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 totally agree with the OP. I've had numerous incidents of groping and being flashed particularly abroad. To be honest this has never really bothered me.
However I had one incident when I was doing my PGCE with another trainee teacher. We'd been out for a drink (as friends), I made it quite clear that I wasn't interested but as I lived a long way out he had arranged to sleep on couch (my friend plus her BF should have been there too but their car had broken down and she stayed at her parents). At the end of the night, he just wouldn't take no for an answer. I didn't lead him on at all and consistently said no (I was quite a slapper at Uni so I knew full well what the difference was - and he didn't know my past at all!).

Eventually I went to bed and told him to sleep on the couch. 1/2 later he came to the bedroom and attempted to force himself on me. I put up with it for a bit, being rigid in the bed, trying to think of how to deal with it. I decided to play along and for a few minutes kissed him back. I planned to make an excuse to go downstairs and planned to jump over the backfence and wake up my neighbours to help me. However and to this day I'm not sure why I did this, but I just lost my temper and started ranting at him that he clearly didn't know how women were supposed to respond, and how clearly weird he was and so on. He got up and left and drove home (over the limit). I went in the bath for about 2 hours afterwards - just felt yuck.

On reflection, I assume because I changed the power stakes but it was probably a stupid thing to do.

He had a go at me at work the following week and I basically ranted back at him calling him a potential rapist (i don't lose my temper easily). He dropped out of the course a week later. I later found out he had done this to 3 other girls on the course and 1 of the teachers working at the school.
I feel no guilt at probably instigating him dropping out of the PGCE course and to this day, wonder if he continued with this behaviour as he clearly didn't see what he had done wrong.

By the way I wasn't drunk and neither was he.

On a more positive note, I have endless memories of men who have been complete gentlemen (even when I been pissed out of my head - history of drinking problem) and seeing as I've only had one serious close shave just shows you that it is the minority of men who behave like this.

As I was quite confident sexually and not afraid to say no (have been known to slap a few dickheads in my time who needed that extra message), I was shocked at his behaviour as I was clearly saying no and he clearly wasn't listening. He kept saying 'you just need somebody to love you' ?!! It is the one and only time when I have been truly frightened.

Why would you feel any guilt whathave? He was clearly a sexual predator, and I dearly hope he never went on to become a teacher - can you imagine what a man like that would be like in a school. BTW whether you or he was drunk is irrelevant. Even if you were both totally and utterly pissed what he did was still totally wrong.

No, thingsthatmatter, women who were young in the 60s, 70s and even early 80s were brought up in a different social world, where they were expected to be polite and subservient to men, where sexual assaults like inappropriate touching were commonplace and tolerated as 'harmless' and where they were 'asking for it' because of their dress or behavour. Harmful messages were given out by society.

A post of mine from another thread.

DarkesteyeswithflecksofgoldSat 06-Oct-12 20:56:10

Just got back from my parents and i am incredibly upset. I was in their dining room writing a birthday card for a relative when i overheard them discussing JS in the living room. They were saying that these women have come forward because they are after money.
I completely lost it. I gave them some facts that ive seen on the news. They were coming out with some really horrible mysogynistic stuff.
I then told my mum about the inappropriate comments and humiliation i got from my male drama teacher in the first week of high school and my DM told me to shut up.
They were banging on and on about why didnt these girls come forward earlier and i explained it was because of attitudes like theirs. I said to them "how would you feel if it was DN (their teenage granddaughter) They said it would never happen to her because she has common sense.
There is no way im ever telling them about what my cousin did. I will be taking that knowledge with me to my grave.

What my cousin did wasnt anywhere near as bad as what others have been through.
On a family holiday to visit them abroad when i was 10 he would come into my room hold me quite tightly and shove his tongue in my mouth. He kept saying that he loved me. He was 15 at the time.
Its the not being believed thing that stings

The mysogyny and hatred that comes from my DM regarding women is stupefying.
Abortion has been in the news today and she was calling women all sorts of names for "not staying with their men" for getting pregnant etc.
How on earth can you confide in people like this.
Where can women even start when they have relatives who think like this.

Unfortunately my mum has form for what she did last night.
When i was 16 i was offered a lift home by a man i knew.
I got in his car and it wasnt until we drove away that i noticed he stunk of alcohol.
He kept asking me to kiss him i refused. He was 56. I was scared and shaken thinking "hes not going to drive me home" but luckily he did. This was back in 1990. That time i did tell them straight away what had happened.
My mum blamed me for getting in his car and said it was my fault,conveniently forgetting that she used to leave DB and i round his house when we were kids. (his wife used to babysit for us there when we were at junior school) my dad said he hoped i wasnt lying.
My male cousin and this old man are both Italian men. My mum is Italian and was brought up in a mysogynistic society and religion where she would rather believe them than her own British born daughter.
I love my parents yes but do i like them as people?? No not at all.

The above posts ive c and pd over from another thread. I just wanted to try and explain on this thread also that some peoples own families make it even harder to come forward.
Because some people will always blame the victim.

Darkesteys I know exactly where you are coming from. Exactly.

Darkest thats bad, I would not shield them from what happened though otherwise you are colluding in their ignorance. Sometimes I think our own sex are the worst enemy.

I havent read this whole thread yet as ive been on the other ones but i will catch up with it later x

I read a lot of posts here... It upsets me that women feel this is how it has to be.

When I met DD's dad, my ex, I was crazy about him, we were together a long time, because of my experiences I had a lot of issues, but one thing that was constant was the fact that he never, ever made an untoward or uninvited advance, not when he had been drinking, not after arguments, not when there was a period of time without intimacy, he never ever pressurised or made me uncomfortable.

I think a big part of the reason I would never be involved with someone else is because I do not trust that the majority of men are like him. I think there is a conditioning process you go through as a woman which leaves you unsure of what your basic rights are, and that confusion is increased with each incident of someone touching you without permission, sexually threatening or intimidating you, or attacking you... It is such a gender biased act, and normally carried out with such spite and hatred, you end up reflecting that on yourself.

Been flashed at, hand up skirt when 16 and 18 by middle aged men (one grabbed my foof) waking up to find a "friend" was molesting me at a party (teenager happened more than one) I was in their bed. Two incidents at uni of being utterley paraltic carried home by blokes and discovering I'd had sex with them in the morning when I must have been barely conscious, I'm sure there's probably a few more I can't recall. I was always drunk as a teenager and in my 20s so easy target, I don't feel I was particularly damaged by any of the incidents, I was troubled by one of the uni ones when I thought I may have been spiked. If any of these things happeded to me know I'd be profoundly more affected I guess I thougt I deserved it when I was young and had little self esteem and respect.

YANBU. Yes definitely some bad stuff has happened to me; some of the men didn't (& probably still don't) think they were doing anything wrong. Well, thinking that helps me to cope with what happened anyway.

There are women in my family who have had problems with abuse men, from childhood onwards like me; & i've met many girls & women over the years (close friends, relatives of friends, classmates, colleagues, acquaintances etc) who have had bad experiences of that abuse / assault of all kinds from mild to severe.

I now never trust men, sorry to all men out there because there's some very decent men about.

I can't actually use certain words in this context at all because of feeling ashamed, sorry.

Yes it is very dificult to even type what happened Latara. I believe your true account of events and none of it had anything to do with you as a person. It was not your fault in any way shape or form.

My wedding night. We did it once. I was dehydrated (so dry) so said no the second time. He pinned me down and did it anyway. The 'marriage' shortly fell apart.

My step-father groped me regularly from age 14. He would give me whisky until I passed out and I'd wake with his hand inside me.

Hideous.

YANBU. I was first flashed at when I was in primary school. I was walking to school with my sister. We were probably 8 and 9 at the time. Since then I have been flashed at on the tube twice and had a man masturbate against the glass door of a phone box when I was inside. At the age of 14 a friend of my mum's (with her knowledge) gave me a lift home from the place where she worked and kissed and groped me. At 16, when I was working in an Italian restaurant I was repeatedly kissed and groped by the owner. Again at 16, a man put his hand up my skirt when I was walking upstairs to the upper deck of a bus. At the age of 26, I was sexually assaulted in a hotel in Morocco by the manager, who had a master key to the bedrooms. In a small Greek town a police officer molested me and became so insistent and threatening that I left town on the next bus.

What is terrible is that despite feeling acutely uncomfortable and humiliated by all of the incidents that took place during my childhood/teens, I also felt it was 'normal/expected' during the 70s and 80s. In the case of the Tunisian and Turkish incidents, I knew it was wrong but felt that if I'd reported the incidents I would not have been listened to.

I have caught up with thread now and just want to say...i believe you Every single one of you.
Cailin and Folk Girl i know exactly where you are coming from. My mysogynistic parents would be an abusive mans dream.
He would be secure in the knowledge that everything he did wrong would be my fault.

I am just so sorry that so many of you have been through what you have. xx

Do you know, my initial reaction when I read the OP's post was 'Hmm, no...well I haven't ' then I remembered not one but 2 incidents..

I was abused by my childminder's kid who was about 12 when I was 5 or 6. What I still can't quite get my head around is that it was a girl. I think this is probably very unusual. I even wondered if I had invented this memory as I was so little but I can remember every detail of the room and what happened. have told DH but could never bring myself to tell my parents (who would be utterly horrified I think).

I used to feel anger towards her but now think she must have picked up her behaviour from somewhere and perhaps was a victim herself.

The other was when I went to a family planning clinic to get the pill age 16. Was seen by a male doctor who insisted on doing a thorough breast examination. No-one before or since EVER did this. I was confused at the time but too young and inexperienced to know this was weird or refuse. It made me feel very uncomfortable not least because my friend was in the room too (he drew a curtain round us so she could hear but not see. The sheer audacity of the man...he was incredibly arrogant and judgemental too...Never went to that particular clinic again.

hold on...a few of you have said now about having a breast exam to get the pil----wasnt this necessary then? I had one!! i remeber being ncomfortable, but i was only 16/17....didnt they do them to everyone in them days??

I had a horrible breast examination once by a doctor. To this day, I feel like he abused me, but I just stood there and never said anything.

Is there anyone on MN who could say what is meant to happen, and what is not meant to happen?

I was five months pregnant. It was a life insurance examination.

I've broached this subject (breast examinations) before. Was told it was standard practice. The male doctor that did this to me was a real creep and I do wonder if I was abused. This wouldn't happen nowadays would it?