How would you react?

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Simple in situ to be sure, however you'd probably want to avoid applying a cberg level of snark and instead employ thoroughly considered tact.

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I have my own brand of 'foot in mouth' suaveness, once nothing unpredictable happens I can usually smooth things over, but you know, people be crazy, and I usually go straight to Plan B, lol.
I think something as simple as just getting in touch and asking my aunt how she is, (I am concerned about her health anyways) will help me wrap this up.

Honestly, I think my first reaction would be to smack them in the face (even if they were family). I have no tolerance for that sort of thing.

it would be all I could not to smack them back, but charging them with sexual harassment would probably be safer and better.

I have a tendency to think older men act more like "gentlemen", but they were also raised in an era where it was much more acceptable to be a sexist pig.

Just reading about this and imagining something like that happening to me makes my stomach churn with anxiety. I feel short of breath. Wow, I don't know how I would handle it. I think it would make me dissociate.

What's most disturbing is that no one said anything. I think it's normal to feel stunned or surprised by inappropriate behavior. But the target has to suffer that much more than those who witness it. Someone should have spoken up on your behalf Amity.

If something like this happened in my family, certain relatives of mine would probably find it hysterically funny...and if I got angry or tried to defend myself they would only laugh harder. They take the attitude that you're supposed to have a sense of humor about everything. This is just making me think again about how I should avoid being in family settings where things like this might happen.

Most of the reactions are similar to MindBlinds and lostonearth35, smack him or make a formal complaint. This has happened to me before but in pubs/bars with strangers as I walked past, and my response was to chew them out of it, no thinking required, instant reaction.

This was a distinctly different situation, I was in a foreign country at the time staying with relatives, some I know well, and others not so well. No one in my large extended family has ever behaved this way, perhaps it is cultural and an age related difference, he is an Australian married to my aunt, but I have met him many times before, as a child and in my teenage years. This was out of character. I have doubted a few times since then, that it actually happened!

In all of this I was not concerned for myself, it was not a dangerous situation, I was not physically harmed, alcohol does effect inhibitions, (again not a lot of alcohol) but I was unhappy that this man would make me feel so very uncomfortable. I was concerned for my aunt, at the time I knew that everyone else went silent, except for him. I knew when I looked at her and she averted her eyes, that there was something else amiss.

Ive replayed the scenario a few times since, and the sudden stillness in the room has stayed with me. Like everyone was stunned, or they were holding their breath waiting for my reaction, I didn't react though, not verbally, I think I was stunned. I disassociate/depersonalize in stressful situations, but that is usually in a busy noisy shopping area, or when i experience intense emotions, but in this situation I didn't even know what to feel. I know the thoughts that I was not with usual family members, not in Ireland, in the 'Bush', and no one else was reacting flashed through my mind, and then... nothing.

I think that if there had been any reaction, from anyone I would have perhaps not felt so stunned, or needed to go to bed early.

Old men in family gatherings seem (to me) always a bit profitting from the younger female flesh around, keep your strategic distance with the badbehavers.

I know a terrible guy here, he's a known terrible person for that, touching inappropriate even in front of his wife or other relatives. Stalking single women. The wife allowes it, for the sake of not being bothered by him. One night he would make a call for an sheep-related-'emergency', so I go, while I was actually preparing dinner. There he was yelling at his wife, who came back from hospital only one day before, then walking up and down the road in front of his house swearing and yelling, I saw him as the three year old tantrumming toddler who must always have it his way. I realized (some) people, even at ninety years old, are still blocked in early childhood behaviour.

What is this type of behavior about...? Is it a compulsion, an addiction, a childishness, a sense of entitlement?

~~~

I know of a man Traven, actually a few men similar to the the old man you describe, and every local woman knows to keep a good distance from them, avoid being in front of them in queues, and generally never turn your back on them. I remember one elderly man that used to pinch bottoms at every opportunity, even when he had to start using a walking frame, he was still at it!

I would be very weirded out and avoid him. No matter how jokey or lighthearted that is meant to be, that's a no no and is sexual harassment imo. I wouldn't want to cause a scene or conflict but I might glare at the guy and then walk away.

I would have thoughts on whacking him with my purse.

Its been a while since I thought about this event and the spiders that could have been lurking in the bedroom, actual ones, not metaphorical...
How would I react now... still wouldn't instigate a scene but I'd like to think I would have the presence of mind to lean in and share a few chosen stern words with him, then carry on with the group get together as there was/would be enough resulting embarrassment.
Something simple like Never do that again and I won't have to get the law involved.

As it stands now, as a result of my frozen reaction then, the boundaries have been set in different ways over time, there hasn't been any familial awkwardness, its relatively the same outcome as a more direct route, but the fact that I was boundary setting on purpose required more emphasis to make sure he got it.
Edited for typo