to feel that most females have been the victim of some kind of sexual abuse?

[SoleSource]

AIBU?

I was very nearly raped by a taxi driver. Also my cries of NO have been ignored on a couple of occasions.

I can also add to my earlier list. I have been kerb crawled LOADS. Very frightening. Have been followed by men a few times and had to run into shops or leg it to busier areas with my heart absolutely pounding.

My first sexual experience was with an older man. I was under age. Looking back he made me do lots of things I wasnt at all comfortable with, although I never used the word 'no'.

I was sexually harrassed by two male colleagues in the same bloody workpace, both of whom would grope me and try to kiss me when ever we were alone. I was very young - cant believe I didnt complain!

Loads of times, ranging in severity. YANBU.

I'm another one that has never experienced any abuse, unwanted contact or anything like that.

I find it very worrying that so many mnetters have experience it

. . . Also, followed down the road by a bloke shouting dirty stuff who didn't leave until i shouted abusively at him very very loudly!, followed from a train station by one guy who was saying stuff, shook him off and almost immediately another guy saw me coming and jumped in a bush . . . Im guessing to jump out when i approached but instead i crossed the road and jumped on a bus. The second wasn't sexual but made me extremely scared, as did the first and i do wonder what would have happened if they had got hold of me.

. . . they were all in the same area as mentioned in my last post! Bloody weirdo central!

Yes, at the ages of 14, 19 & 24.

The last one, I pressed charges, he was found guilty of lewd and libidinous behaviour and went down for a year, probably only served 4 months or something though, but I was so pleased he got a custodial sentence.

Most women I know have had something happen in wildly varying degrees.

I haven't suffered any sexual abuse, but most of my friends and family and I have experienced at least one unwanted sexual experience each.

Personally I have experienced being followed and witnessed a guy wanking in a van outside a primary school as a 15 year old. Told the police but didn't get his reg. no sadly. Also had the odd grope on a night out as a teen/twenty something.

Actually it does really worry me as we have 2 dds.

I think that it very much depends on the spaces you live your life in and with whom. I had an interesting conversation with my Mum about this quite recently. Our lives have been very different and our experiences have been too. The environments that we spent our time in, both at the same age and currently, mean that she has been, and is, less likely to encounter this behaviour, although it is not a conscious act on either of our parts.

She has spent the vast majority of her adult (from, say 20) in spaces that were either female-dominated, child-orientated, or male-chaperoned. The only times she is on her own in the public sphere on her own is daytime town-centre or the occasional long distance travel from station/airport A to station/airport B. Whereas, I have spent the bulk of my life doing my own thing for the majority of my daily life, partly out of necessity and partly out of choice. Of course, out of the two of us, I am the one who has had the most unwelcome interfaces with men. Because those men who behave in this way have had more opportunity to do so with me.

OP, I entirely understand where you are coming from. I valiantly persevere with the notion that most men are respectful, when the evidence is not massively overwhelming.

YANBU happened to me and one of my sisters. I just about survived 10 years of it. I'll end up oversharing if I give any more detail.

Molested by a family friend aged 13, BIL groped and restrained Me at 9, a Dr serious indecent assault at 23, a masseur on a beach indecent assault at 23 in full daylight, forced sex at 18.

None reported. Just listed them for the first time here .

It must be me :(

I was grabbed by a flasher when I was a student and he tried to drag me down a narrow dark lane. I got free. Otherwise, its just verbal abuse of a sexual nature, on a relatively frequent basis.

I often think if it was racist, rather than sexist, the verbal abuse itself would be a crime that was taken seriously.

FootLike I get what you are saying, but - Some people have unwelcome touching from family members and family friends from a young age. Not a lot they can do about those spaces they live their life in or with whom.

It's really sad and horrible the way that the dice are thrown.

I was flashed at regularly in the 80s at about 14 as I walked home from school with friends. They all saw him too but we never mentioned it to eachother. The idiot stood naked in his bedroom and used a mirror to reflect the sun on us to catch our attention. He lived in my street and was married with 2 kids. Never mentioned it to anyone.

Very scary incident on a school trip abroad. We stayed in a hostel and a friend came tearing back to our room wrapped only in a towel. She'd been disturbed in the shower by a middle aged man who then chased her down the corridor. We locked our door and he tried to batter it down. We screamed for our teacher out the window. The teacher approached the man and apologised for our behaviour.

YANBU. Childhood abuse (dodgy "uncle"). Assault by a stranger when I was about 21. Several, obscene phone calls, flashers. Unpleasant thing I can't quite call "date rape" in my 20s

Much worse when I lived in France. Was groped almost daily. Literally.

I think most men have no idea that this is normal for women. This is the experience of every woman I know.

On Question Time last night someone challenged Janet Street Porter about not revealing the rumours she had heard about JS years ago. Janet said that no one listened to to women back then and he was too powerful. She then told how when she was 10 her mum took her to the hairdressers and left her there to run an errand. Janet then told her mum later that the hairdresser had molested her and her mums reaction was to hit her.

as I said earlier I have had many what I would call lower level assaults like the groping etc and a few very lucky escapes. my MIL told me that when she was 10 or 11 and walking home from school, two older men or boys raped her while her friend was able to run off. She told her parents but it was all just hushed up for the best. She has been in and out of mental institutions and always has suffer from severe depression. My mum told how she and her friend when they were little were trapped in a ladies loo with a local man, my mum managed to run off but her friend wasn't so lucky. My mum was also groped by my uncle when she was heavily pregnant. The same uncle asked my sister to go into the woods with him when she was a teenager (he didn't recognise her as his niece).

I was quite annoyed at an earlier poster scoffing that this was any way the norm and that Mn is obviously 'skewed' to show more assault or abuse than really happens. Then some posters say nothing had happened to them other than some groping or flashing etc - do they not realise that this is sexual assault, maybe not the worst but they are adding to the picture.

OMG i have just remembered another one

I was at Reading festival and I was sat on my then boyfriends shoulders watching the band. I was 22 and pretty with long bleached blonde hair - not that the way I looked was relevant but I felt like my looks had caused it at the time.

anyway I . was wearing just a bikini top and jeans and someone pulled me off his shoulders and groped me, and ripped off my bikini top, it all happened so fast, and people around me were laughing :( i remember covering my boobs and seeing a man in a red t shirt running away through the crowd, I was screaming and crying for someone to stop him, and no one did, my boyfriend chased him but he got away. i was stood there sobbing while my friend wrapped her jumper round me to cover me up. And people were just stood there sniggering into their hands or at best, looking shocked, and all I can think of was, why didn't anyone stop him ffs!! many were women, god, if i had have seen that happen to another female I would have fucking said something.

It was 10 years ago now, and I still feel sick when I think about it, I have tears in my eyes now. I was a sunny, happy girl until then but I became very, very depressed afterwards. I had this like, anger and mistrust inside me, of everyone. and I cut my hair and dyed it brown, stopped wearing girly clothes, and stopped going out, I wanted to become invisible, I ended up signed off from work with stress and depression. I am not sure I have ever fully got over it tbh. This may sound dramatic but its how it affected me.

Oh and the local man who raped or molested my mum's friend - many knew but nothing was done as his mum was a nice old lady and no one wanted to distress her. My mum also said it was common when they were young and in the cinema for men to come and sit with them and give them sweets for touching them or whatever. I still find it hard to believe that some women have had absolutely no unwanted attention or even mild assaults. Those who keep saying it hasn't happened to their family and friends as well - how the hell do you know?

I feel lucky to say the worst I have encountered is random touching when walking through a nightcub

LineRunner - I actually deleted a clumsy para about that. I think I was responding to the "no, not me" posters. Please don't think I was victim-blaming in any way, because that is as far away from my stance as is possible. I was simply musing with my mum about luck and circumstance.

I do not understand the widespread belief among a seemingly large minority (?) of men that women's space and bodies are fair game for them to invade with words or actions. Who the fuck do they think they are?

I'm lucky that I have never experienced anything like this. I can't say why I've been this lucky but I do think it is more common then it should be.

Why do those who haven't experienced this kid of thing consider yourselves lucky ? Surely your experiences should be normal ?

Begonia, please. I am not doubting your experience. Do me the courtesy of not doubting mine. Nothing has ever happened to me like this. Not even "just some groping or flashing". Nothing. Really. My experience should be the normal one, I don't think we get anywhere by denying anybody has it at all!

My heart goes out to all of you who have had these experiences at the hands of these men (and some women).

It makes me so angry. In the quest to believe that we are all equal now, we seem to have forgotten that our opportunities to occupy this world and avail ourselves of all that is good in it are curtailed by others, in ways that are rarely spoken about. And that is why, despite masses of reasons to think otherwise, I believe MN is a great space. I hear you all.

Another YANBU here :(

Within my female friendship group I would say 70% of us have experienced some sort of sexual abuse, from date rape and subsequent kidnapping, to the 'usual' unwanted groping/flashing/being rubbed up against on public transport.

I hope and pray that I will bring up my 2 boys to not only never do this sort of thing, but to denounce it if they ever see it happen.

Yanbu. I wish I didn't have any stories to add, but...

Obscene phone calls - by someone who knew when I was alone in the house, and knew a lot about me. I was genuinely afraid - sometimes he'd just say something obscene and I'd hang up. Other times he'd say 'as you're on your own tonight I thought I'd come over and keep you company'.

Attempted rape at University by my then-boyfriend's friend. Would have been rape if my bf hadn't come in.

Raped by another bf, I lived with, many times in my sleep. I'd wake up and he's just be having sex with me. Until I read MN I hadn't ever even thought of it as rape - but how did I consent if I was asleep?

And of course the 'low level' sexual assaults - arse slapped by a customer in the shop I worked at. Boobs grabbed, arse grabbed etc.

It's not ALL men - my dh is definitely one of the good 'uns. But I think the men who DO think it's ok to abuse women this way abuse many, many women in their lifetime.

FootLike thanks for your post and yes I agree MN is a great space to be heard. Sometimes I feel it is the only place to be heard.