Reader Dilemma: 'I'm a divorced woman and my male friend pinched my bottom at a party – I feel violated and abused'

Advice: 'This chap obviously, at least when drunk, went back into the dark ages when it came to appropriate behaviour'

'Recently, at a party, we both got rather drunk. As I was bending over, he pinched my bottom' (iStock)

Dear Virginia

I’m a single, divorced woman of 35 and I’ve got a good – and eccentric – friend, of 78. He’s a platonic father figure – he’s very supportive and gets on with my friends. Recently, at a party, we both got rather drunk. As I was bending over, he pinched my bottom. I exploded and the next day he rang and said he was sorry, it just came over him. But he didn’t realise how humiliated, violated and abused I felt. Despite his apology, I feel I never want to see him again. He says I’m being ridiculous. What do you think?

Yours sincerely, Carole

Virginia says...

If you sat next to an exuberant Italian musician in his seventies, and he kept hugging you, and holding your hand while he expounded on the marvellous Roman ruins in Sicily, would you find that offensive? If a girlfriend were to slip her arm through yours while out on a walk over the hills, would you feel abused? If a child of two were to beg to sit on your knee, would you feel your boundaries had been invaded?

No, you wouldn’t. Culture and context are all. And if you can bear to put the very unfortunate and inappropriate gesture made by this social dinosaur of a man into a cultural context not of our time, could you find it easier to forgive him?

The past is a different country. And yet this ancient old croc seems to be living in it. He sounds like a remnant in a 1950s rock pool, a time when chaps would pinch women’s bottoms and not just get away with it but be seen simply as saucy young jokers. Indeed, in those days it might even have been seen as a compliment – a pat on the bottom, or a wink or a peer down a cleavage was seen not as disgusting and the sign of a filthy old man but, rather, a daring and naughty gesture of someone just wanting to give a thumbs up to a woman’s femininity.

This chap obviously, at least when drunk, went back into the dark ages when it came to appropriate behaviour. Not only should his age have prevented such a move, but also the fact that you and he are platonic friends, not to mention the knowledge, which surely he must have if he’s not living in a time-warp, that what was considered OK in those days isn’t necessarily OK now. For instance, in the 1950s, it wasn’t unusual for anyone who wasn’t working-class to refer to the rest as “common”. People got away with racist remarks that today would have brought them before a judge.

This man is living in the past. Part of his charm for you may actually be his old-fashioned, gallant ways: walking on the outside of the pavement, opening doors for you. But you don’t like the other side of this behaviour. This man just doesn’t have a clue as to what has happened since the days when he was young. But now you’ve told him off in no uncertain terms and he’s apologised, even though he clearly hasn’t got the empathy to comprehend why you feel, understandably, that you’ve been subject to a very unpleasant instance of inappropriate touching.

Try to forgive him. But if he ever does anything like that again, I can see why you might not want to have any more to do with him. You’ve said you don’t like it. That’s enough. He should respect your feelings, however “ridiculous” he finds them.

Readers say...

Men don’t understand

I, too, am a 78-year-old male. Nearly 20 years ago, in a similarly tipsy atmosphere, a woman friend fondled my buttocks with both hands for several seconds, laughingly drawing her friends’ attention to what she was doing. I wasn’t bothered in the slightest at the time, and (apart from a slight resentment when thinking of the consequences if I had done the same to her) I still am not.

However much we may want to be sympathetic and understanding, I think we men do not and cannot really understand what it means to a woman to be sexually assaulted. And – equally importantly – women don’t understand that men don’t understand. So while my immediate instinct is to tell you that you’re over-reacting, I have to accept that if you feel so strongly that you want to end the friendship, the decision must be yours, and must be respected by your friend.

Peter

Welwyn, Hertfordshire

Don’t lose your friendship

I am a 65-year-old woman and I, too, have had my bottom pinched some years back, though by a stranger. It is a violation – but just possibly slightly less so by an “eccentric”, 78-year-old, very supportive, rather drunk, friend? The strength of your feelings may be the result of perceiving a possible unwelcome change in your platonic friendship. This has shocked you to the core and made you feel less safe in the friendship. Suddenly, the platonic father figure feels like an abusive father.

You are not being ridiculous at all. You are sensitive to the myriad things his action could mean. I suspect it may just have been a bit of thoughtless “fun” on his part, from a different age... or was even meant as a compliment. But you do need to talk to him to see if the damage can be undone. It would be so sad for both of you to lose your friendship.

Sarah Jenkins

by email

Decide how you feel about him

It appears that you have been caught unawares by a 78-year-old’s attraction to you. It is hard for men of his age, who still find women attractive, at a time when British society thinks they should be long past that sort of thing. Your story reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s saying: “I can resist every thing except temptation”. You should forgive him this one indiscretion and do one of two things: either tell him you don’t see him in that way and he must not touch you again, or bed him.

Dave

by email

Next week's dilemma

My doctor thinks I should have a hysterectomy, for various non-urgent medical reasons (I’m feeling fine, by the way). I’m retiring and will soon be moving to the country – downsizing in a big way – to be closer to my family, and I want to get everything out of the way at once. I’m due to have the operation a month after the move. But my friend says that I’m mad and should wait. She says operations are extremely dangerous these days and that she wouldn’t go near a hospital unless it were life and death. What do you think?

Yours sincerely,

Althea