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
Age 8, molested by a landlord
Age 12, at a bus stop
11 or 12, walking to and from school
Age 12, waiting for carryout
Age 11, creepy step-grandfather
Age 12, creepy step-uncle
Age 10, wearing a Lion King backpack and light-up shoes
Age 12, creepy cell phone salesman
Age 11, walking home from the beach
Age 12, in Blockbuster (with bonus Reddit creepiness)
14, eating a lollipop
Age 12, eating a banana
Naturally, some Redditors decided to add to the creepiness:
And all this makes pretty clear just why we need age of consent laws:
Of course, many of these creepy guys are well aware that the targets of their creepiness are a long way away from being “legal.”
Check out the thread for countless more stories like this.
H/T — u/Iwillpixiecutyou on Reddit
our society doesnt even judge those assholes. They can get away with everything.
Why is it that some men arent ashamed of themselves…talking sexual to random women?
Really, thats so tasteless…no class at all. To me they are just disgusting.
Facebook blocked me from looking at this, and then tried to block me from sharing this. I complained to them that this was an error.
even women in a bikini or a super slutty skirt don’t derserve being fucking harassed. OH yeah those women want attention. Attention doesnt equal ”Now I can treat her like shit eventhough I know how shitty she will feel”
Treat them like whores? I don’t know where you live, but treating someone ”like a whore” is the same as treating people with basic respect.
Cause even ”whores” are people that need to be respected.
Thats for all the apologists out threre.
i was wearing a short skirt and some dude said something like ”I would really want to fuck that body”
I responded ”let me alone, I don’t want to talk to you”
He followed me a while until my boyfriend came up and he finally left
(I was 16)
Nothing I wear makes it okay to be such an asshole. He could have just looked at me and thats it…or maybe just approached my in a respecftul way? like normal human beings do?
Is this impossible for men? to respect women? really that fucking hard?
I told no one, because I know that they would rather judge my outfit and make me feel like shit even more
Paradoxical Intention: Oh, I had no idea that was a thing. I mean I knew giving them fake numbers was a thing but I didn’t know there was a special service for this.
Bina: I m pretty sure I’m correct about this because of all the accounts I’ve heard, of young men being pushed out of these various Mormon Sects, to fend for themselves, once they reach puberty. The leader doesn’t want competition from the young men in the cult and will find a way to get them out of the way. Especially if they’re interested in a girl that the leader might want for himself or one of his friends.
And here’s some brain bleach. I thought these were the funniest things I saw last year:
http://youtu.be/S7znI_Kpzbs
http://youtu.be/iYDS8n_6I00
Regarding the Fundamentalist (Polygamist) Mormons, simple arithmetic makes it clear that if every man is to have two or three (or more) wives, most of the boys have to be kicked out of the group. They find some excuse to do this when the boys are in their late teens. The power of the leader is based on the fact that he gets to decide who stays and gets wives — and he can reassign wives from one man to another (none of these are legal marriages) for whatever reason he wants. The girls are kept isolated from the outside world — no TV, no radio, no movies, no books or magazines — so they have no idea of what the normal world is like. For the girls, it’s basically a prison camp, or perhaps even worse.
By the way, lurking MRAs and not-an-MRA-buts: This is why #NotAllMen was followed by #YesAllWomen. Not “Stealing your spotlight” or “Misandry.” THIS.
Although the question is rightly centers around girls/women’s experiences, there are male children of these creeps who have to live with some of the psychological fallout.
At 21 I was finally told what the old man was: a couple of rungs down from you’re garden variety kiddy fiddler. Thankfully I was too young to retain any memories. I always knew something was off with him. – particularly when he took me out in my teens, hewas buying drugs, wanted to take me to strip clubs and worse…
It’s somewhat of an existential nightmare to be aware of this as a young male. I grew older paranoid that I’d might have inherited his ‘inclination’; that it would suddenly manifest as an attraction to children, or that people would find out and assume the worst. And how exactly do you explain this to a partner and at what point? Although I suppose women would want to be compassionate, end of the day the majority will be very wary about partnering up with the son of the pedophile – a basic instinctual urge to avoid ‘bad genes’ and any increased likelihood of harm coming to their children. Can’t say I blame them.
This is so depressing but familiar at the same time. Which, of course, makes it even more depressing.
I started to get unwanted and creepy attention very early. However, I consider myself lucky, because my parents provided informative sex-ed with a very healthy attitude. Before I started to go to school I already knew where do babies come from and why exactly I shouldn’t get into strangers’ cars. (By the way, it was quite uncommon for children to be so well informed in post-soviet 90-ties society.) This awareness helped me to react properly on many occasions. I usually ignored or bitch-faced inappropriate comments, and immediately pushed back if someone was trying to grope me.
Therefore I find it horrifying that currently some politicians at my country are seriously trying to push “the virtuous education law” through – similar to abstinence only sex-ed in concept. Judging by my experience, the more informed children are, the more capable they are to identify inappropriate behavior and react accordingly. What my society needs right now is more open discussions about the serious slut-shaming problem we have, about the deeply rooted homophobia and transphobia, etc. Which is what some more progressive politicians have been trying to do, for example, by introducing children books that talk about gender as a cultural construct. And that is the response by the conservatives – “lets restore the soviet morality where there was no such thing as sex and babies were delivered by starks according to the Five Year Plan”.
I live in a large city. When I was thirteen, I was walking home from school with three of my classmates, two boys and another girl. We walked her to her apartment building, and one of the boys disappeared, presumably to walk her to her door, but it soon became obvious that it was more along the lines of making out in some dark corner. His friend then thought that it was a great idea to try to shove his hands into my pants right there in the building lobby in broad daylight. I threw him into a wall and left the building at a brisk clip. At this point, both boys followed me threateningly all the way to where I had to slam my apartment door in their face, at which point they backed off because they saw my dad.
When I was fourteen, a man on the metro decided to re-enact porn by sidling up to me from behind in a crowded train car, sliding his hand between my legs, and proceeding to creep upwards. I trapped his hand between my thighs, then grabbed it by the wrist, and once the doors slid open shoved him off the train. The only reason it was possible to do that was because the train was too crowded for him to retaliate and he probably didn’t want to be seen hitting a fourteen-year-old girl.
Later that week, on the way to the library, a man followed me, bumped into me from behind, fell in front of my feet, and attempted to accuse me of pushing him. When I ignored this, he followed me angrily to the library and all through the library, hissing sexual insults, until I got library security to detain him so that he would not follow me home and find out where I lived.
When I was fifteen, a man sat next to me on the train and within five minutes had his hand on my thigh. My jacket was in my lap and he thought that nobody would see what he was doing under it. I opened my messenger bag, took out a knife I generally carry with me for non-violent box-cutting purposes, removed the jacket, and told him that he was going to move his hand or lose it. He left the train immediately. Everyone else on that train car kept well clear of me for the rest of the ride.
And this is just a small random sampling of pervs that infested my teenage years.
I wasn’t initially going to post this, because it sounds a lot like I am saying to everyone else “why didn’t you fight back” but that’s not it. What I am saying is do it, fight back, in all these molesting bastards’ minds there is a spot where they hide from themselves the evil that they do, and if you make a fuss of any magnitude, they can’t do it anymore, they have to look at what they are doing, and one of two things happens, they either run like the little cowards that they are or they double down, by which I mean that they will step back and try to make you look like a crazy person or like it’s your fault. You are not a crazy person and it’s not your fault. A lot of girls and even fully grown women say nothing, because when things like this happen, they start out with some less than creepy touch or look that makes you feel uncertain if there’s anything happening that is even wrong. In my experience, if you noticed anything at all, then there’s something there to notice. Don’t let them get away with it. Don’t be polite. Don’t let anybody sweep it under the rug. And if it has already happened and maybe you were four years old and could do nothing, then I am truly sorry, people can be such bastards, and I wish I had a time machine so that I could have been there to punch them. I’m painfully stunned (but not at all surprised) by all the things that I have read so far.
(Long time reader….Finally came out of the silence because this is too important to to talk about)
I am sorry. First I am sorry so many women have to deal with this on a daily basis.
Secondly I am sorry because I was likely one of those teenage boys years ago who looked in “creepy” ways. Thankfully I never directly catcalled our touched inappropriately, it was more just I stared far too much at the cute girl in class. Some may think of it as no big deal, but I feel really ashamed of doing it back then.
So sorry. I know better now, but it took education from listening to the experiences of my sister, wife and others during college to really open my eyes. That is where I think for guys you will get the biggest opportunity for change. I honestly do not think many of the young boys doing such things think it is harmful, hurtful or anything as such. They also likely don’t realize it is an all-day, every day thing for the women they are targeting. That their one moment was just on top of a giant pile of shit their target had to deal with that day. I know I didn’t think of that back then.
That is why I really think sex-ed should not only be mandatory at a younger age, but also deal far more on education of things like this. Teach soon to be teenage boys that anything like this is not appropriate and more harmful than they think it to be. Make that catcalling video and threads like this required viewing and reading so they can place themselves in others shoes.
I hope when my son gets old enough, talking to him about these subjects will help him too.
You won’t get everyone, but you will save some from becoming horrible jerks, rapists and abusers.
———————————————–
On a side note: All of you are damn brave for telling these stories. Thank you.
This wasn’t the first time, but it was the most shocking. My older sister and I went to the mall to grab a last minute gift right after she got her license. She was 17, I was 12. We were in a hurry so she parked in the back of the parking lot. While walking back to the car, we noticed a car creeping along beside us. We turned to look about the same time, saw, and ran back to the car. The guy had his pelvis in the window and was jacking off and watching us. It was creepy as hell, but 18 years later, I’m still kind of impressed by the skill it must have taken to control the speed and direction of the car while his pelvis was up in the window. He was still a prev of course, but a skilled perv. That probably took practice.
Probably not the first time, but definitely one of the worst was when I was on vacation with my family. I was 12, underdeveloped as fuck. Went to a souvenir store and wanted to try on some T-shirts. While wearing the shirt out in the store the male staff asked me if I wanted another size while touching the T-shirt, right where my nipple was. When I backed away he seemed annoyed and was looking around a bit stressed. His colleague also started harassing me, saying I was pretty and wanting to stand really close behind me.
My parents were too busy looking at souvenirs to notice. I freaked out a bit and went to my little sister, only 6 at the time and thought her presense would make them back-off, but no, even holding her hand he went to stand behind me, touching my ass – I told him to stop but didn’t wait for a reaction. I went to my parents.
I didn’t tell my parents anything, I felt so ashamed even though I hadn’t done anything. To this day I haven’t told them. I just told them I liked the shirt I was wearing so I did not have to go back to the changing room. We left the store after my parents paid for the shirt.
I was in kindergarten. He was a strange man who tried to get me to get in his truck. He told me he’d take me to school so I wouldn’t have to wait for the bus. I declined, but not because I was afraid. I liked my bus. My bus driver was a nice lady. I didn’t know rape was a thing or that there were men who raped little girls for fun.
I have no doubt I would not be here now had I gotten in that truck. I don’t know if that counts as being “perved” on or not.
Lea, that absolutely counts as being perved on.
That’s an apt way of putting it; I’ve always had trouble expressing how I felt my one time:
When I was 14, I was babysitting for a couple that lived about 5 miles from my home (so walking to and from wasn’t in the cards.) My mom generally dropped me off and one of them would take me home, always without incident. It was probably the third time I’d been there, so there were no previous warning bells at all.
This time, after the parents came home (she a little tipsy, him a bit more so) and I had been paid, the husband said he would take me home. The wife told him she would do it because she hadn’t had as much to drink. When he started insisting, that’s when my blood froze. This went on for a fair few minutes and I was so scared that he would convince his wife to let him drive me, I was actually dizzy with my pulse roaring in my ears. I still don’t know what it was about that incident set off the alarm bells since he’d never overtly perved on me before, but boy, does the memory still make me shaky.
I even thought about picking up the phone and calling my mom, but I didn’t know what I would actually say to her about why I needed her to come get me (this was before the days of serious drunk driving awareness, so that wouldn’t have been a “good” excuse.)
By 5th grade I had breasts. Boys made made fun of me for it and popped my bra straps until I had blood blisters on my back. starting the next year I had to ride the bus with boys from the highschool (some of whom also lived in my neighborhood). They sexually harassed me, threatened me, called me horrible things, made fun of how tight my vagina was and fat shamed me though I was in fact thin at the time. That happened to me everyday until I could drive. Not all the boys did it, but they all laughed. No girls stood up for me. They were either too scared or thought I deserved it. Not even the bus driver said a peep.
Once I slapped a boy on my bus because he would not stop forcing a girl’s face against his crotch. I had to see the principal for being violent. I would end up seeing him for profanity later too. You can laugh while you sexually assault a girl, but you cannot call people mean names for doing so. People started to call me crazy.
I would end up getting pretty scrappy by the time I got out of highschool. The nerdy little pacifist had been punched right out of me.
Still, in college I had a stalker. When I reported him, they told him I was the one who did so and that was all. Another faculty member warned me that they had not kept my name private. I stopped going to my night classes. I carried a knife and a body alarm because women got raped on campus. (which was treated as par for the course) I’d yet to see anyone convicted for it, even though those women could identify their rapists. I did not think my chances were much better.
It was apparently his hobby. He stalked other women on and off campus. He finally got kicked out for stalking a professor. By then, I’d left school.
I’ve heard several of my teenage guy chums lament as adult men how crazy women are and how broken. (most often in response to those women not fucking them). I’m like, “No shit?” I wonder why that is, asshole?”
I no longer consider those guys my friends.
My mother would watch those shows and make fun of the people who were on TV “for the attention” and how they should “get over it”.
When I was molested it was by an older girl. I was in second grade. I was groomed, threatened etc. I didn’t tell anyone for years. I told some friends in high school. Many of them turned out to have seen much worse. I’m sure the girl who did it saw worse too. I still feel as if my experience doesn’t count as sexual assault, though I know it does. It still FEELS like I’m overreacting and I should “get over it”. I never told my parents.
When I was a teen my mother found a secret diary of sorts. I found out I had been right to keep my mouth shut. She was furious with me over what she read. My family still does not believe that or any other abuse ever happened to me. Apparently the hidden diary had been a prop in my master plan to hurt my mother.
Can you say, “Lea’s family is FUUUUCKED up?”
I knew you could.
http://media1.break.com/breakstudios/2011/9/16/snl%20mr%20robinsons%20neighborhood.jpg
Eh, it occurs to me that I didn’t finish the story.
The wife ended up taking shaken and relieved me home, apparently unaware of what I had been through*. And I never babysat for them again.
the end
*I could very well be wrong, though. I was so panicked, I don’t remember much after the blood chill.
Hugs for all you brave, brave people.
I’ve had it really light, in comparison. I can count my obvious creepers without having to resort to toes, and (with the exception of one creepster my own age in high school) they didn’t try anything till I was 19. I was on a vacation, taking a walk alone in a park in Washington state, stalking kingfishers with my camera.
This dude started a conversation about photography while we wandered around. Me, being totally naive and from a small town where just talking to people is something you do, thought nothing of it and enjoyed the conversation.
When I looked at the time and said I should head back to my aunts, he decided the pleasantness of the conversation meant he should be able to give me a bear-hug and a kiss on the lips. I turned my head, once I realized what the hell was happening so it landed on an ear instead. He acted shocked that I had done so.
He was easily in his 40s.
I very politely said goodbye and walked to my aunts house by a different, longer route. I broke into a run after I rounded the first corner and kept looking over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t following.
I was 19, nearly an adult.
It kills me that so many people had to deal with that kind of stuff (and worse) as kids, because it was terrifying enough at 19.
My daughter was 16 when a man approached her in the park and asked if she wanted a job as an exotic dancer. That same week an adult man tried to get her to get in his car “for a ride”. He kept circling the park and slowing down when he got close to her. He stopped a second time to tell her he wouldn’t bite. The same summer a strange man at the mall hit on her for the first time. She was so skeeved out. It is freaky for a girl to have adult men creep on them. (Hell, it’s creepy for adult women.)
From what I’ve read and heard, she’s one of the lucky ones.
Not going to reddit, because, well, reddit. But:
I was 11 years old, walking with my parents, my older sister, and my three year old brother to see fireworks. We walked by a family sitting on the curb, also waiting the the fireworks. The man crudely propositioned me – right in front of my family and his (I guess) wife or girlfriend, and her child.
So gross.
@Lea
This is sadly, too common and a big reason many of us don’t speak out or wait a very long time to do so. I’m sorry your family had that reaction, but fuck them! You still (from what I can tell in your comments) turned out to be an awesome person.
For those who have, and those who haven’t, looked at that reddit thread, one thing really came home to me. (Once I got past the red glaze of rage at all the stories starting with I was 8 … I was 11… I was 5 … followed by very similar details.)
The long term effects were devastating. Some of them for the length of a holiday. Some of them for 10 years or more.
I never walked on that path, went to the library, went to the pool, went to the icecream shop again. I cut my hair short. I changed my clothes to baggy concealing stuff. I stayed home for the rest of the summer. I never went out without my mum/aunt/brother. I put on weight so they wouldn’t notice me. I never wore make up again. I stopped smiling at people.