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.

meant my heart! sorry

I think one of the worst bits is that you're right, it's hyperbole. You believe the macho posturing at the time, and later on, you realise that actually uncle Billy isn't such a hard nut as he made out to you as a child. You suffered in silence for nothing.

I talk to my DD. She's 16 now. Do the deconstruction game. How do certain people get away with doing bad things and promoting the opposite image? Who lets them do this, and how?

How does evil happen? They learn this at school if they can just connect it, about 'good' people doing nothing (or appearing to do nothing, or choreographing victims into declining attention.)

Maybe we should let our sons, daughters and anyone else read this thread.

YANBU.

Only my husband knows about what happened to me. I try not to think about it but more and more it creeps in and it's messing with my head. I'm currently pregnant with DC3, I have two daughters already. I despair sometimes and wonder what kind of world I've brought them into. I fear for them and hope that they'll never have to go through what I went through.

I was 9/10, it was a family friends son, he was 15..maybe 16. He was also abusing his sister. He made it seem very 'normal' and that this was what happened. Or like we were all playing a game. I really didn't know any better. All I knew was that I felt dirty. I remember a strong feeling that i had of disgust with myself when I saw him one day. I remember bits of what happened. I wish I didn't. I always thought it was my fault. I think I've blocked a lot of it out. I don't really want to remember what happened.

I'm so sorry that so many others have gone through sexual abuse. I don't think I will ever tell my parents or anyone else. I don't think I'd ever be able to bring myself to. This evening some friends started talking about Jimmy Saville and how they didn't understand why all these people were coming out now. We couldn't see eachother but we could hear eachother. I tried to explain why people wouldn't necessarily have come forward in the past, but I could feel my voice wavering and I couldn't talk about it. My husband was present in the conversation too. I ended up bursting into tears. They didn't hear me and still have no idea of what happened to me in my past. This is one of the reasons I couldnt bring myself to tell people and come forward. Some people just don't understand.

Sorry for going off on a tangent, feeling very sad at the moment :(

I am feeling sad but very lucky. The only thing to happen to me is a teenager grabbing at me is briefly as he believed cycled past. And now when i look back on my life i can see many times when i could have been pressured but i wasn't. There are good men out there too.

It is a very sad and angry thing for lots of us.

I hope this thread is a safe place. I feel it is. The rage I would have felt otherwise directed inwards is here now. I am very grateful.

Oddly enough the most shocked I felt was when I was driving my little car and a white van man wound down his window and described what he wanted to do to me. This frightened me more than the other incidents. He was about my age at the time (early 20s). What sort of person does that?

Yes there are many good men and I was lucky to encounter the good ones generally. Put myself in quite a few situations where if they were creeps it could have been nasty and I probably would never have reported it. Luckily, the men I chose to trust respected my boundaries. The ones who didn't, generally were passing strangers - the gropers, the comments, the intimidation. A think that's why I consider myself lucky and able to shrug off the assaults.

Asamumnonsense - I feel exactly the same :(

YANBU, I had 2 disturbing 'events' in my late teens. One at a party when I got drunk and went to bed to sober up. Woke up with a senior colleague doing inappropriate things to me & he couldn't understand why I would be upset! Another incident travelling on a long-distance train journey through Europe when I was unknowingly drugged & had a similar incident. Both very upsetting. Since then I have put on weight to make myself unattractive to the opposite sex and have been drinking to excess ever since. Lots of positive things in my life and I am a strong woman but I see myself as a survivor of this sort of shit.

Yanbu. I have never told anyone in real life this but when I was 20. I got v drunk at a friends house party and woke up with a guy having sex with me. I just left him carry on. Felt so ashamed and embarrassed for years. Blamed myself.
Happily married now with kids but I think about it sometimes and get upset. I would hate that to happen to my dds.

This thread is so sad.

I wonder what makes some men (more than we might have thought) behave like this? Upbringing?
I'm scared even posting this as I've never told anyone and I feel it was my fault (that old chestnut but so true)
My friend and I suffered a lot together as young teenagers. We used to stay out all night and stay with people we met in pubs/clubs (aged 14 but we looked a lot older). Often we consented, I don't know why we did it, being wanted? Power over men? At least once I woke up and someone was having sex with me. I kept my eyes closed until it stopped. Other times stick in my mind.... I remember being stopped whilst walking home from somewhere and being offered money by this 30 year old ish man for a bj. I did it as I was skint... I was 14 ffs but it wasn't a big deal as I was totally de sensitised.
My friend died in her 20's following a miserable life of self destructive behaviour and violent partners.
I had a child very young and went the opposite way by marrying the nicest, most caring man I could wish for.

I was fucked up but I don't know why. I have a lovely family although my parents separated and my Dad left just before I entered my teens...

I can't think about it too much. I don't feel I was abused in a typical sense as I put myself in these situations but at the same time I know what these men did was wrong.

It affects me a lot and I'm over protective to the extreme. My mum was lovely but very naive and trusting so gave me a stupid amount of freedom.

YANBU.

I was sexually abused when I was very young and it has pretty much ruined my life I reported it many years later and the case went to court. The pervert responsible received a paltry jail sentence which was not long enough IMO but I was glad that some sort of justice had been served.

I was raped by my ex-partner.

I have been followed home and flashed at. I also once had a man put his hand up my skirt in a nightclub; when I remonstrated he spat in my face.

I feel very angry and bitter about what's happened. To the outside world I appear happy and bubbly; no one sees the pain inside. I have had years of therapy and yet I am still not at peace with myself. I don't think I will ever be able to trust a man

This thread makes me weep for womankind

A victim too......

so here's a question then...are you going to tell your dds what happened to you?

i have been thinking about this lately....mine are still too young....

I have a few incidents that I have never talked about but if I am honest still eat me up 15 years later and I cant seem to get over them.

First of all my brother and I "experimented" when we were young but it happened one last time when I was 12 and he was 15. It never happened again after that but I always wondered if that was wrong? Were we too old then? I hate the thought of it, it makes me feel so disgusting now but at the time it didnt feel wrong.

Also when I was 14 I was groomed by a much older guy, in his late 30s. Until maybe 3 years ago I thought this was my fault, that I had come on to him but its only as I got older (in my 30s now) that I realised that he was grooming me and that he was in a postion of responsibility.

When I was about 15 I got very drunk and a guy a few years old made me give him oral sex, again at the time I thought it was ok as I was being grown up, only a few years later did it seem wrong.

I'm not going to give DD the gory details, she doesn't need them, she's been there herself :( But i am wary now and constantly reinforce with her she can tell me anything. If i had my time again i'd get her trained in self def so she could at least be confident of being able to protect herself physically if needs be.

YANBU. I have never, ever said this to anyone, but I have had terrible experiences. When I was 15, a bloke forced me to perform oral sex. When I was 16, my boss pinned me against a wall, shoved his tongue down my throat, groped me, and told me that he would 'love to suck my nipples'. At a festival, I went to bed (in our tent) earlier than my friends (they were still up partying) and woke up to a stranger shoving his hands down my pants. When I was 22, the man I was seeing (and having sex with) pinned me down and said 'I want to fuck your ass', and proceeded to do so. I could go on, but tbh, it would be too horrible.

After the situation with my boss, I can't be alone in a room with a man. Other than DP or my Dad. Men in 'authority' still frighten me.

Oh, and to the poster who found it 'interesting' that some women had never been abused, whereas others had been several times... I'm glad that you find the repeated abuse of women 'interesting'. I personally think that it is horrific.

I only told my mum what happened to me when I reached 17. She told me it had happened to her and her mum too. We had all been abused for years.

When I told my mum, she confronted him but he denied it, so it got swept under the carpet The only other person that knows is my dh.

I know I should have reported it but I was too scared, and I still am. What if they didn't believe me? So now, he knows what he has done, and he's ruined my life. I have no confidence at all. It makes me sick to think of him and the fact I didn't do anything :(
If I am lucky enough to have children, how am I going to protect them? It appears to run in my family :( I have to put a stop to this.

Is the abuser still in your family, Noillyprat?

Yes, my mums side of the family see him often

ithinkimight.. ot only am I going to talk to DD about things, in age appropriate terms, I talk to DS.

There is NO excuse, ever, but in a lot of cases men don't think they have done anything wrong, because however obvious it really is society doesn't come down hard enough on it.

Have many many experiences, but in some ways two small ones have a profound effect.

One at 14 at a new years party, my parents there, loads of folk from the village. A married man kissed me quite intensely in the middle of the room at midnight. In front of every one, and his wife. NOBODY did or said a thing. While his poor, shy lovely wife cringed in the corner and I died a little out of shame guilt and embarrassment.

Then at about 28, having drinks with my then H, there were about 12 of us around a table. One of the men reached across one woman, and my H, and grabbed my breast really hard, squeezed it tight and let go.
Everything went quiet. Just for a moment, and then carried on.

Now, I might actually say 'What the fuck do you think you are doing?' and actually, I might even punch him. But again, I died a bit more.

I have some 'safe' male friends, but sadly trust is so eroded, even they are blighted by my experiences.

I've been flashed at about 3 times, one of those times was by a young man in a woods who followed me for about 30 mins (while I was trying to get out of the woods) and kept flashing and wanking himself. Was pretty scary especially as I was minding 2 small children and didn't want them to see / feel scared.

A second time was by the person who used to live opposite me - he used to sit on his window sill with the curtains partially closed and watch me and wank. At first I thought I'd accidentally seen him naked and whilst gross, he must be so embarrassed. It kept happening and he got more and more confident (like he'd wave at me / not hide behind curtains). Again, a bit scary as was worried he'd start following me around / do something worse. Police wouldn't do anything about him though - he was in his own house so doing nothing wrong apparently!