To not expect a man to put his head in my boobs?

[MissJSays]

I'm currently sat in the clubs toilets. It's my friends 22nd birthday night out. I'm 21, I know I'm young and having fun bla bla but my best friend whose birthday it is friends has come out. She has brought about 4/5 boy friends with her, fair enough. About 2 hours into the night one of them has just bent down to me, put his head in my boobs and shook his head. I'm in a committed relationship of 2yrs, I love my boyfriend to pieces (he's not here with me tonight) and I haven't been suggestive or anything to this boy all night. It's completely floored me and I'm sobbing in the toilet, I don't know why it's got to me so much. I feel so alone and like I'm making such a fuss over nothing, I don't know why this has upset me so much! Hoping for some Mumsnet wisdom to get me out of the cubicle🙁

It is assault. You didn't know this man - imagine if a stranger did the same thing to you in the street or on public transport? The fact that it happened in a nightclub doesn't make it any better than that.

Men think they can get away with assaulting and groping women in clubs and it stinks. YANBU to be upset and you would be perfectly within your rights to report him if you feel up to it. At the very least, it will scare him into not doing it again.

Are you ok MissJ?
I'm sorry you were assaulted and even sorrier that the people in your company are dickheads.

How are you feeling?

Report it absolutely. He won't be convicted without evidence but a visit from the police is the only thing that's going to make him realise how serious what he did is and the effect it's had on you. Plus it'll be on his record in case he does stuff again in future to help build a picture. I reported a guy who spiked me when I was 17 and him 35; I knew it wouldn't go anywhere but him being spoken to made me feel much stronger as it showed I wouldn't let him get away with it and it's on his record which could help future victims.

My reflex would have been to knee him in the bollocks.
YANBU

MissJ 🌺🌷🌸🌼🌸🌷🌺
(((((((Mega Madd Hugs)))))))))) and a hand to hold

How are you Sweet ?🌺

I once had a bloke in a club grind against me univited and then slid his hands down back of my trousers past my pants so he was touching my bare bum! Didn't know what to do I just got loose from him and ran outside for a cig. I should have decked the cunt

I'm sorry this happened to you OP. You're not overreacting at all. This kind of thing can really, really get to you and until it happens to you you don't know how you're going to react. A lot of people will say 'I would have slapped him!' etc but sometimes something takes you by surprise so badly that you don't even have time to respond.

I was in a club with some friends a few years ago, 100% sober as I wasn't able to drink at the time. A guy decided he wanted to dance with me and when I didn't want to (which I made absolutely clear), he decided he would force me to dance with him anyway. He used considerable force to grab me and drag me onto the dance floor, so much so that I had actual bruises the next day He knew exactly what he was doing, too, and actually laughed and sneered in my face when I screamed that he was hurting me.

When I think about it now I wish so badly that I'd reported him to the bouncers and had him thrown out, perhaps even arrested. But at the time all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there as fast as possible. I ran outside and then sobbed all the way home.

The worst part was that when I went to grab my coat and tell the group that I was leaving, and why, one of girls (who I didn't really know) actually rolled her eyes at me and said 'oh for goodness sake, he's just having some fun!' And looked really annoyed with me for spoiling the mood. I never went out with her again!

So sorry this happened to you.it has shaken you because that's sexual assault. Completely inexcusable.

there's unlikely to be any evidence, in which case there's going to be no action, no prosecution, no punishment

Victims give statements because that's evidence. Birthday girl might even agree to give a statement too if she realises how important it is. Even if it comes to naught, it'll stay on record, and if enough women give statements about this creep, that forms an evidence base.

I don't know why you're so keen to discourage the OP from reporting, daisy, or to urge her to just forget about it, but I can make a guess and it doesn't become you.

Thank you all so much, I really can't tell you how much better you've all made me feel. I really needed those kind words at 2am!

The girl who brought the guy and who tried to get me to brush it all off isn't my friend, she's a work friend of the birthday girl. I think she fancies herself as abit of a leader, however I'm not the type to be led and think she was abit surprised when I didn't just fall into line and drop it when she said.

My friends have been really nice and supportive this morning and all agree it was so out of order. My boyfriend is absolutely fuming, and I think he's now worried about me going out and something similar happening again. He doesn't come out with us a lot as it isn't really his thing, he doesn't even drink! I don't really know what to do to diffuse him and I can tell this has really, really got to him.

I'm not going to report it I don't think, I feel like I'm being abit of a shit girl by not doing so though? I know nothing about him, not even his name, and I'll probably never see him again. I hope my reaction made him realise the seriousness of his actions. People keep saying I should have punched him or chinned him (I love mumsnet) and that is always what I thought my reaction would have been but that just wasn't the way when it actually happened.

Thanks again for all of your lovely comments x

I think it's easy for us to say we'd have chinned him, etc but when something like this actually happens it's common that people freeze.

No, those of us who have been sexually assaulted in public (that would be all of us, then) all know what we SHOULD do but we also know how you freeze, how you worry you're making a fuss over nothing, how you don't want to be seen as the uptight joyless bitch, etc etc etc.

Ask birthday girl for his name if you do decide you want to report. You were out with a bunch of people, one of them must know who the little scumbag was.

And no, you're not being a shit girl, he was being a shit human being.

People keep saying I should have punched him or chinned him (I love mumsnet) and that is always what I thought my reaction would have been but that just wasn't the way when it actually happened.

It rarely is! It's easy to say that you'd do this or that, but in reality it often happens too fast to react the way you would have liked to.

I'm a fairly strong, muscular woman with a martial arts background and I like to think that I wouldn't let anyone get away with manhandling me but, as my story above shows, when it actually happened I just wanted to cry and run away! Definitely the 'flight' part of 'fight or flight' kicking in.

I'm glad you feel a bit better today and that your friends are sticking up for you. And I'm glad the arsehole got to see how upset you were. Maybe, just maybe he'll realise how wrong he was to do that to you.

Also shocked at the amount of similar experiences other women have had.

I just can't seem to fathom how someone could think that is ok? I'm imagining bending down to someone so much smaller than me in a public place and touching them in such a sexual and intrusive way. I would just never ever do that, I can't get my head around it.

I'm not shocked at all. Appalled, disgusted, enraged, but not shocked. I don't know a single adult woman who hasn't been harassed and assaulted in public on numerous occasions. And there will always be a dipshit somewhere to tell us that we probably liked it really, and that assault to intimidate or belittle us is a compliment for which we should be grateful and how is a poor diddy man who already assaulted one woman supposed to know that the next one might not like it?

They make me fucking sick.

That's understandably very distressing; how bloody dare he touch you without invitation.

I doubt he's had the reaction he had from you before, and may have been embarrassed enough not to try that particular trick again. By letting him know his 'high jinks' have seriously affected you, you have taught him something. Let's hope he remembers that the next time his dickheadish impulses threaten to get the better of him.

Oh love. I've had similar assaults done to me, mainly when I was younger and clubbing like you. I actually had something happen not too long ago when I was with my DH in a bar, I was taking a selfie with a man I knew and his friend photobombed it and cupped my breast. I nervously laughed it off. DH was absolutely raging as he saw it all. We swiftly left. All the things that have happened to me over the years like this I've brushed off as normal

Until, that is, seeing on MN that actually it IS wrong. And the horrifying thing is the number of women who have been on the receiving end of this type of assault. There was a thread fairly recently about this and it was shocking.

I'm still pissed at myself for not saying anything to the perv in the pub most recently.

Big hugs for you.

I get the impression you think this was a crime against your boyfriend as much as a crime against you. It isnt.
Its not your job to diffuse him and you are not obliged to report anything for him. x

Oh god yes PoorYorick, are there any women out there that haven't suffered at least one incident of some kind of sexual assault?

I'm not someone who thinks all men are potential rapists, but sometimes you do have to wonder.

I used to have a lovely friend when I was in my late 20s and living in London. She was on a very crowded tube train one morning when some arsehole behind her started rubbing himself against her. Without hesitating she lifted her foot and stamped backwards hard onto his instep. She told me there was a sort of strangled hissing behind her and, needless to say, he backed off pretty smartish; bear in mind that this was the early/mid 70s and chunky heels were in fashion so it must have hurt like hell, especially given the face that she was pretty strong as well.

Never forgotten that.

Hope you're feeling better OP.

I've been motorboated (I believe that's the term for what happened to OP), had my breasts grabbed, my arse grabbed and slapped, my cleavage openly leered over, things whispered in my ear and shouted from cars (a few examples: "I'd fuck you in the arse", "Tits", "Nice tits", "Wish I could come on those, love", "Slut" and many others). twoheaps, I don't give a flying fuck if you've got an imaginary friend who likes that sort of thing, I fucking hate it and it's not for you or others to whinge, "But THIS woman liked it when I abused her! How am I supposed to know that others don't?" Vile, vile, vile.

At the swingers clubs I used to go to, I'd have people sidle up to me and gently place a hand on my back or neck. If I wasn't up for it, for any reason, I stepped back and said, "I'm sorry, not tonight." On every single occasion they backed off at once, usually with an apology and saying they hoped they hadn't upset me. On my first ever club visit, I explained to the hostess that I was new and didn't want to do anything tonight, just see what it was like. She told everyone not to make a pass at me, and none of them did.

What I'm getting at is that I felt, and was, safer in fucking fetish clubs than in normal ones, or on streets in broad daylight. So it seems nothing's more deviant and kinky than respecting women's boundaries without question.

God how you didn't manage to health him one or give him a shove is beyond me. How awful for you. I'd definitely report it; he needs to know that this isn't acceptable behaviour. I wouldn't expect my husband to do that to me in public never mind a complete stranger.

I feel so angry reading this thread. It's brought back lots of bad memories of being sexually assaulted (not that I knew that was what it was at the time) and feeling powerless and ashamed.

It's upsetting me to read that it happens to all women, I always thought it was me and my fault some how and not something that happen to other (better) people.

First time was when I was about 10.

Looking at my 4yo DD and I want to cry, I can't protect her from this can I?

A kick in the goolies is what that man needed. I despise men like that. When I was about 19, I was walking along a very busy touristy street in the town I lived in. It's about half a mile long. The same fucking despicable bastard ran past me and groped my breasts THREE SEPARATE TIMES. The third time was at a set of traffic lights where a van of workmen had pulled up, seen what had happened and offered to go and give him a pasting for me!

UpYouGo: I used to think that but some martial arts classes and general advice that it's always okay to fight back have reassured me that DD would know what to do if or when, alas, it happens.