A man kept groping me at work and my colleagues just laughed

No means no.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to be, right?

But what happens when you’re sexually harassed at a work event? And then when you protest about it to colleagues, they just laugh it off.

It was the early 2010s and I was working at a charity fundraiser held at a London hotel, where we were putting on a high end raffle – £50 a ticket; £200 a book.

We were expected to put up with a certain level of behaviour from the charity’s ‘high value donors’ or high profile supporters. In fact, before the event even started, a charity fundraising manager said to me: ‘Neck half a bottle of wine, get out there and flirt till they buy raffle tickets’.

Once it got into full swing, a drunk man who’d bought raffle tickets came up to me.

He slurred a hello. I politely smiled and returned the hello.

Then suddenly – perhaps thinking I owed him something in return for buying as many tickets as he did – he groped me. 

I was embarrassed, disgusted and annoyed all at once. I was also insulted – I’d never flirt in such an unattractive, non-consensual way with zero pre-chat, and I’d never flirt with someone as grotesque as him. 

I said just five words to him – forcefully: ‘Not in a million years.’

As I said this, I punched him off me. I didn’t give him a chance to respond and didn’t tell any colleagues – I was too flustered and felt they had bigger things to deal with that night. 

That feels ridiculous now. 

It was him who should have hung his head in shame.

The rest of the night, I caught him staring and leering at me. It made me feel uncomfortable and creeped out and I found myself moving away from him each time to avoid creating a scene. 

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only time it’s happened over the years.

In the mid-2010s, I was talking to a major charity donor when – without warning – his large, podgy hand enveloped my appendage. Clearly inebriated, he clumsily grabbed and twisted it almost completely around.

It hurt. So I pushed him off immediately, but – embarrassed to create a scene at a work event – I did so discreetly. Well, I did the first time.

Around 20 minutes later, he was back with a new drink in hand. He stumbled over and tried to ‘whisper’ something in my ear, as his greedy, intrusive hand simultaneously plunged down to my private parts again.

As it made contact and squeezed tightly, I moved his arm off me, lurched my head to the side – away from his foul whisky-breath – then moved right away.

‘Did you see that?’ I asked a colleague. ‘He’s grossing me out.’

She nodded and laughed. ‘I’m not finding it very funny,’ I said. She shrugged, smiling. 

The third time, embarrassment turned to anger. He marched straight up and aggressively groped, grabbed then yanked my private part, using it to pull himself in and attempt to kiss me.

It was both painful and disgusting. I wasn’t only repulsed, I was baffled. Did he think this is how you seduced someone? Did he think this groping was titillating for me?

I pushed him off so forcefully that his drink spilt on him. ‘Get. The f**k. Off me,’ I said. 

People – including my colleagues and his friends – gawped at the fracas; I felt humiliated. They sniggered. He drunkenly made an ‘ooooh’ sound then, unbelievably, approached me again.

This time I walked away quickly; I was very close to knocking him out, yet conscious how bad that’d look at a work event.

I told the venue’s bouncer: ‘If that man keeps groping me, I’ll knock him out. So either remove him now or you’ll be removing me in 20 minutes.’ They told me to calm down. Then they moved me – not him – away. 

Why didn’t I react so forcefully the first two times he groped me? I had it in my mind that I just had to put up with it because he was a valuable donor to my work. But I drew the line there.

Unfortunately, when I told another colleague, they laughed it off – and expected me to as well. I felt disappointed.

I didn’t even want the charity to take action. I just wanted to feel safe, heard and perhaps for someone to call him a repulsive creep.

That’s all I honestly needed at that moment: some verbal support. Not laughter and an eye roll as if to say: ‘oh you gay gays! What are you like?’

Well, I’ll tell you what I’m not like. I’m not like him because all the sexual interactions I have are consensual.

And I’ll tell you what I don’t like: incidents like this being laughed at, adding to my humiliation and shame. To shrug it off is one thing. But to laugh at anyone being groped?

It adds insult to injury. The shame should be his, not mine.

Both of these men were older and men I’d never have encouraged. Both men were persistent and their gropes were painful, non consensual and embarrassing.

Research commissioned by charity Mankind UK in 2021 revealed that about half of men have had an unwanted or non-consensual sexual experience. 

I was surprised to read that, because I’ve rarely heard accounts like mine in the media. I didn’t share my own story till now because I didn’t want to steal any oxygen from the important #MeToo movement, which gave space for women to share their experiences of sexual harassment.

It’s also important to me to point out that my experiences aren’t on par with sexual harassment of women perpetuated by men. 

Both are clearly wrong. But it’s not apples with apples; unfair structures have given men power over women, power that too many men have then abused.

My experience is different. I was unequal in different ways to those men: I was at work; they were ‘high level donors;’ they were older. But we were both gay men, and, crucially, I was stronger (it was, ahem, clear they don’t attend the gym as often as I do).

I could’ve overpowered them. And these incidents are rare for me, but depressingly commonplace for too many women.

We can – and should – discuss gay male non-consensual harassment without diminishing it. 

Gay venues themselves can be hypersexual; different rules of etiquette – rightly – exist in those venues. But even there, no means no.

No particularly means no when you’re at work, and your colleagues laughing at your humiliation at being groped only adds to the indignity of it all.

Organisations should be trained on how unwanted groping is never justified – even if it’s male-to-male.

We deserve to feel safe at work, too.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing [email protected]. 

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