This Bar Took A Stand Against Sexual Harassment

Folks, here are three essential things not to do at a bar: Be rude, forget to pay, and, oh yeah, attempt to kiss your female bartender’s hands. You’d think that last one would be obvious, but, well, here we are. A bar put up a sign to combat sexual harassment after male customers kept being creepy with a female employee. The sign is now going viral for throwing masterful shade on people who don’t seem to get that “being nice to a customer” does not equal “burning sexual passion.” (Why is that always so hard?)

Lauren Dew, a bartender at the Beer Cellar in Exeter, UK, tells Bustle that she put the sign up a few months ago after the bar “had a fairly bad weekend for sexual harassment — there was one customer who was asked to leave and a few others warned for inappropriate behavior.” The sign, created by UK artist Charlotte Mullin, offers customers a simple pie chart to help them decipher the mystery of the female mind, titled, “Why the female cashier is being nice to you.” The sign offers two reasons: “She is uncontrollably sexually attracted to you” OR “Because that’s literally her f*cking job.” And, oh hey look, it’s always the second reason.

Dew says that they’ve “had a lot of compliments” about the sign, and that, in the months that it’s been posted in the bar, “some people are definitely on better behavior.” Unfortunately only some — the bar tweeted the image of the sign yesterday because, Dew says, “a man tried to kiss a bartender's hand again, which is ALWAYS creepy.” (Um, gross.) Apparently hand-kissing female service people is a thing — after the bar posted the photo, Twitter users chimed in to say they’ve experienced similar behavior from guys at gaming cons, museum galleries, a synagogue, and the library. So maybe this sign just needs to be posted everywhere?

“Overall we feel really lucky to work in a place that pays us a living wage so we don't have to pander to behavior that makes us uncomfortable,” Dew tells Bustle. She also says she feels lucky that her “boss has a good sense of humor.”