I should probably put my sympathy for the OP into context here: I was once approached (broad daylight, moderately busy street: I think I was targetted because I looked quite young/very short and from behind my clothes could have been mistaken for a school uniform?) by a man who attempted fondle my breasts and made some very explicit suggestions about performing oral sex on me (not even going to type the exact wording here but just to say Im not exactly a mealy mouthed blushing flower and this was some of the most foul and degrading language I had ever heard)
I reacted like ladymariner - bloody angry! and continued walking in the same direction as him screaming abuse (mostly along the lines of pathetic, inadequate, underendowed etc at him like a bloody fishwife!) I felt confident enough to do that - it was a residential area, other passersby were paying attention and moving towards us, he was on his own, it was daytime, there was no way he could have assaulted me further in that particular place. And he ran off looking shocked: I dont he expected defiance, - it was like his script for the encounter had been ripped up.
When I got home I was shaky, angry etc, and sat down to sob to poor DP about it, but those emotions soon passed. I dont feel traumatised by the situation now, and I continue to walk about the same streets in the same manner.
After considering it at the time I did report it to the police - because next time this perv could grab at and attack someone more vulnerable, later at night, in a darker street and by ignoring it or thinking "oh, its one of those things, I got off lightly" I would have missed an opportunity to stop him. As it was I was one of the people called to ID parades when they arrested him for a string of gradually worsening sexual assaults several months later.
I dont think Im a humourless feminazi running round screaming "HATE CRIME!" at everyone, but the above incident has made me much less complacent and less willing to accept certain types of behaviour. Its one thing to be honestly complimented and told you have a nice smile or are pretty - its another when there is a suggestion of physical threat or the comment makes you feel uncomfortable. I can totally understand the visceral disgust the OP feels at being approached in such a way , and I cant see why I have to accept a culture of such comments being par for the course in normal public behaviour.