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Erin Molan's fans rally around her after 'disgusting' groping incident
"So many men think this is ok… it’s not!"
Erin Molan’s fans have rallied around her after she bravely opened up about being groped at a Mosman pub while watching the AFL grand final.
The 41-year-old host relayed her story on the Hughesy, Ed and Erin show, saying she was at The Buena on Saturday when a man known to her and her partner, Todd, ‘grabbed her on the bottom’.
Now, Erin’s fans have thanked her for speaking out, with one person saying that ‘as a survivor of abuse I always live with what if and why? You are not to blame.”
Another person wrote: “Not your fault. Clearly it’s his. So many men think this is ok… it’s not! It’s about power and control, doing that behaviour when your partner isn’t there, trying it out, hoping for the next time. It’s disgusting.”
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Another person wrote: “I’m sorry that happened to you. How in this day and age does anyone think it’s ok to do this. This is not about teaching women to be safe but teaching males about consent and respect.”
Others called the man ‘disgraceful’ and echoed previous commenters saying: “We need men to stand up and say this isn't ok! Not on you at all”.
Erin explains groping incident live on air
"I was just there with my partner, and he knew the guy actually, and they were having a chat and the guy was actually quite nice," she said.
She explained that there were a couple of times when Todd left the table where the man would "come in a little bit close", saying she felt "a little bit uncomfortable" by the interactions.
"And then I got up at one stage, I walked over to the sports bar bit just to look at what time the NRL Grand Final was starting the next day, because Todd and I were talking about what we're going to do," Erin said. "And he kind of came up behind me and was very close, standing very close and talking and then yeah, just grabbed me on the bottom."
"I kind of felt like I was a little bit in shock at the time and not really understanding what had just happened, and I didn't even react then, which I think back should I have reacted or said something or you know, I think a lot of women can relate, sometimes you actually don't know what to do, and you know, I'm a fairly strong person, I stand up for things and fight for things, but I think I was just so shocked.
"And not because it had happened, because it's happened to me before, it's actually quite normal, which is awful if you're a woman going out or doing things but it had just been a fairly long time."
When Erin returned to her table, her partner could sense something was wrong and pushed for her to tell him. She tried to say she'd tell him later, but he continued asking what had happened.
"And I said, 'Nothing,' see this is the thing as well, is that my immediate thought is, 'I don't want to cause trouble, I don't want to make a scene, I don't want there to be drama, I don't want to get him in trouble,' and it's so utterly ridiculous," she said.
When Erin told Todd what happened, someone told the man what she said had happened, with Erin explaining, "He came back over, and it was interesting, because he didn't even look at me, he didn't try and deny it, he was just looking at my partner and he just kept saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' which I thought was bizarre. And then my partner got pretty angry –"
"There was a scuffle?" Hughesy asked.
"Yeah, look, a confrontation, I guess, and I kind of got in the middle and just grabbed Todd and said, 'It's not worth it, let's go,' and then they kicked him out," she said.
Erin said she'd been going over in her mind, thinking about what she had done that would make him think it was OK.
"I'm not traumatised by it," the presenter added. "I'm pretty robust and battle-hardened, I reckon, in a lot of spaces, but I'm also really conscious that just because I'm not [traumatised] doesn't mean that someone else in that position would be, and it doesn't say to men that it's OK because it's not. I kept thinking, like, what had I done? And this is the issue we have with so much of this stuff, and as a woman, we then start to question ourselves.
"I'm thinking, 'Oh, we've been to the beach and I'm wearing swimmers and a crochet dress, like what had I given off in any interaction with him, while I'm sitting there with my partner that he would have thought in his mind that I would have been someone that was comfortable or OK with him doing that in a public place, when I've got a partner and I've never met him before – grabbing me, and not just touching, but almost clawing back there in a very private place."
"I'm completely fine, but it just makes me angry," Erin said.
The man was banned from the pub for six months, with Mitch Wood, General Manager of The Buena in Mosman, telling The Daily Telegraph the pub has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment.
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