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In creepy Reddit megathread, thousands of women recount the first time they were perved on by a grown man

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So there’s a giant, growing, and extremely creepy megathread up on Reddit at the moment, and for once, the creepiness isn’t coming from inside the Reddit. Well, less of the creepiness is coming from Reddit than you might expect.

Yesterday, you see, a Redditor known as BA_Baracus posted a couple of simple questions to AskReddit: Women of Reddit, when did you first notice that men were looking at you in a sexual way? How old were you and how did it make you feel?

This wasn’t the first time he’d posted a question to his fellow Redditors; he’s posted a bunch, including “People of reddit with eyes that point in different directions, which one of them is usually looking at me?” and, er, “Recent rape victims of Reddit, how did it happen, and what the hell were you doing in India?” None of these questions got much of a response.

But this time, well, thousands of “women of Reddit” stepped forward to tell the horrifying yet in most cases completely unsurprising stories of the first time men started perving on them, in many cases before they were even teenagers.

Here’s a sampling of some of their stories. TRIGGER WARNING for extreme fucking creepiness.

Age 8, followed to a department store changing room

intoon 130 points 1 day ago  Holy shit, this thread is depressing, but (sadly,) makes me feel like I'm not alone. I was 8, had wandered away from my mom at Kmart. A creepy 40 something white guy in construction attire stared at my chest and butt, and followed me all around the store. I even went into the changing room to get away from him (stupid idea I know, but c'mon, I was 8!) he FOLLOWED ME INTO THE CHANGING ROOM. Tried to pull and shake the locked stall door open that I was hiding behind. I sat, curled into a ball on the changing seat, staring at his dirty work boots just on the other side of that door, terrified. Thank god a woman walked in to try on some clothes, saw him, and screamed at him to get out. After he had left, I ran out and found my Mom. I will never forget how frightened I was. I had no idea what he wanted with me, but the way he stared and his aggression trying to pull that changing room door open made me feel so sick and ashamed of my body and I wondered what I had done to make him come after me. I'm so crazy over protective with my kids and I'm sure some of it stems from that incident. I have to fight my anxiety anytime I take them to a park, or museum or even family gathering. They are always within my sight.

Age 8, molested by a landlord

DevilNTheDeepBlueSea 86 points 1 day ago  I was 8 when a landlord in Germany put his hands down my pants while I was feeding a rabbit he gave me. I ran away, he butchered the bunny that afternoon. I was 11 when a relative of my mother's husband (in his mid-thirties) tried to French kiss me. I told my mother & she found that "hard to believe". I was 16 and almost raped by 2 older guys (mid 20s) in a parking lot in Hawaii (daylight), until a construction worker walked up to stop it. At 17 I worked for a mobile equine vet who once called me in to his office where he was masturbating. I quite that job & caught hell from parents for being fickle. At 18 I was fired from a job for not giving head to a manager, embarrassed (AGAIN), I lied to friends/family about something stupid that I did to cause the job loss. I was 20 when a friend of my aunt offered me a ride home, he tried to rape me, that turned into a fist fight with him leaving mad & calling me crazy. At 26 a small animal veterinarian (50s) tried to corner/fondle me & 2 other assistants regularly. My husband thought women exaggerate these types of things, that it's rare. We're divorced. Should I continue? No, I did not dress provocative or act "flirty". And I don't think it matters if you're beautiful or just a girl. Or how old or experienced. It's insulting, shameful, & almost always very hurtful.

Age 12, at a bus stop

Cuddlebunz 208 points 1 day ago  I remember the first time pretty clearly. I was a mix of scared/angry/confused and I was only twelve years old. I was waiting at a bus stop alone, when a guy who was probably in his late twenties/early thirties came riding past on his bike. He slowed right down and whistled at me. When I ignored him, he turned on his bike and slowly rode right past me. I remember being pretty freaked out at how he leered at me. Twelve year old me had no idea what to do. He turned around and rode by again. Luckily a woman showed up to the same stop so I moved to stand near her. He finally rode off when he saw I wasn't by myself anymore (or maybe was bored I wasn't responding?) It was fucked up. Some men can be so disgusting.

11 or 12, walking to and from school

mermaids_singing 856 points 1 day ago  11 or 12. I remember walking to and from school (6th grade in the US) and having guys yell stuff out of cars. A couple times I had to hide out in a local coffee shop on the route home because I was getting harassed. Once because a carful of maybe late teens/early 20's dudes kept circling the block and asking me to ride with them and once because some older dude was walking the same way and kept talking about my tits and ass. I was 12 and had no idea how to deal with this so I started wearing baggy boy clothes....it lessened but didn't stop. I spent years working htrough my issues over this.

Age 12, waiting for carryout

WinstonScott 1052 points 1 day ago  When I was 12, my mom and I were at a small, carry-out only restaurant waiting for our order to be ready. This older guy, who looked like he was about 20 came in. He just stared at me, open-mouthed. I had to walk past him to fill my drink, and he said, "Hey baby. Give me some of that T & A." I didn't even know what T & A was! He even positioned himself so I would have to walk past him again when we left the restaurant, and he made another comment where he called me "Princess." Anyway, when we got in the car, I just broke down crying. I was so ashamed. My mom had had no idea that any of that had just occurred, and I told her that I didn't know what I had done wrong. I thought for sure I must have looked him at or done something to make him think that it was OK to talk and look at me like that. My mom assured me that it was nothing that I had done, and I that now that I was developing, things like that were going to happen a lot more frequently. If I had been older, the whole incident would have been fairly innocuous. But I was only 12 (and I definitely looked very young even though I had boobs and hips) so it was mildly traumatizing. What I find so disturbing now that I'm an adult, is how frequently, older, grown men would look and make sexual comments at me from the ages of 12-17. Like I said before, I looked very young, and I didn't dress provocatively. There's no way they could have mistaken me for 18+.

Age 11, creepy step-grandfather

vodka_titties 1579 points 1 day ago  I was 11. I had started to grow my boobs, and my step grandfather cornered me in my parents room one day. He stuck his tongue in my mouth and grabbed my boobs. I didn't know what to do so I pushed him away a little, said "abuelito did you want a hug?", and hugged him. Ughhh. I was scared I was going to get in trouble and that my parents would think I was making it up. They believed me, but just told me to avoid him for the rest of his stay.

Age 12, creepy step-uncle

BattleReady 2658 points 1 day ago  I was 12. I remember I was doing yard work for a step-uncle when he would constantly casually make "Huh" sounds and stand directly behind me when I would pull weeds. Suspicions were confirmed when he took me to lunch at the mall and offered to buy me tiny dresses and low cut shirts. I stopped associating with my step family after that as that's all they ever did.

Age 10, wearing a Lion King backpack and light-up shoes

lionking

Age 12, creepy cell phone salesman

Serae 3700 points 1 day ago  This...1999 or 2000? I was 12 and my mom was getting me a cell phone. This was before cell phone were as common for kids to have. I came home with my cellphone and got my first call. It was the young guy who set us up with the phone and the plan. He called to tell me that he thought I was hot and that he has my number since he set me up with my phone. I just small talked him, being overly nice as I wasn't really sure what to do. My mom noticed me on the phone and asked who I would even be calling (the phone as basically to call her and only her). I told her that the guy that sold us the phone was trying to get a date with me. She grabbed the phone and yelled into it, "She's 10 years old and you should be ashamed! If you ever call again I'll go to the police." He got off the phone quickly. I looked at my mom and said, "But...I'm 12?" "He needs to feel the additional shame of being a pig." And that was the moment I first noticed that someone was looking at me in a sexual way. My mother ended up going to the store and getting the guy fired. Apparently this wasn't the first time he'd used his job to get numbers of women to call. This time he got fired. That was also the year other things occurred, but this was the first.

Age 11, walking home from the beach

ALighterShadeOfPale 3919 points 1 day ago  Around age 11, myself and my cousin (she was also 11) were walking from the beach to the cottage (in shorts and t shirts). A car with three men began driving slowly next to us, asking for directions and for us to get in to show them where some campground was. We went into a convenience store and used their phone to call our grandmother to come get us. (Pre cellphones). The men were parked in the parking lot and followed our car to the cottage, which was set back from the road, had to go through trees and such to get to it. They parked out on the road by the entrance. My uncle (cousin's father) was told they were parked there and went out with his shot gun to ask if there was any problems. They didn't stick around. From that point on I became more aware of the yelling out car windows, the stares, the requests to get into vehicles (seriously, guys, does this ever work?)

Age 12, in Blockbuster (with bonus Reddit creepiness)

Flowsephine 4673 points 1 day ago*  I remember being in Blockbuster when I was 12 and having a man comment on my ass loud enough that multiple people turned around to glare at him. When my shocked mother informed him of my age he turned bright red and left the store. Edit: I can save a lot of you a lot of time and tell you that I HAVE NOT posted in /r/gonewild. The most you'll find in my post history is a very cute dog. Edit 2: As requested, here's the dog. 75% Australian Shepherd and 25% Heeler. I'm so glad he's been eye bleach for a lot of you, but don't forget what we are actually here to discuss.

14, eating a lollipop

glitterbugged 5006 points 1 day ago  I was 14 in a restaurant with my parents, sucking on a lollipop, when some dude approached to let me know that he wished he was the lollipop. I thought my dad might actually murder him. Age 12, eating a banana

sakana-no-ko 3577 points 1 day ago  This is sort of like what happened to my sister! We were at a fair and eating frozen chocolate covered bananas. I was 17 and she was 12. This white guy walked up to her and goes "Wow, it looks like you're eating a big black dick! Ha! You look good eating dick" and then a black guy behind him goes "Wish it was mine!" What disturbs me the most about that is I was right there, eating one too, and while I looked young, I could have been legal. She at 12 looked more like she was 10, she was so young looking and they chose to prey on her instead of an adult-looking target.

Naturally, some Redditors decided to add to the creepiness:

pretendtrainw00w00 2825 points 1 day ago*  When I was about ten years old, I developed breasts but hadn't really noticed yet. I was wearing a shirt with no bra, when a boy in my class kept passing my desk over and over again. About the fifth time, I looked up at him to see what was going on, and he was staring right down the v-neck of my top. That was the moment my entire damn life changed. Edit: For those wondering what it is like to be a woman, the creepy PMs have officially started. From a post speaking about my breasts when I was 10.

And all this makes pretty clear just why we need age of consent laws:

CheezIt624 3453 points 1 day ago*  I was 12, already gone through puberty and was pretty developed. I learned very quickly that men don't care if you're 12 as long as you LOOK like you're 17-18. This is why I argue so strongly for consent laws. I was fucking 12 with Beanie Babies and Sweet Valley High books and shit, and grown men were trying to fuck me because I was a C cup and looked older. And I liked the attention, because all any girl wants is to feel wanted and mature and adult. It's why we start fantasizing about our first cars and sneak cigarettes from our parents - we want to feel older and cool. I didn't know I could say no to these men, and I felt so much older and mature when they'd pay attention to me, and so that began a rough few years of letting men have sex with me. I phrase it that way because that's what it was - did I say yes? Yes. Did I want to? No. I was scared to say no to these older guys. It took till maybe 18 or so before I realized I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to. Edit: And I've already received my first PM saying 12 year old slutty me wanted it.

Of course, many of these creepy guys are well aware that the targets of their creepiness are a long way away from being “legal.”

I_Dont_Own_A_Cat 1151 points 1 day ago*  I was 12, already gone through puberty and was pretty developed. I learned very quickly that men don't care if you're 12 as long as you LOOK like you're 17-18. The worst part is that plenty of men who catcall well-developed young teens don't really think they look 17 or 18. They know perfectly damn well they are catcalling 11-15 year olds. They know perfectly damn well 11-15 year olds are "easier" and safer to harass, for the reasons you stated in your post. My body developed pretty young, but I remain short and babyfaced. Even in my early 20s, I occasionally would get hit on by adult men who said or did things that indicated they thought I was very young with big breasts. Asking where I went to high school, etc. Those men didn't think that I was older-looking, they specifically targeted that I was very young-looking. Two different times I've had a men flat out say state, with mild disappointment, they thought I was younger when I told them my age, once after randomly asking if I like to party and offering to buy me alcohol while I was walking down the street.

Check out the thread for countless more stories like this.

H/T — u/Iwillpixiecutyou on Reddit

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Bina
Bina
9 years ago

When did it start happening to me? As soon as my breasts began to grow. I was just turning 10. (Hips came the following year.) As soon as my nipples started to look like something other than flat little mosquito bites, boom! The unpleasant, uncomfortable feeling that everyone with a penis was staring at my chest. Which of course they were.

And then there was the rapid realization that V-necks, close-fitting T-shirts, tube tops, and anything even a little bit translucent was to be avoided. Because boobie-gawkers were also boobie-grabbers, more often than not. And not all of them were bratty boys my own age or thereabouts.

At this point there wasn’t a single incident that I could say “Yeah, that’s the precise moment when it started to happen”; it was just this generalized creepy weirdness that as an undeveloped child I’d been blissfully unaware even existed. It was depressing, too, because it made me want to go back to being that happy, innocent, little, little kid. And I couldn’t. So that pissed me off and contributed greatly to my pre-adolescent surliness and squeamishness and general standoffishness.

At 12 I had a science teacher who noticed that I was very good at science, so he let me borrow the books he kept in the shelves behind his desk. At least, I thought that was all it was. Other girls said he tried to peek down their tops. I was, by then, already in full cover-up and baggy-sweaters mode, so of course that didn’t happen to me. But I have to look back on it with a lot of side-eye and wonder if I was being somehow “groomed” and just never realized it, because the following year, a girl in my class DID have what some would have euphemistically called an inappropriate relationship with him, and it was really blatant. She even called him by his nickname, sat on his knee, flirted with him like an idiot (which she was, but he was a grown man and most definitely not stupid, so there was no excuse for him doing what he did with her.) I came to the conclusion that he HAD tried to “groom” me and failed, because I had strict personal boundaries and didn’t let anyone get too close. (And also, I suspect, because I had not only a father who was very much in the picture, but also a grandfather living in the same house, and two hot-headed uncles who were liable to beat the shit out of any teacher who pushed his luck with 12-year-old me.)

As for incidents of actual harassment that stick out: I was 14. A truck driver honked the horn at me. I was wearing a puffy bomber jacket, but it was only waist length. And tight jeans. And knee-high boots with a two-inch heel. The clothes were armor against being branded an uncool prude, ironically enough. (They didn’t work. I still got shit from the other kids.) I was under no illusion by then that these guys saw very young but plausibly “developed”-looking girls as anything other than easy prey to be intimidated. And I was very timid and shy, so of course it scared the shit out of me. I went to school scared shitless every day, of guys like that and of harassers on the school bus, too. Invariably, all older and much bigger than me.

No, this shit’s not rare at all. It is depressingly all over the fucking place. It was the minefield I had to thread every day, from age 10 onwards. Even now, as an almost middle-aged woman and supposedly Sexually Invisible, I STILL have my head up, on the defensive for creepers. I suspect the only real reason I get fewer of them now isn’t my age, which I don’t look — it’s my attitude. I walk tall now, and am better at faking confidence even when I’m not feeling it. Oddly enough, they never pick the truly confident ones to mess with…

lkeke35
9 years ago

Davidnewton:: actually young boys get preyed on a lot. They just don’t get catcalled and harassed and often don’t know that the situation has taken a wrong turn until they’re right in the middle of it.

At least some girls, not all girls, get some kind of warning that this is something that they’ll have to deal with forvthe rest of their lives. My mother was very, very, vigilant about it and I still got harassed because I wasn’t with her twenty four/seven. But I could at least talk to her about what upset me and knew she had my back. I was very, very lucky.

Boys have absolutely no clue and as hard as it is for girls, we at least have systems and organizations set up to help some of us, if the adults around us give a damn. Most young boys don’t even have that option. If you’re a boy who has just been molested, because of the systems of patriarchy and toxic masculinity in place, you can’t even speak to anyone about it and often just have to suffer it in silence.

Boys are also going to be preyed on by both genders. If the person who molests them is female, they can forget about telling anyone about it. Those same systems that will castigate blame them for being molested by a man,(should any of them draw up the courage of telling anyone about it, after being acculturated at very young ages to believe that homosexuality makes them unmanly) will congratulate them for being molested by a woman and tell them its manly.

It’s true, boys don’t have to worry about harassment but in some cases being harassed is at least a sign that a situation might turn dangerous or has gone horribly wrong and a lot of girls are taught early to be hyper- aware of the men around them. They can at least talk to other women about it ( if they’re lucky.)

Not trying to derail by diverting attention to mens problems, just wanted to counter David’s post. These are systems that f*** it up for all children, both male and female. In the minds of some men, all children are prey. The only difference is that girls are taught to expect it. Boys never see it coming. And can’t even get any help afterwards.

Fnoicby
Fnoicby
9 years ago

@suffrajitsu, when I read “Lolita” it was very clear to me that Humbert Humperdink was written to be a total creepezoid predator. I’m not sure how anyone could get anything else but it’s amazing how much literary criticism does make Lolita out to be anything but an innocent child. No, it’s appalling.

I remember being 14 and walking down the street with my 13 year old best friend, some guy driving by yelling “hot legs” or something. Also walking alone at 14, some guy waited in his car at the end of the block leering at me as i walkyd towards him. I gave him the finger and he sped off angrily. Another time at 14 waiting at a bus stop with my friend some creep did a strip show between the buildings across the street. Two old ladies came to the bus stop after and we told them what happened but all they cared about was that we didn’t let them board the bus first. :/

Fnoicby
Fnoicby
9 years ago

Doh! Humbert Humbert. It’s been a while. Google first, then post – must remember.

lkeke35
9 years ago

Peristyle: Exactly. This is how society keeps women in check. All of our mental energy is spent thinking about our bodies, 24/7.

I had a mortifying experience when I was about twelve. I developed early too and I didn’t think much of it, nor had I connected it to my mother’s occasionally questioning me if some man had said or did anything funny.

I was walking home from school and two men, who had to be in their thirties were walking in the same direction,several feet behind me, when they begin to talk, very loudly, about my a**. I felt horrified, humiliated, and yes, scared. Up til then, I’d spent my entire life around boys and never gave it a thought. My cousins and uncles were kind, upstanding men that I never feared being with them.

After that encounter and a couple of others, I too became hyper-aware of any men who happened to be near me and hyper-sensitive to their attitudes towards me. I finally understood what my mother had been questioning me about. I put on weight too, in an effort to deflect attention, to be invisible. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. In the Af-Am community, there’s rarely anger about weight gain from men. They’ll ignore you instead.

I suspect this may be the reason behind a lot of female obesity, though.

Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
9 years ago

“I suspect this may be the reason behind a lot of female obesity, though”

I think there are some contributors to this board who’ve had that experience for exactly that reason. I’ve heard also that some people with anorexia may develop it as a way of “not growing up”. Sometimes that’s just so as to not have to face the scary responsibilities of adulthood; but I wouldn’t be surprised if some girls are attempting to head off adult attention for traumatic reasons.

lkeke35
9 years ago

Bina: I think you’re right about the standoffishness and confidence. I definitely projected an attitude of “DONT YOU DARE TOUCH ME” or “you will not get that hand back.”

Even as a 45 year old woman, I still project this attitude. I can’t help it. I do not cozy up to men I don’t know. I won’t do it. I have to know a man for years and have to be introduced by a third party before I’m friendly with him. I never want my friendliness to be misconstrued as anything but what it is.

I have one friend (she’s White, conventionally pretty and blond) who does this often and wonders why I don’t talk to men.

Its not an attitude that works all the time, work sometimes, in lieu of blatant sexual harassment, you end up getting the “you need to smile” treatment from men young enough to be sons.

Really it’s just lose/lose all the time, every time. There’s absolutely s**all you can do as a woman that won’t have someone physically policing you, in some manner.

Anon
Anon
9 years ago

I was about 9 when a former ex cop put his hand in my pants while he and his wife were supposed to be babysitting me. My mom trusted them, because he was a cop, a neighbor, and a “friend”. I was petrified when my mom called the police, and I told them I had made it up because I was scared to death.

lkeke35
9 years ago

It’s really all of a piece, isn’t it. From the micro to the macro level men feel as if they have the right to police and control women’s bodies. All the time, everywhere.

From street harassment to rape to abortion laws and rules created to control when or if women can have sex/children. Every single bit of it is about the sexual control of women.

Aunt Edna
Aunt Edna
9 years ago

I was 5 and no, I didn’t want it. But it progressed from there. And nobody knows about it, so many decades later.

Whatever grim statistics are there on this issue, they are not grim enough. Reality is far worse and we learn to keep it secret.

me and not you
me and not you
9 years ago

I remember walking around outside in the late spring/summer in 7th or 8th grade with a friend. A kid our age leaned out the window of car passing by and yelled something at us and we both burst out laughing. They turned around about a block ahead of us and his older brother leaned out and yelled something at us, which just made us laugh harder. We couldn’t hear what they were saying but we thought it was absurd that another 13 year old would be cat calling us.

In retrospect, I’m not sure which is creepier: we weren’t even 13 and we had been made numb to cat calling, or the fact that the kid was obviously being taught to catcall by his older brother.

Cyberwulf
Cyberwulf
9 years ago

Kill everything.

kellyrtillson
9 years ago

Thank you so much for posting this. Honestly in a way this thread is an amazing resourse for men, women, and parents: women, to know they’re not alone and feel empowered to share their experiences without shame; men, to get a bigger, more graphic picture of this reality; parents, to engage in conversations with people who have gone through this and to become better equipped to deal with this in their own kids’ lives.

REDDIT GIVES US SOMETHING GOOD, WHO THE FUCK KNEW, RIGHT???…

This_is_a_drive-by_(comment)
This_is_a_drive-by_(comment)
9 years ago

When I was 12-14ish I was on holiday in New Zealand in Rotarua. My family took us up to the luge-park there and as I bent over A twenty-something guy did a weird ‘hump dancing’ thing behind me (sort of like exaggerated simulated anal). I turned to face him and said ‘I’m fourteen.’ He just grinned, but his friend was horrified (That I was a kid, not that I was being harassed) and dragged him away. I’ve always looked older, partially by blood and by being a chubby kid. I was a curvy C-cup at thirteen and I looked like a (spotty) high school senior. Still no excuse for pedobear to start ‘making friends.’

My conventionally attractive sisters (read= are usually freshly showered, made up and dressed to the nines) tend to get more shit from creepers then I did. We went tip shopping today and this creeper with his ‘hands in his pocket’ followed my younger sis around and tried to separate her from my mum and other sib. They get this bullshit almost all the time when they dress up, put on makeup and generally be normal teenagers. The fact that a grown man thinks make-up+ formalish clothes= totally an invitation to pubescent sex!11! Is fucking horrible and these reactions from men frighten them. I go out of my way to put off blokes like that. In public I sport flip-flops with daggy clothes and oily hair to avoid this kind of BS and it (mostly) works. It sucks that I have to do that to be left alone. When did nice clothes= sex?

Tealdeer: Creepers need to be rocketed to Mars. With no return ticket.

This_is_a_drive-by_(comment)
This_is_a_drive-by_(comment)
9 years ago

PS no makeup and flipflops are totally misandry. So are makeup and high-heels. Everything is misandry. EVERYTHING.

zarathustratheserpent
9 years ago

Reblogged this on Zarathustra the Serpent and commented:
“Thousands of “women of Reddit” stepped forward to tell the horrifying yet in most cases completely unsurprising stories of the first time men started perving on them, in many cases before they were even teenagers.”

Please share. This is awful. I remember being at a UN conference when one of the speakers asked men and women if they were ever touched inappropriately. Almost none of the men raised their hands but almost all of the women did.

zarathustratheserpent
9 years ago

This is simply awful. I remember being at a UN conference when one of the speakers asked men and women if they were ever touched inappropriately. Almost none of the men raised their hands but almost all of the women did.

Banana Jackie Cake, the Best Jackie and Cake! Yum! (^v^)
Banana Jackie Cake, the Best Jackie and Cake! Yum! (^v^)
9 years ago

kellyrtillson: Professional Optimist.

You can put that on your resume now.

Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
9 years ago

I wonder if that might be because there’s more “shame” attached when men are abused. Like how it’s supposedly even harder for men to say they’ve been raped because it’s seen as “un masculine”.

[Not that it’s any easier for women to report rape; but that’s a whole other set of issues]

Malitia - SJW Who Lurks Above in Shadow
Malitia - SJW Who Lurks Above in Shadow
9 years ago

When was I harassed first by grown men? Well, the first I distinctly remember was a honest to goodness flasher in a trench-coat (I was 10 or so). And next a guy who put his hand between my legs on a crowded bus (I was 13 or 14). The scariest one though was an actual real life rape threat by a teenage boy (he was around 13) when I was 6. That I still have nightmares about.

Yrali
9 years ago

I was five years old when my mother’s boyfriend would coerce me into taking off my clothes for him. Sometimes he wanted me to dance for him. Sometimes he’d put all the spare change from his pockets onto the table and say, “You can have this money if you take off your clothes for me.” Sometimes my mother was home, sometimes she wasn’t. He was an alcoholic, abusive asshole and he’d beat her for going against his wishes. We had to move far, far away to get away from him.

Unfortunately for me, immediately after we made that move my mother married yet another child molesting alcoholic asshole. The PTSD from that caused me problems for decades.

This is not uncommon. I am sure all of our stories will be swept under the NotAllMen rug, as always, however.

Paradoxical Intention
9 years ago

Trigger warning here:
________________________________
I was first harassed by a grown man when I was twelve. I was playing outside in the sprinkler with my brother and sister in a one-piece bathing suit and he called me into the house so he could rape me for the first time, and continue for another two years. That man was my stepfather.

lith
lith
9 years ago

This makes me sad. I hate that anyone should have to go through that, it’s extremely unfair to say the least. It’s hard to even imagine being treated like that, like you’re there primarily for the enjoyment of the opposite sex, nothing else, and need constant reminding.

Vucodlak
Vucodlak
9 years ago

I just… don’t get it. I am not a nice man. I am not a good man, or a decent man, or even a meh man. I’m a bad guy. So how is I’m still disgusted and appalled by this?

I don’t do anything. I literally hide in a room and count the days as they pass. I am consumed by the horror of what I am capable of, by guilt for the aid I don’t give, and by regret for all the petty misery I’ve helped cause. Yet I sit here, and I read these accounts, and I just don’t understand.

I don’t even like children, but seriously, what the fuck? How can anyone think this is ok? There’s no way they don’t know the damage they’re causing. How do these men get away with this? I mean, I understand how, on a cultural level, they get away with it, but how do they escape themselves? I don’t even know what I’m asking. I just don’t fucking understand.

lith
lith
9 years ago

@Paradoxical:

I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I’m sorry anyone had to go through any of these things.