Get that flipper away from me.

Get that flipper away from me.

I got a worrying email this week from a young woman, who described a new fad she's observed among her boyfriend's mates, called "pinballing".

It's pretty grubby and I have to wonder how many young blokes are doing it and the legal problems they're opening themselves up to.

Caroline (not her real name) was at a meat-market bar for the birthday of one of her boyfriend's mates, but "these are not guys that I associate with unless forced - which I was on this night".

I think we've all been in that situation.

Anyway, she's sitting at a very popular Sydney bar, watching the time crawl by when the birthday boy decides he's going to play "pinball" with some of his single mates ... and there were no arcade games at this venue.

"Seven guys stood in two lines, forming a space between them that unsuspecting people could walk between thinking it was an easy way through the crowd," Caroline wrote.

"First a couple of guys walked through, no incident. Then, after another minute, a girl headed their way. As she approached these idiots, they were nudging each other and grinning.

"As she moved past the first one he pushed his groin towards her quite suddenly and violently, causing her to bounce to the next guy who had his groin waiting, and so on until she had been basically sexually assaulted by all seven of these morons," Caroline wrote.

The blokes in question ranged in age from 24 to 26, while the girl they'd sleazed over was young, perhaps 19 at the oldest.

"She looked innocent, unlike the other girls at the bar, she was in clothes more suitable for the weather - no bum cheeks on display, no push up bra, no 'f--- me' trashy make-up. She was, in short, a sweet-looking girl who you wouldn't be surprised to see volunteering at a nursing home or going to church on a Sunday," Caroline wrote.

Caroline's editorialising aside, it'd make no difference if a street-walking prostitute had run the gauntlet and been "pinballed", though I dare say she'd have given the guys what was coming to them.

The girl who did cop it, however, "was in tears and ran off to her friends".

"The guys were all laughing, thinking about how funny they were to have rubbed their jeans-clad penises on an unsuspecting female. However, when the bouncers headed their way, they scattered.

"Most ran to the bathroom where they were found and asked to leave, a few disappeared for a moment and came back to the table where the bouncers were waiting.

"They were ejected from the bar and were infuriated the girl hadn't just laughed the incident off. The four of us that were sitting at the table left and went home. The 'pinballing' males went to try their luck at Kings Cross where I am informed further pinballing occurred," Caroline wrote.

The thing with this sort of stuff is that it might all be a laugh for the guys involved, but the girl they'd "pinballed" was traumatised.

I know a hundred chicks - like Caroline - who would have simply grabbed the nearest dickhead and kneed him in his pinballing groin, and moved on, pissed off, but largely unaffected.

Says Caroline: "There are certain things which make an impact on you forever. This is something I am sure this girl will remember, and something that will colour her experiences of that bar on what could have otherwise been an enjoyable night. She may never go back there because of the memory of these idiots."

Which is all speculation, so I wonder how she did feel the next morning?

I know if I'd seen these guys doing this, there would have been a ruckus. I'd have said something.

If they'd done it to my girlfriend or a female friend, I don't know that I'd have been able to leave it just at words.

Shoving your groin into a stranger like that is beyond disrespect - and I've done some pretty silly things around women when drunk.

What's telling, however, is the attitude of the pinballers who "thought the girl would find this type of behaviour amusing".

"I cant think of anything less funny than having a stranger intentionally rub their groin on me," Caroline wrote.

"But getting mad because they were asked to leave shows they have no remorse for upsetting the girl and they think what they did is acceptable."

You can haul out all the woolly "boys will be boys" or "it was just a bit of fun" rationales in the world, but this is at best a gross disrespecting of women and, at worst, a sexual assault.

So, I'm interested to hear if any of you have noticed "pinballing" going on in recent months, whether you said anything to the perpetrators and what you think should be done to young idiots who try this stuff on?

Is a sexual assault charge over the top?

I reckon one high-profile prosecution would see an end to "pinballing" once and for all.

Game over.