I think this is a place where the gendered context is important. You probably have women in your life who you care about. Try asking how they would feel if someone grabbed the ass at work, or how they have felt about it, because it may be an experience they’ve had.
People aren’t all the same and our gender doesn’t determine everything about us. Still, unwanted touching of a woman by a man is a different think than unwanted touching a man by a woman. It carries a different message. So many women in our culture are raped by men that when men act in an entitled way towards women’s bodies it would be irrational for the woman not to feel threatened, not to be on the defensive.
I was going to say that I’m happy your experience of having your body be casually used by others without your consent wasn’t damaging or traumatizing for you. But when I thought about that, I think that normalizing other people’s right to touch you without your consent is damage.
A person’s paycheck shouldn’t depend on having to accept unwanted ass grabs. That’s not a controversial or arguable statement. Maybe you feel that consenting to have your body touched in a sexual way is just part of the job for a bartender in the same way that it would be part of the job for a sex worker. That sounds pretty wrong to me since sexual touching isn’t part of the work of being a bartender. But even then, sexual touching is definitely not part of the work of being a TV reporter.
