Experiences of men behaving badly: want to share

[NewPage]

Just reflecting on all the recent press about misogyny and male violence against women. The argument many men give is that they are not like that, though don’t understand what ‘like that means’. So the new campaign out in Scotland is a refreshing change.

My experiences from age 5:

• on way to toilet age 5, man is trespassing in school with his penis in his hand. I am alone and he asks me where the toilets are and can I take him. Later, during police interview female officer tells me off for referring to his penis as a willy and not using the proper word, penis. I am 5 years old.
  

• on school bus, age 8. Lorry driver out of window starts to mouth the word ‘f#ck’ and miming kisses at me.
  

• age 16 on a night out, man rubs against me on the dance floor with his erect penis. Kept following me around and wouldn’t leave me.
  

• age 20 at a party and my female friend tells me someone asking for me upstairs. I go up and there is a guy we know who them locks door and says he won’t open it unless I kiss him.
  

• age 27, news get backs to me that a guy at work in a management position tells everyone he doesn’t like me and is going to make my life (at work) hard
  

• age 35, group of us talking about violence against women and male in group says we’ve nothing to worry about because we’re a bit old so no one would bother us
  

These are all just everyday experiences that come to mind. Others too but I wanted to share. What has happened to you? Why don’t you share? Sending everyone hugs xx

[Enough4me]

Women know sexualised violence works one way.

The level of aggression shown to women when they talk about it is so sad, and really highlights misogyny.

It's like women are abused, then abused for talking about the abuse.

Yes, I'm ready for a response to tell me IABU as poor delicate men go through this too.

[CoalTit]

Works both ways
Sexualized violence works both ways? How do you delude yourself into responding like that to a thread like this?

[dangerrabbit]

@NewPage I'm sorry you've had so many trivialising and hostile responses on a thread where you opened up and made yourself vulnerable about your own experiences. I don't feel comfortable to share my own experiences due to the horrible nature of the responses you have received but I just wanted to say that I get it and I stand in solidarity with you.

[Enough4me]

@ANameChangeAgain it is very defensive when men say "it wasn't me" instead of listening. I'm also getting fed up of hearing women and particularly feminists blamed for bad male behaviour.
I'm thinking about the men outside the Filia conference, threatening feminists because the women did such an awful thing in talking together about shared lived experiences.

[ANameChangeAgain]

The worst seemed to during school, both in the playground and out in public. Forced groping and kissing etc would be such a regular occurance we didn't even think of it as assault.
Its important to point out to the delicate men, that we know not all men have assaulted women, but we do know that all women have probably been assaulted by a man. They'll understand then surely we treat them all with caution.

[Enough4me]

Have to agree, you don't hear about gangs of women gang raping men. Of course that will probably change soon, as selfID makes this possible, the gift that keeps on giving.

[weaselwords]

Forgot some. Getting kerb crawled by punters whenever I walked home in whatever time of day or night. I did live in the red light area, but this was the late 80s and I was heavily into grunge and looked it and clearly going about my business and not looking for work. They just did it because they could.

The girls on the corners who were looking for work would look out for each other and us locals. Eventually, posses of local men patrolled the area as they got so sick of it and moved all the working girls on. Don’t know if they targeted the punters with such vigour. Those girls where always so kind when I was stumbling home drunkenly. Felt a lot safer than when the gangs of men who moved them on where roaming around and automatically yelling at me too.

At the end of this time, when it wasn’t really a red light district any more, a girl I knew got bundled into a car near my house and gang raped. Men did that, not women.

[Shehasadiamondinthesky]

Have you got 5 hours to listen to mine OP? Truth is I don't like men much any more.

[weaselwords]

Sorry. No paragraphs. Clearly on a bit of a rant.

[weaselwords]

I’ve been flashed at aged 10, on my way home from school. Flashed at whilst riding my horse aged 15. Heard my dad continually refer to women as “split arses” and endless pontification from him about abortion shouldn’t happen without the man’s consent and how women where oppressing men whenever they tried to assert themselves. Constantly cat called as an older teenager. Pretty much every time I went out. Went on until my 40s. Horrible misogynistic (sp) comments when sitting outside a pub in my early 20s by some Hells Angels which terrified me. Followed and threatened around the city centre in my 20s. Police took that one very seriously. Flashed at again in my 20s Groped in night clubs countless times, one time had my breast grabbed painfully and god knows how I got away from him. Male friends getting into bed with me after parties. Didn’t force themselves on me but would sleepily cop a feel.

Some of these weren’t bad men overall. My dad was flawed but I really missed him. My friends probably thought it was ok to try it on. That’s what really gets to me; how normal a lot of men think this behaviour is.

[Enough4me]

OP, I hope the sharing on here makes you feel less alone in your experiences.

[LaBellina]

*are occurring so often to so many women

[LaBellina]

Thank you @ErrolTheDragon

I’ve shared it here, not because I want others to feel sorry for me, but I think it’s so important to talk about these things. It doesn’t matter if there’s a thread about this openend every day. Sharing these experiences sheds light on why NAMALT is so enraging to hear when these things are occurred. Certainly not all men but way TOO MANY MEN. And they would love nothing less then for us to be silent about it.

[ErrolTheDragon]

LaBellina.

[immersivereader]

I don't need any more information to be convinced. I have no time for the NAMALT bullshit, I have not met one man who isn't mysoginst. Not one who doesn't objectify women.

[Enough4me]

I feel rage for all the girls and women who are made to feel that bad male behaviour is their fault. There is nothing that girls and women do that excuses bad male behaviour.

It isn't clothes, a look, not saying no loud enough or repeating it, it's not our fault if we are alone, or drunk, or a child. Male behaviour is male choice.

[LaBellina]

[quote Enough4me]@LaBellina, I'm sorry you experienced so much abuse and particularly by your dad and brothers too. I hope you have support now.[/quote]
Thank you @Enough4me. I have practically zero contact with them, but some of these things I have never told anyone in real life. I feel ashamed, even though I rationally know it’s not my fault, I feel that somehow I attract it. Which might be true in a way because from a young age I was taught my boundaries don’t really count. I hope to get closure once my father dies.

[Enough4me]

@nicegerbil, it all goes back to control. Silencing is major control. Women as adult human females aren't going to stop talking anymore than any other groups.

[Enough4me]

@LaBellina, I'm sorry you experienced so much abuse and particularly by your dad and brothers too. I hope you have support now.

[NiceGerbil]

I find it really interesting though.

MN is one site in one country. This board is one corner and individual threads are little bits in that corner.

Posters who come along and do this aren't going to change the minds of the posters. Invariably they come across so badly that any lurkers will thing bloody hell that's terrible and lose a bit of any sympathy they had.

It won't change anything in the wider world.

So what's the point? In coming here and looking for threads they can be gits to women on, threads usually about seriously awful stuff.

I mean I can't imagine thinking oh I know. I'll go on a thread about. Um. With men sharing stories about being beaten up on nights out. And post saying women have it worse this is boring you should stop posting about this.

I mean. Eh?

Not least because why would I want to stop them. I have zero probs with men talking about that.

It must be rewarding personally. And I can't think of a positive thing that is giving that reward.

[Enough4me]

It's almost as though there was a plan to counteract the sharing of reality. Poor excuses to silence women tend to include:
Heard it before.
More men are attacked than women.
Feel sorry for men/feminists emasculate men.
Men are blamed for everything.

In reality, women know what OP means. When male strength or crude behaviour is used against us we know the fear and repulsion.

[LaBellina]

As a young child, visiting my grandmother she told me I could take a chocolate from the box on the table. As I had it in my hand, my father said I had to give him a kiss on the cheek first before I could eat it. I said no and he grapped my hand with the chocolate in it so I couldn’t eat it or walk away. I just kept standing and didn’t move, just staring at him until he got bored and let me go. I remember how the chocolate had melted in my hand and my grandmother had gone outside to the garden because she was annoyed by this silly ‘game’ and I went to find her.
In primary schools I overheard 2 classmates say they were going to grope me - to them it was a joke, I felt highly uncomfortable.
Receiving a rape threat and unsolicited dick pics as part of bullying in secondary school.
Constantly being slapped on my bum and teased about the size of it by my younger brothers, encouraged by my father who would sometimes kick it as a ‘joke’.
Being followed around by a young guy when I was cycling past a forest on my way to school, he kept telling me he wanted to have sex with me in the bushes.
Forcibly being kissed by a man on a night out. Being raped by a date after I said no to penetration because we didn’t have condoms at hand. Stealthing by ex boyfriend. Being told by my father that he didn’t care if I was going to be a prostitute because I had gone on a night out with some male friends.

I’m getting too upset now to write more of my experiences. Writing this down now makes me realize how much I hate my father, and other family members for not stepping in and where the feeling of never feeling really safe comes from.

[NiceGerbil]

YY and there are regular threads on here where women share this stuff.

I've not seen such a fast response like this from more than one poster though! That's new.

And 'heard it all before' is monumentally grim.

[Enough4me]

@nicegerbil, I guess posters may say those things to silence the sharing of experiences that women have and can relate to. I would suggest it's the people who benefit from pretending male sexual violence to women does not exist.

I genuinely thought it was normal as a teen in nightclubs to have often much older male hands up my skirt and hard-ons rubbed against me and for it to be my job to stop it. I remember knowing that women's toilets were usually safe, but still better to go in pairs, to get a taxi just before clubs shut as the predators were worse if you were stuck outside without the bouncers to monitor them.

At an earlier age I learnt the uncle to avoid in hallways as when alone he would whisper creepy things that I did not understand.

[NiceGerbil]

'But please have the common decency to make your own thread for it, rather than on this one which has a very explicit purpose.
I can't understand the mindset of anyone who reads the OP and then posts a 'women do it too' or 'who'd be a man' or implying it's not worth posting about. Ffs if you don't want to give it headspace why post?'

I think we all know the answer to that surely?