Creepy male behaviour growing up

[Elfandfairy]

Just thinking back to how many creepy men I encountered growing up and wondering if this was a typical experience.

• driving instructor who tried to make me park up in an abandoned industrial estate and 'go for a walk'
• friend's dad (while I was 10) ogling me and making comments about my legs
• boss in a smart hotel asking me about my bra
• Postman calling his mate over to the desk to 'check out the tits on this' at 15.

Did this happen to us all growing up? I never told my mum or anything about this sort of thing, just swallowed it and felt vaguely ashamed/ violated.

Well obviously these exact experiences didn’t happen to everyone, but due to historical context yeah a lot of us have probably experienced something here and there like that.

Whats good is that in certain ways things are improving every day.

I think the important part is the possible outrage you feel that this felt ‘permissible’ or okay to these people.

It’s disgusting but you can get a sense of empowerment from knowing that you

• recognised these instances as not okay
• would not be okay with it now.

It can even be healing to sort of take yourself back through those things- the person who you are now, who is has grown through time with society progressing, you know what you would have said in those instances.. if you could have said anything. 🩷

Being 'touched up' by boys seemed to be pretty common, particularly in school corridors. I remember the girls being talked to about this, to explain what was happening, and who the main culprits were.
Generally there was a lot of groping going on, it seemed very common place.
Also lots of comments about girls development, how flat chested or large their breasts were. Lots of sleeze everywhere.

Yes I had some similar (not identical) experiences from about age 10 onwards. Including being groomed to be sexually abused (presumably) and not being believed when I told an adult what had happened.

The number of men who thought it was absolutely fine to say things to young girls - and tbh I presume it's the same now - is disgusting. Can all be laughed off, of course. (But we don't forget and we carry shame.)

I'm early 50s now but yep. 2 of these happened to me. When my friend was having driving lessons she started to want me to sit in the back as her instructor was acting really creepy and made her feel really uncomfortable.

My friend's dad would offer to cake our coats on and off,and grope my breasts. He would fully on kiss me too. My brother was friends with her brother so he'd send my brother over saying my friend wanted me but she wouldn't be there. He's send me upstairs to her and she wouldn't be there. I was 13/14 😭

I'm so sorry. I told my parents about my neighbour/friend's dad and they didn't believe me for a good while. That still really hurts now. They even wanted to invite him to my wedding and they thought I was rude when I wanted him away when we were putting my newborn son in the car.

I don't think I can ever forgive my parents for not believing me ,even though my dad is no longer with us 😞

Big hug. It's horrific really. It was a teacher who didn't believe me. The man went on to abuse a little girl a few years later. I often wonder how she felt about not reacting properly when I told her. But there was no proof, no cctv, nothing.

That's so sad 😭 I'm so sorry xx

Thanks for the replies. Sorry so many people ha e experienced so much worse. I’m aware my experiences were fairly tame, it was just such an accepted part of growing up female it makes me really angry looking back on it.

I was a slim teenager with big boobs. My boyfriend's father saw me in a swimsuit and said to his son (my boyfriend), phwaor look at the superstructure on that. They then both laughed in a supercreepy way. It was over 40 years ago and I have never forgotten how it felt. This same man (the father) had 'tittie mags" on full (even proud) display on the coffee table in his lounge. He must have been in his 40s and had a wife and several children in the house. Yuck.

I'm convinced I'm not the only one either re the dad. I've considered reporting him in the last but with it being 40 odd years ago now,I didn't think they would have done anything. He's dead now thank god but I'm angry he got away with it.

I distinctly remember stopping wearing tshirts with words or pictures on the front because so many adult men (parents' friends, parents of friends, strangers passing by) would point, smirk, comment and generally draw attention to my breast area.
I also developed a defensive slouch posture which I've spent the rest of my life battling.

The driving instructor to directed me to a pub miles away from where I lived is a stand out one.

I was 17 with braces, he was about 45 with a daughter the same age as me.

I've told this story before on here . Had a Saturday job in a shop and it entailed me walking through an estate to get there . Had to walk past a house that more often or not had a creepy man stood outside his house , he would leer and make remarks and was around the same age as my dad .

Fast forward at a year or so , had a friend who lived in the next street to him and one day could not get to her house as the area was shut off my loads of police .
Turns out his daughter ( around my age ) had broke down and told her new boyfriend that her dad ( creepy man ) had been sexually assaulting her for some time and the boyfriend in a rage had gone to the house and stabbed him to death .
Was the talk of the area for ages .
I think if you ever get an off feeling you should always keep a distance from someone and it's awful that many girls experience things.

Yes defo groping at school and clubs when I was younger. Driving instructor asking me to touch his wooden leg. So much actually as a very young girl. I don't think men have changed they just know they can't get away with it these days

Groping at school, seen as hilarious by teachers and other boys.

Science teacher well known for telling girls to take their jumpers off and sit in the front row if they had large chests.

Teachers mocking the couple of girls who got pregnant, in front of and directly with other pupils.

Men slowing down to stare when I was waiting for buses in my school uniform.

Having my body and how it was likely to smell discussed loudly in a maths lesson, in front of the male teacher, who sat listening and smirked, and said nothing when I got up and walked out.

Lots more.

The one that really bothers me is the driving instructor - I am so thankful I said no to his weird walk but I am still baffled as to how he felt entitled to try it at all and how he was comfortable letting me leave that lesson afterwards - it’s as if he knew I wouldn’t tell anyone. And I worry about what he did to other female students too. I sometimes google his name and he’s still in the same small town teaching teens to drive

My moms driving instructor leaned over and squeezed my thighs whilst my mom was on her lesson, i would have been 10/11 he was old.
A bus driver reached over from his cab (-days before perspex barrier in front of driver ) and pinched my bum as i got off bus i was about 17.
Saturday morning pop man bent over to look down my top as i picked up the bottles, i remember that well , he was a rough ,dirty much older man and i was about 13, he laughed as he did it , he was like someone from a carry on film, just vile.
I've lost count of all the catcalls etc.
I have a teenage girl ,she's stunning and i see the looks she gets ,when it's a man old enough to be her dad it turns my stomach.
As pp says so much worse happens to women and girls sadly.

Yes op I got it from everywhere but so did the women around me ..

Thank goodness it never went further

I’m in my late 50’s now.
When I was 11, my teacher always messed and cuddled the girls in class on our birthdays. Id only recently moved to the school and as he knew my old teacher from my previous school, he decided to give me an extra kiss.
He was also the teacher who administered all the corporal punishments in the school. He was well known for being a sadistic pervert but nothing was ever done about him.

Being cat called, nice arse, show us your tits.

Being groped.

Being raped

It was quite commonplace at secondary school (70s) for boys to lean forward from the row behind and ‘twang’ girls’ bras through their blouses for a ‘laugh’. And for girls to be given nicknames like ‘melons’ or ‘coconuts’ if they had large breasts.

I remember having my hair done by a male hairdresser when I was about 18 and I was last in the salon. As I was paying, he said to come and look through the window at the back of the shop, as I think he’d been talking about doing work to the premises. I then found myself pinned up against the wall with him pressing against me. I pushed him away and left the shop, but never told anyone, not sure why. Never went back there, obviously.

Women seemed more resigned then to putting up with the worst excesses of male behaviour…

When I was a teen, my grandfather used to feel for my bra strap and suggest I ought to go and work at the local red light district.
My FIL tried feeling me up while 'helping' me out of the back of his 3 door car. He only did it once, as I made my disgust very clear.

When I was 10 a boy in my class kept trying to put his hand between my a under the desk
at 13 I was babysitting, the child’s uncle groomed me and tried to sexually assault me and my friend.
i started going round town at 14 and was regularly groped by males every time
i turned down a guy at 16 and he threatened to attack me
i got a job in a restaurant at 17 and the manager was sexually inappropriate
Being treated like a sexual object by men didn’t stop until I was late thirties (although my reactions changed)

Yes definitely. Had some 65 year old touch me up daily when I was on work experience aged 16, was date raped at the age of 17 along with 2 friends at a nightclub and ended up sleeping with my boss in the back of his van aged 19. Proud of none of it. My parents would have been horrified. I cam from a good back ground but a lot of it was rebellion.

Yes, and it's been going on for years.