and knickers, he was attempting to insert his finger into my anus.

“If a man puts his hand on a woman’s bottom, any woman worth her salt can deal with it. It’s communication. Can’t we be friendly?”
So, apparently, says Jeremy Irons.
Oh Jeremy, Jeremy! I loved you in Damage and M. Butterfly and even Stealing Beauty. Oh, I swooned when I rented The French Lieutenant’s Woman as a teenager. Oh how saddened I was when I learnt you’d painted your castle pink! But I forgave you. After all, in my youth you had given me much to think about, most of it filthy. However, with this statement, my dear Jeremy appeared to be talking out of the very orifice yer man was trying to invade.
What exactly was this stranger trying to communicate? Was he merely being friendly? I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong – arse groping, whatever shape or form it takes, can indeed be friendly, but it’s the kind of friendly that works best in a bedroom with two naked people, a candle burning and Sigur Rós playing. It’s all about context.

I’ll give Jeremy this – at times it is more satisfying to “deal with it” without recourse to the law, screams or tears.
Dealing with it was a lesson I had learnt at my father’s knee when I was but a scrappy kid with pigtails and scratches on my arms from climbing trees. Of course he expected me to grow up to be a lady. Ladies are polite; ladies don’t chew gum in public; ladies don’t shout; ladies know how to waltz, set a table and hide their emotions; and ladies never forget to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
I had so many lessons in ladylike comportment from my father, well, he was like a one-man finishing school. But when the boys up the road began terrorising my sister and me, my father also taught me that ladies don’t have to run to Daddy for protection, ladies can fight their own battles.
There I was, at the bar, being a lady and patiently waiting my turn instead of shoving my way to the front like an unschooled strumpet when he struck. Now there is of course a difference between a pair of unmannerly boys who threaten to beat you and a grown man trying to shove his digits into your posterior orifice, but not that big a difference – they are all bullies. And if there is one thing I’ve learnt about bullies is that it’s wisest and more satisfying to deal with them then
and there.

So deal with it I did. I placed my heel on the middle of his foot, pressed down hard and ground it through his shoe. He limped off, but not without calling me a bitch. I may be a lady, but you mess with me at your peril.
Some blokes are not particularly skilled at approaching women. They say the wrong things because they are nervous and fear rejection. With these men I am unfailingly kind. They mean no harm and being rude or dismissive does nothing to increase the general happiness of the world. If I have to let them down, I do it gently.
On more than one occasion – having already rejected an advance but exchanged conversation – I have ended up realising that the bloke who made such a hames of his approach was smart, interesting and fun to hang around. I count a number of such men among my friends and former lovers. A bungled seduction will sometimes get you laid while minor sexual assault won’t.

The big difference between the two is that awful flirting comes from a good place – the desire for sex and the wish to let the person on the receiving end know you find them attractive. Sexual assault comes from a bad place – the desire for domination and the wish to let the victim know you think they are a worthless thing you can use as you will.
Jeremy Irons reckons the laws prohibiting sexual harassment came about because people in power felt the need to “churn out laws to justify their jobs.” Er, no. Almost everyone I know – men and women – has experienced some sort of sexual harassment at least once or twice. Did we call the gardaí or hire lawyers? No. But still I’m glad those laws exist.
Sexual harassment can range from strangers touching you up on public transport to a boss who lets you know that the only way you’ll earn a promotion is on your back. In some cases you can deal with the bullies yourself. On other occasions you
need backup.

In some ways, men are in a more perilous situation than women. I have a friend who was repeatedly groped by a woman in his office. He didn’t want to involve the law or the personnel department because he was afraid it would be dismissed as trivial. All he could do was put in a request for a transfer, which he did, leaving this predator – as well as friends and family – behind.
I have male friends who have been groped by women in pubs and clubs too, and not all of these advances were welcome. Perhaps the blokes were in relationships, or merely found the idea of having their genitals grabbed by drunken strangers unappealing, but either way, they were not happy about the situation.
Men are supposed to welcome all forms of sexual come-ons and this means the legal system isn’t really on their side when it comes to sexual harassment. In much the same way, men who experience domestic abuse from wives or partners are often treated as jokes. They could use the law, but social and cultural mores are against them, so they don’t.

A man is also generally bigger and stronger than the woman who decides to grope him uninvited. When I told my friends what had happened to me at the bar, they treated me as a returning hero who had struck a blow for all women who’d experienced unwelcome grabs, pinches and slaps. Had a man done something similar to repel a woman we’d all look at him askance. Oh sure, we’d know she was in the wrong – but we’d think to ourselves that he wasn’t much better – after all a gentleman doesn’t use physical force against women.
The thing about sexual harassment is that it often doesn’t have a whole lot to do with sex. If something enhances the possible amount of happy, satisfied sex you are likely to experience over the course of your life, I’m all for it. Sexual harassment doesn’t work like that – it does just the opposite. It can make you feel powerless, it can make you feel bad about your body and it can make you feel very, very angry, but it is unlikely to make you horny.

Sexual predators who grab you without permission are bullies. Then again, so are rich, powerful Hollywood stars who pontificate about how the rest of us should react when we meet these predators. I’d like to give both of them a metaphorical “up yours!” Being a lady, I don’t think it’s polite to give the finger literally – at least not without an invitation…