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 haven't experienced anything except the odd wolf whistle which actually I don't find offensive, (and that seems to be an older generation thing so I think that's dying out )

Yes shocking how young it starts. Flashed at on the way to school. Had a man try to put his fingers in to my knickers, I was on the bus in my school uniform.
Had a gang of boys throw me to the ground in the snow and put their hands down my shirt top. They were prefects.

God. It's horrifying. The extent of it.

The man on the bus, for decades I've thought about how I wished I'd grabbed him by the hair and twisted it so hard I injured him. I just stood up and walked away. NObody on the bus said anything.

Nope, I really don't think I have.

Oh God. Here we go again...

Pan - have you read the thread. Can you go back and read what we said when 1DAD told the same sorts of stories as you.

It is wrong that that happened to you and I'm sorry.

But this thread is about the experiences of women. Some of them horrific. All as a result of our relative lack of power (social and physical) compared to men.

Our harassment as a group starts in or pre-pubescent years - and is socially condoned.

It is just not the same. I'm sorry, but it isn't.

And we have explained why a load of times further up the thread.

Have had two women from a hen party try and forcibly remove my boxer shorts after I refused to hand them over as part of their 'dare'

I notice the word try in there, thing is if the genders were reversed a woman would not be able to prevent it happening you however could. No these aren't nice incidents and they shouldn't be happening to anyone but as a man you will never understand the fear that goes through women's minds.

Pan. What the fuck? Are you a bloke then? This thread is about women's lived experience why the hell would you come here and try to make it a male issue?

I have been raped Pan. Many many times. Orally vaginally and anally. That means a man put his penis into my orifices. How many times has that happened to you?

I would add that this is the daily experience of many women. That is not to say that these experiences happen everyday. They don't. But our awareness and fear is an everyday thing.

As I explained before - the fact that I am aware of my own vulnerability when letting someone in to read my metre.

And the fact that the vast majority of the worst incidents listed on this thread have occurred in broad daylight, in public and sometimes in the presence of family members.

Being groped by nasty drunk, lairy women is unpleasant, embarrassing and degrading, but is not actually threatening to your life.

Attempted rape at 17, lots of other inappropriate grabbing and comments other times. At 19 I had a colleague climb into bed with me and put his hand in my knickers when we were all pissed and sleeping over at a friend's house, he only stopped when another colleague intervened and because he couldn't believe I had turned him down he spread round a rumour that I was a lesbian

Lots and lots of things that I thought were normal, minor annoyances at the time.

I don't see the problem with Pan disclosing his experiences

Assault is assault whether it's from a man or a woman

Don't minimise women on male assault either

I'm not minimising male assault. But this thread is specifically about women. As stated in the title.

Sort of in parallel with this thread, I've started a "why I didn't report" thread in chat, that I thought a few women here might like to contribute to

That's because male sexual abuse doesn't exist most of the time

Men won't report it because they are embarassed or it won't be believed

Just like us

Pan, when you are part of the privileged class, it's often better to listen and try to empathise, rather than say "yeah look! It happened to meeeeeee" - it feels as though you are minimising the experience of women.

There have been no men coming on this thread to say "fuuuck, this is awful. I had no idea it was such a massive problem for women."

Instead, the few male posts have tried to equate the male experience with the female, which is nuts, of course.

People then zeroed in on one sentence, construed it to mean something it didn't, and then started victimising maddie. Actually maddie was wrong. I have been in a few relationships. What I do know is that they all didn't want sex when they thought I was drunk. They respected the fact that I needed to consent to a sexual act. This can only happen if I was not drunk.

Am actually happy to read that there are a few women out there who have never experienced this sort of thing. Fingers crossed it never comes their way.

I agree with auser

The question was about woman

On a thread about sexual assaults i would have no problem with it

But not when the question is specifically being asked of women

Only seems to happen on this type of thread

Unless i am grossly maligning pan and he has indeed been on a bra thread bemoaning his moobs for example (pan may not have moobs...just an example)

I thought sexual assault was a physical action not someone's boyfriend coming on to you?? Am I wrong?

I have been sexually abused and assaulted many many times. And I do understand where you're coming from.

Minimising is not cool, obviously. But to come on to a thread entitled "women" and disclose your frankly less disturbing experiences does give somewhat of a clue as to the motivation of the poster.

Yes, shit can happen to men too. But not as regularly, systemically or severely. Most men don't live with the constant awareness of their comparative frailty.

The experiences of the couple of men who've posted on here are noticeably less violent in general than the experiences of women. It takes us back again to the thing of men are scared women will laugh at them, women are scared men will kill them.

Soubriquet

I don't think it's minimising to say that it's a different thing.
Read some of the stories on this thread.

Most of them tell of multiple incidents of degradation, humiliation, dehumanisation and minimising on a massive scale.
And a lot of the really awful stories will end with 'and I've been cat-called and groped in clubs too many times to mention'

Those last bits were the least of it - because, for women, that experience is so common as to not really be worthy of much note.

This thread is about women and the sheer prevalence of this behaviour.

It is not about how horrible women behave towards men, which is also wrong, but is off topic.

I think it depends whether the thread is about 1) generally being a victim of crime or 2) females being sexually assaulted under patriarchy.

I think it comes under option 2, clearly the male posters read it and thought it came under option 1. What this says about option 2 is interesting.

I am sorry that Pan experienced that. It isn't right, and there are no excuses for anyone behaving in that way.

The problem is, it has a whiff of 'well, many men have experienced similar' and I have no doubt that some have, and their experiences matter as well but this isn't really the thread for it.

I asked my husband if he has ever experienced similar to Pan and he has once but he straight away said that while it was embarrassing he never feared for his life and he knew he could over power them if needed, so while embarrassing and unpleasant he was not scared.

Do you structure your life around avoiding sexual assault Pan? Ensuring that when you go out, you have enough money for a cab, you park your car in a busy area with lights so it's not deserted, you wear clothes that won't "provoke" women into assaulting you, you sometimes don't go to events you want to because it's too much trouble to arrange the way home best to avoid assault, do you ensure that you're careful about the way you talk to women so that you don't give them the idea you might welcome sexual attention from them and therefore provoke them to assault you? Do you carry your keys in your hand between your office and your car in case someone jumps you and assaults you?

If so, you are living like most women do and unlike most men do.

Fuxache this is about the structural likelihood of women suffering assaults and the systematic impact that has on how we behave and live.

But you know that don't you. You just can't resist me-too.

The thread title is a fucking big clue.

It's not about men.

I never ever react like this I don't and I'm shaking.

How very FUCKING DARE YOU come on a thread that asks for WOMEN'S experiences of sexual assault. Rape.

And make it all about the men. It's not. This is. It the thread for that.

I was raped over and over and over. I wanted to share my experience with women. It have it used by men as right on fodder. Up there with the dude totes.

Fuck. Me.

Excuse spelling errors. On phone and shaking. Sorry.