Swift justice is warning to all gropers | Barbara Ellen

Bravo, Taylor Swift. The singer-songwriter not only won the court case, proving that she was groped by Denver DJ David Mueller, but she also pledged to give money to help other sexual assault victims defend themselves.

There are still whiffs in some quarters of this being a rather insignificant “sex scandal”. “Man touches young woman’s bottom” – wow, hold the front page. This is especially so in the entertainment industry, where sexism is practically the universal language. However, it’s not just about the groping. Even if it were just about the groping, no one is allowed to go around randomly touching people up.

But a case like this isn’t just about what is done, it’s about people thinking that they can get away with what might be conceived as almost a kind of sexual petty crime.

It says everything that Mueller wasn’t even some major powerful industry player and yet still he felt entitled to stick his hand up a complete stranger’s skirt. Even now, he’s complaining that his career has been ruined, as if his wandering hands weren’t the problem; rather, in his view, it’s Swift who has the issue (a wandering posterior?).

Sometimes, this is how these things play out – someone trying to get away with an inappropriate action, in such a fashion (fleeting, casual) that the affected person ends up worrying that they would be making a fuss if they complained. In this way, Swift’s actions benefited any woman who has ever been weirdly mauled and had her space invaded by some opportunistic creep, with delusions of attractiveness.

Beyond the specifics of this case, this was also about smashing the sense of entitlement that makes lechers presume that they can get away with taking big and – crucially – small liberties.