Gay men need to stop sexually assaulting women: Shannon Power
Image: Gay men need to stop sexually harassing women.
AFTER the Star Observer’s Christmas party last year, the whole team headed out to a popular gay establishment on Oxford St to continue the revelry and get our boogie on.
We were upstairs dancing our little hearts out, when one of my colleagues ran off suddenly because he was sick.
We stayed back on the dancefloor for a little while, but he had not resurfaced and I was worried.
So I stumbled through the venue trying to find him and eventually walked into a set of restrooms.
In the restrooms were three guys, one was looking in the mirror, one was in the cubicle and the third upon my entrance started talking to me.
I asked if he had seen my colleague – he had not – but then he proceeded to put his hand up my dress and grab my private lady parts.
You read right, a guy who I did not know, to whom I did not give consent, reached down to my nether regions and GRABBED MY VAGINA.
I told him to not do that, but what would a woman’s word be worth, because he touched me down there a second time.
Understandably, I became very agitated but was much too drunk to properly explain to him why initiating unwanted physical contact without consent is not only a gross violation, but sexual harassment.
“Babe, relax it’s ok, I’m just having fun,” he told me before giving my boobs a squeeze.
I stumbled out of the restrooms to the downstairs area where I found some friends and told them what happened.
“Oh my god, that’s terrible,” one said.
“What a dickhead,” the other said.
You can imagine I was pretty keen to leave, head home and call it a night. It’s amazing how being sexually assaulted can ruin a night out.
The next day I recounted the incident to a few other people, who were completely horrified and asked if I told the venue’s bouncers or had reported it to the police, which I had not.
To be honest at the time I was much too drunk to process completely what had happened and I was more worried about the state of my colleague.
I’ve only had great experiences with security personnel at the different venues along Oxford St and I’m sure on this night if I had reported what happened, the bouncers would have done something about it.
Also, this sort of stuff happens all the fucking time to girls (and I’m sure guys) in gay clubs.
I have been groped, touched and accosted so many times over the years, that I almost expect it to happen every time I go out.
What a lot of guys say to me after they’ve groped me is: “it’s ok babe, I’m gay!”.
Well ‘babe’, I’m here to tell you it’s definitely not acceptable to sexually assault someone under any circumstances.
Your sexuality combined with my gender are not exceptions to that rule, just don’t ever touch someone without consent.
Grabbing women’s breasts, bum, or in my case, their vagina, is not cute or funny. It doesn’t build some kind of unspoken solidarity between us, it violates me and my sense of safety in public.
Someone reading this might be thinking, ‘if you don’t like it, don’t go out’, but I am just as entitled to hang out with my friends in the venues we enjoy going to without fear.
People (I can’t believe I have to write this in 2016), you just cannot grope any woman – lesbian, bi, trans or straight – and shirk accountability.
Just because you’re gay and not attracted to women doesn’t mean you’re entitled to do what you like with our bodies.
We have enough of a fight on our hands tackling issues of domestic violence and sexual assault in the wider community.
We’d like to feel safe, too. And when you see me on Oxford St, unless you get the green light, keep your hands out of my pants.
Brave woman ShannonPower. It’s amazing that you managed not to knee that man in the groin when he first assaulted you. (I would have, and I’m sure that’s because I took a Penny Gulliver self defence course years ago). I was assaulted during a Mardi Gras Parade once as I was heading toward the party at the end of flinders st., a man grabbed my left breast gave it a big squeeze & vanished. I was so shocked I went into a “shutdown” mode and just couldn’t focus for a while. I wasn’t drunk & I couldn’t think of anything afterwards other than to find a place to retreat to.
Your article reverberated for me, that some men’s sense of entitlement over a woman’s body, seems to override our rights as women.
There’s a trend of abuse & mysognistic behaviour by some men in our society, but I’m also pleased to say that you have addressed it in a way so that others can discuss it !!! Thank you CMoore Hardy
Obviously he wasnt gay.
This is the stupidest article I’ve read to date.
Firstly I’ve been working in gay venues for the last 8 years, I move around the venue throughout the night so I see what goes on.
I’ve never wanted to or asked a girl to touch her breasts but I can’t count the number of times girls have grabbed my hands to make me touch them or forcibly tried kissing me. I’ve NEVER seen or heard of a gay guy trying to touch a girls vagina. Most of the times a girl is being touched is because she’s initiated it. Gay guys don’t like girls… Get it?!
Does Shannon know the person was even gay? Maybe she should write about straight girls acting like sluts and sexually harassing gay guys? Maybe if she was sexually assaulted she should’ve immediately reported it, or even reported it the next day when she’d sobered up from getting drunk to the point she couldn’t look after herself.
This article should never have been published.
I think what you meant to say is that it is never alright to be sexually assaulted and some gay men do it and some straight women do it to gay men. However straight women need to stop writing articles overgeneralising behaviour to all gay men.
This isn’t relevant to gender or sexuality, I can say as a proud gay man that I don’t make an effort to grab snatch especially if I’m at a gay club. You obviously ran into the wrong person whether he was gay or straight.
As a ‘senior journalist’, I’d assume that you would have more common sense or simply respect to not generally state that ‘gay men need to stop sexually assaulting women’ based on your experience with one gay man. Don’t make assumptions, I’ve been groped by several women thinking that ‘it’s ok, he’s gay’. I don’t make that a generalisation, I don’t assume all women are pigs so why should you be allowed to?
Gay Men? Or one possibly gay man? Clarity please.
Why were you in the Men’s Toilet in the first place? If you thought your Male friend was in there you should have asked another male, or better still, a Staff member to go in and check. The guy who grabbed you may have thought you were a transvestite and fancied you or a transsexual and wanted to know if you had had the “Final Cut”!
In Gay Venues when a person dressed, or looks, like a Female but goes into the Male toilet it is assumed she is Male.
Get over yourself, Shannon. Just as males – gay, straight or bi are not allowed to go into the Women’s Toilets – no female, no matter she be lesbian, hetero, or bi has any Right or Justification to go into the Male Toilets. Not everyone knows who you are and, doubtless, even fewer care. You are only a “celebrity'” amongst those who know you.
Why were you in a known “Gay Venue”?
Don’t you just love it when some uppity hetero woman, or man, decides to go to such a venue? BUT let any homosexual female come on to some hetero female or homosexual male come onto some male hetero and all hell breaks loose. That is what happens in homosexual venues, Shannon, get used to it or stay away.
I don’t think people should be Grouped at all!! Don’t care about there sexuality. Unless you have permission from the person your touching, keep hands off!!
I wonder how through only seeing someone in a bar toilet you knew this guy was gay? Not everyone in a gay bar is. If he was then as a gay man I even think it’s hideous! And it is not right from anyone!
Why do heterosexual women feel free to desexualize gay men and treat them as their property?
Had you been in a straight venue you would have asked a male friend/staffer to go into the men’s toilet rather than presuming you had free access. I get sick of women acting as though they own you (how many times have I been felt up by a woman dancing against me? I don’t care if its your first time ever in a gay bar, I’m not a prop for your experience).
Sexual assault of any kind is never justified.
She never said it was the male toilet. Easily could have been the female toilet. Or even a unisex toilet.
That is unacceptable behaviour. And why gay man would want to feel a vagina. I’m sick thinking about it. Disgusting.