Also perpetuates the notion that there is no such thing as unwanted sexual attention from women as far as men are concerned, that they are always “up for it”.
Spot on.
Men from a young age are conditioned to laugh it off or not complain out of fear or derision from both their peer group and the woman doing the groping.
Attitudes are changing (as evidenced by the comments on this thread) but there is still very much a view amongst a sizable minority of women that unwanted sexual touching of men is not as serious an issue or should be taken as a compliment or a joke. Anecdotally, pretty much all my male friends have been grabbed in nightclubs or bars at some point and most of the time it is just met with a shrug because what can you do? Nobody is going to take a complaint seriously. On the rare occasions that I have verbally responded with a weary ‘fck off’ when a woman has grabbed my cock as she walked past me in a club I have been accosted by her mates for having ‘a problem’ or my personal favourite ‘are you fcking gay’.
In my early 20s I used to work in a certain south coast bar popular with hen and stag dos and it would seem that for hen do’s grabbing or kissing blokes without consent was part of the standard ‘dare’ rituals that such occasions promote. The male bar staff were always getting propositioned to snog the bride, getting ‘felt up’ for a laugh or being asked to handover their pants as part of some game challenge, refusal to comply was often met with abuse. Unsurprisingly the women staff were subject to unwanted touching too but security would remove the individuals or groups responsible without question, the men just had to ‘deal with it’.
When I played rugby it was not uncommon for some women to enter the men’s changing rooms from the bar area post game and ogle at the blokes in the showers or try and rip the towels off players, they were quickly shown the door but such actions were dismissed as ‘funny’ and there were zero consequences. I knew quite a few team mates who were very self conscious and pissed off over these changing room invasions.
I get there is a whole raft of different power dynamics at play with regards to the very real consequences of actual physical harm depending on whether it is a women or a man dealing with unwanted sexual attention. Sadly there are too many men out there who will respond with violence towards a woman who has the audacity to object to being sexually harassed. Equally there seems to be a complete dismissal by some that women to men sexual harassment is even a thing and I have certainly seen on these forums in the past the mocking ‘what about the poor menz’ comments when anyone dares raises the subject.