To think most women have been victims of sexual assault? Has anyone not?

[Lighthouseturquoise]

Has anyone here honestly never been a victim of some kind sexual assault.

Even if not rape be it some drunk bloke groping you in a nightclub, a date getting heavy handed or pushy,

an ex boyfriend who just got carried away,

a sleazy boss or work colleague roughing your leg or making an appropriate remarks,

a friends boyfriend coming onto you,

a man thinking you were coming onto him because you were friendly then not taking no for an answer,

a boyfriend coercing you into sex or something as a teenager.

Getting beeped at or wolf whistled and feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable.

I think we sweep it all under the carpet and I bet the average woman during her life gets assaulted or harassed more than once.

I agree claraschu I have not had a response from the man who recounted his experiences earlier, about whether he felt scared

Oblomov

I believe you. I think you are relatively unusual, but of course there are women who have never experienced any of these things

Aaargh

Sorry to 1Dad, somehow managed to skip several pages when reading the responses

I wanted to add that it's a great shame that some women lower themselves to behaving in sexually harassing ways.

I have been raped more times than I can count.

Yes I was raped no I didn't report it because I had sex with him on a prior occasion and I knew it would be used against me

I haven't been raped but know women who have been. A few things happened at school, bra straps pinged and constant sexual comments, breasts grabbed in the corridor, hand up my skirt on the school bus. Even at primary school one time two lads wrestled me down on the school field and were trying to get their hands down my pants. My first few boyfriends were older men as I didn't trust boys my own age.

Got cat calls on the street from being 12 or 13. Bum groped when I worked in a night club and would get inappropriate sleazy comments when I was a waitress. Have been flashed at in the street several times and have had some more threatening sexual comments. Hasn't happened very much at all since I got married and I have never had a terrible relationship before that. Just hope my daughters won't have to go through the same level of harassment, but I will make sure they know how to handle it if they do.

And how would you suggest they "handle it" Yakitori?

I have been raped 4 times. By separate people. On separate occasions. And violently sexually assaulted by a stranger with a knife as a young teenager.

I think one of the worst aspects of recovery was coming to terms with the truth that I was dehumanized on each occasion. I'm just about OK following ptsd treatment, which I would recommend.

I'm so sorry for each person here who has suffered. Those who are afraid they would not be believed, I believe you

I had never thought of my own experiences in this way before now and I'm mid-30s with a professional career. I feel genuinely concerned for my DD.

NC for this one. Here goes -

• Sexually abused by grandfather up until the age of 10 when I managed to find the words to describe what was happening to my mum. Don't remember when it had started, but I think I was very young - 2/3 maybe? As s young child, I didn't know it was wrong. I never saw him again and my mum believed me, but no action was ever taken against him, due to family shame, etc.

• When I was about 19 and at uni, I was raped by a man of about 25 who I had been on 3 dates with. He walked me home and forced his way into the house I shared with another girl, knowing she would be away. I never reported it, despite having bruises on my wrists. I just felt numb. I got the morning after pill and that was it.

• After uni, I travelled it through India and Pakistan. Various incidents inc. being groped by a guide up a mountain and, in one hostel, a man (one of the staff) took the roof off a shower cubicle I was in and jumped in while I was showering, I managed to get away by screaming, fighting him off etc.

• During a 2 month period of ballet rehearsals, I was repeatedly groped by the male partner, which was very awkward because I had to work with him daily.

• Shortly after I met the man who was to become DH (I was about 25), there was an incident where DH had pushed forward to the bar and I was in the crowd behind. A man came behind me, put his arms round my waist and his hand up my skirt and basically penetrated me with his fingers. This was right in the middle of a packed out bar. What happened next was DH punched this man outside and then HE got arrested himself and held overnight because the man had a broken jaw.

There have been loads of other minor things too. Wolf whistling and all that kind of thing was pretty much daily until I had kids and was mainly out and about with pushchairs, toddlers, etc. Still get it now though, age 39, if I'm out for a run, mainly from builders or white van men.

On a more positive note, I've been very happily married to a wonderful man for 14 years and he's everything to me. Nearly all of the men I know these days are trustworthy and fantastic people.

I really wanted to say that I've never experienced anything. I don't know why. To make me special perhaps? To sound powerful and in control?

Instead of lying, however, I'll admit that I was followed off the night bus once by a drunk man (I was also drunk) who was apparently making a last ditch attempt to bag a girl before going home. As I started to feel the tendrils of danger creeping into my drunk brain he leapt on to my face and slobbered all over it. I pushed him off and said I was expected home, that there was someone waiting up for me and luckily he went the other way. I ran home to find my father was up making a coffee. I collapsed in tears and he ran out in his dressing gown looking for the bloke. I felt very stupid. It could have been a lot worse. My dad bought me a personal alarm the day after.

This thread has, I think, made many of us reflect on things that happened 20 or 30 or more years ago and recognise how much was normalised that shouldn't be normal. The thing about wolf whistling, comments etc (I am not talking about a compliment, that is something different and I know the difference) is that it demonstrates a similar mentality to that held by men who committ serious assault. So my example of a catcalling experience, amongst many, was at age 14 and a group (4 or5) of 40yrs plus builders all laughed together as they made explicit remarks about my breasts etc as I walked past, alone, wasn't anywhere particularly remote and was broad daylight but I look back on it now and it is frightening. Those particular men must have had no regard whatsoever for my feelings, my age (and I looked young for my age), the total and utter inappropriateness of their behaviour. I had tits and that was all they saw, it was funny to them, and if they had all decided they wanted to take things further and rape me then they could have. It is, I think, a continuum. Most men hopefully don't get very far along it but it is part of the same problem.

Did anyone see that shocking video clip of the 1970s American game show when the slimeball of a compère was asking 12-14yo girls if they wanted to kiss him.

One girl said (timidly) no, and he kept on at her, but she politely stood her ground, then he said well the only way you can win the game is to kiss me, don't you want to win the game? When she still refused, he said ahh that a shame, you can't win the game now. That to me was abuse, pure and simple

It was chilling.

This thread makes for incredibly depressing reading, it's all so horrendously common. It makes me wonder what can we do to stop this from happening to the next generation of women? Our daughters, nieces, granddaughters shouldn't have to grow up being subject to this kind of thing.

Never been raped or sexually assaulted, thankfully. to those who have. These stories are really heartbreaking.

Have been amply harassed. Until recently I used to live in an area of London where I couldn't walk down the street alone without men making kissy noises and sometimes following me & making suggestive comments - even when I was heavily pregnant and waddling, with enormous swollen ankles (so neither looking particularly sexy nor able to move very fast, which made it impossible to 'take as a compliment' rather than a threat). It was really full-on and unpleasant and did stop me going out on my own after dark if I could help it. There had been a serial rapist active there for some years (never caught), and several gang rapes of young girls (nobody ever charged), so it seemed impossibly naive to deny there was a connection between the constant harassment and a culture of sexual violence.

Been flashed & wanked at quite a bit in my time. Was kerb-crawled once. A man I used to work with would grab my arse any time I bent over to put paper in the photocopier. I told him to fuck off, had him cautioned & when he didn't stop doing this to me & others he was sacked.

I have been fortunate to work in companies and go to schools where sexually inappropriate behaviour was clearly defined, seriously and openly discussed, and not tolerated at all - and where women occupied many management positions. Which is one reason it felt so shocking to me to live in an area where I was so openly harassed. I just hadn't been brought up to think that was OK or I should be grateful for he attention.

I really needed this thread this weekend. Yes, I have previously experienced sexual harassment and assault, yes I have "normalised" my experiences. I can't change what I did or didn't do for myself, but I can change how I react on behalf of my DDs.

On Friday, I reported one of the male teachers at my daughters(15) school for repeatedly touching her hair. I felt stupid for doing it, but I am glad reading this that I did. And I'm glad I used the terms harassment and intimidation to describe it. I am angry at my self for having minimised it previously to her and to myself. I'm glad my DH was so angry when DD was talking (& crying) about it that I felt able to complain about it. I am so angry with myself for needing DH's anger and validation that it was unacceptable behaviour to give me the strength to stand up for my daughter. I am really angry at myself for apologising to the school for "bringing it up".

I often think about this Malbec

I am pleased the of the whole girls and young women ate encouraged to be more outspoken. I was born in the early 70's the attitude of don't make a fuss was still very much around when I was a teenager. But it's not enough as we need to educate boys from a young age and this is where the changes need to be made not how we as females deal with it all from wolf wolf whistling to crime of serious sexual assault and rape it's all stems from objectifying girls and women.

Apologies if someone has already posted this, but I think this wonderful woman can put it much better than I can.

Sickofthetantrums that is absolutely the right thing to report him. I would probably react he same way as you have done why because of years of being conditioned to even when I know I am right I can't always shrug of those feelings of not wanting to make a fuss even when I am raging with anger

My ds (8) one of his best friends is a girl (9) they are very close. ds loves to play fight and is very tactile with his boy friends. I felt annoyed with him the other day when I saw him slapping his girl friends bottom, she isn't as tactile but will occasionally play fight and had down he same to him. She is also much bigger then him and is becoming conscious of herself. Ds wasn't doing anything wrong but I feel now is the right age to start to teach him about boundaries and my annoyance was from me remembering that bum slapping was somethings girls just had to put up with.

What Zoe Barnes said on the first page of this thread... all the many women I know, or have known, have experienced some kind of sexual assault or harassment.

1dad I'm sure you're a lovely chap, but I find your continued persistence on this thread quite inappropriate. So many women are on here, opening their souls about the worst moments of their lives and the legacies it leaves them with. Within a society in which the balance of power is always with their abusers, both physically and metaphorically.

And yet you persist in stating that thus effects men to the point it should be included in this discussion because you have had your bum pinched and had a few choice comments, which made you feel embarrassed. Not fearful, but embarrassed. Because unless you were under the influence if any of those women tried to jump you you could fight them off. Not the same as for a woman. You have discussed a few, very very unusual attempts at rape in a female on male sense, in such circumstances that they will never affect the average man on the street and cause him to alter his behaviour in the says we have seen women have to on here.

Until you can prove that there is no gender imbalance in terms of both senses of power, that women follow men home, grope them in the middle of the day, masturbate at them in public, flash them, rub up against them on public transport, pick them up by their crotches, stick fingers in them, hold them down and stick their tongues in their mouths, kerb crawl them etc etc etc at the frequency we have seen on here then I will continue to find your unapologetic persistence in this thread inappropriate, offensive and minimising.

Key here is...do you live your life afraid of what a woman may do to you, what society may say about that, and alter your behaviour because of it?

Men beeping woof-whistling is a compliment?

So when I grew large boobs and I got men beeping and wolf-whistling at me in the street from 13/14 years old to the point it became pretty much a daily occurrence, I should have just taken that as a compliment? Really?!

I was 5ft 7inches by the time I was in secondary school. You can imagine the 'attention' I got at an early age.

1dad you - like most (I assume) decent men - seem to have no idea of the sheer scale of harassment women experience or how it affects us, because we don't generally talk about it much, and less so in front of men.

Please could you read this, it might give you a little idea. The thing all women do you don't know about

Very minor in the scheme of things but it has affected me. A man who lives locally - I don't know him but when I described what had happened other people knew who it was, and in fact he has been filmed on telly doing it to someone else - put his hand on my arse and between my legs while I was about to put my key in my front door (terraced house, so door flush with the street). That's it. I am careful now when I approach my front door, I make sure there's nobody nearby when I am standing there and I feel more vulnerable than I used to when I have to stop there. It was six years ago, I was 41, fat and mumsy, wearing a cagoule and crappy jeans, so although I do feel invisible and safe as a middle aged woman, in fact I'm still a vagina for abuse just like any other female. I didn't report it and I'm not going to but I do feel angry that he just felt he could do that.