What would you have done? Blokes perving at teen girl

[reinventionn]

I was at a water park recently. Waiting in the queue for a slide, I was with one of my DDs who is still little. In front of us was a dad with his young son. Behind us were a teenage boy and teenage girl. She must’ve been 14, maybe 15. Behind them was another dad.

The dad in front us kept eyeing the teen girl up and down, particularly looking at her chest. And he kept turning round to pretend he was looking at something else then would look at her.

The dad behind the teens was also ogling at her body.

She was oblivious.

I was mortified but totally stumped on whether to say anything. I glared at both of the dads throughout our 20 mins queue to “let them know I knew what they were up to” and tried to put my lumpy middle age body in the way to block their view, but both felt ineffective tbh. They either didn’t care or didn’t notice that I was glaring at them and kept on perving at this poor girl.

I didn’t say anything though was very tempted to. My main reason was that I didn’t want to highlight it in front of the other kids, especially the girl, as she had no idea, and I suppose I didn’t want to embarrass her, but with hindsight maybe it would’ve been “worth it” to embarrass the blokes. Plus we were abroad and there were a load of different languages, so had visions of making it worse by trying to explain and hope they understood. Gah.

But perhaps I should’ve said something? It’s really played on my mind ever since. My other DD is an early teen and I hate the thought of something similar happening to her but probably would’ve said something as I could then manage it through with her during and after. In fact when she was 11 (tall for her age) I saw some bloke sitting at a table in a restaurant looking at her and as I walked past him I looked at him and said “she’s 11”. He looked pretty shame-faced….

Help me navigate this? What would you have done?

and as aside - WTAF is wrong with these blokes?

Since she didn’t notice, I wouldn’t have said anything as it would just upset and embarrass her. If she’d been aware I’d have stepped in with a comment.

it’s not like they’d have held their hands up and said ‘fair cop love’ though is it. They’d have denied it and you’d have probably got a mouthful of abuse.

tricky situation.

I’m not sure what I would have done as like you, wouldn’t have wanted to embarrass the teenage girl. Having said that, I personally doubt she hadn’t noticed. Mine noticed men looking at them from early teens onwards. I remember when one turned 18 and we started going to bars occasionally, men older than me would come and sit right next to her drunkenly chatting her up despite the fact I’m sat right there and clearly her mum! Some men are just grim.

I think you were right not to say anything as you didn't want to embarrass her. If it was me as a teen I would have noticed the men staring but brushed it off, and been mortified if anyone had said anything!!

One point - are you 100% certain the dad in front wasn't her dad and checking in with her and her brother, if he was also with a teen who was his child?

But either way, yes it's gross that grown men would behave like that

Definitely sure that neither of the dads were her relatives.

I don’t know if she did notice tbh. The way she was standing was with utmost confidence and I can’t help but think she would’ve crossed her arms over her chest or similar. Maybe she was only 13/14 and not used to that attention??? I don’t think my 13 year old would’ve noticed either tbh, too innocent to think they creepy dads exist.

It is grim isn’t it? Like I know it was a swimming pool type place so bodies are everywhere and to an extent it’s unavoidable to look, but honestly these guys were using their sneak peaks as some kind of in-queue entertainment and even seemed distracted when their own kids were talking to them.

Really made me see, again, how much men are basically driven by their cocks. And how little they feel the need to control it.

So the teenagers didnt notice, neither did anybody else and the blokes werent shamed by you giving them the evil eye? (unlike when you shamed the bloke for eyeing up your 11 yr old!).
yeah.....I probably wouldnt of said anything.

I'm glad she was oblivious. Telling her wouldn't achieve anything only make her self conscious and if she is like most teenage girls she won't think they were admiring my beautiful body, she'll think they were noticing my big thighs/small boobs/ bony ankles etc. You can't control where other people's line of vision goes, if they weren't intimating her then they are entitled to look. You could subtly say stop perving on the underage girl to shame them but it doesn't mean they won't stop doing it. I'm not saying it's ok I'm just saying there isn't anything that can be done

Ok thanks, this is making me feel a bit better for not saying anything to the men. To be clear I was never going to say anything to her, but even if I’d said something to the men, it would’ve been difficult to say it to both of them (given they were either side of us) without her figuring out something was going on even if there was a language barrier. And if there was a language barrier I just imagined this protracted discussion that would’ve made it 1000% worse, especially as we were all stuck in a queue together.

And yes @henlake7 i did shame the guy in the restaurant. Whilst my daughter looked older than 11 at the time, she may have passed for 15, but not older than that, and it was just plain gross the way he looked at her. Whilst sitting with his own family too. Revolting.