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Original poster

Older men hitting on teen DD

197 replies

GrossedOutByOlderMen · 04/09/2022 17:12

NC for this one.

I have a 16 year old daughter who has suddenly become very beautiful. She is the youngest of 4 girls so I am used to blossoming teens suddenly gaining male attention, but this is totally different. And I am not stealth boasting, this is making me feel ill...

She gets stopped in the street, constantly catcalled and "bothered" when she's out and about which she gracefully ignores, but she has started a job as a waitress and is being propositioned on a daily basis while she's trying to work.

But the horrible thing is it's almost always by men in their late 30s, some even older. I've seen them in action - they literally follow her out of the restaurant to get her number as I wait in the car to pick her up, and they are quite pushy.

She always drops the fact that she's 16 into conversation (although tbh she doesn't look much older - eg cant buy alcohol) but that doesn't deter them at all. Yesterday we went out to the cinema and some 40 year old bloke was trying to pick her up IN FRONT OF ME despite knowing her age and that I am her mum?! I am absolutely disgusted by it - I know she is "legal" but it just feels really grim.

She is a quiet girl and is embarrassed by the attention - she would be mortified if I ripped into someone, though I was VERY tempted last night - she said she was 16 and had a boyfriend but the guy wouldn't drop it. She wanted to leave early so we came home 🙁.

Her boyfriend is also 16, and boys her own age might flirt / try to get her Snap but they don't act this way towards her. When my older girls were that age I was a big believer in letting them sort their own issues out but she just feels really vulnerable.

It's affecting her confidence and tbh I'm increasingly furious (she doesn't feel safe getting the bus any more after 1 incident, has started wearing ridiculous baggy clothing.....) I feel helpless because if she was 6 months younger she would be a child and the "rules" would be different. But she IS still a child!

How should she / I handle it? (Before I lose my shit at one of them and end up in the papers!)

OP posts:
hewouldwouldnthe · 05/09/2022 10:10

Some of these men actually get pleasure from seeing how uncomfortable she is and how vulnerable she appears. She needs to learn a veneer of toughness and street smarts because they get less out of it then.

Tallisker · 05/09/2022 10:14

Whatever happened to "Me Too"? That awareness raising didn't last long, did it?

Our poor girls. I think we should start a movement that girls carry alarms and set them off at the first instance of a bloke making them uncomfortable. Every time. The streets would be ringing but it might highlight just how prevalent and unacceptable this behaviour is.

BigSandyBalls2015 · 05/09/2022 10:25

Vile. One of mine was nearly 6ft at 14, very slim and I was stunned by the stares and comments from older guys, very often pushing their own DDs in a buggy 😒

IceStationZebra · 05/09/2022 10:26

This is such a depressing thread. Men are vile. I have a 12 year old niece who is very pretty & I can see this happening in a couple of years (it might happen now, my sister’s not mentioned anything…) and I am going to make sure she is resilient and confident enough to slap back.

Pruella · 05/09/2022 10:27

Ugh poor DD. I wasn’t at all attractive but even I got hassle as a teenager - it’s so gross. i remember a guy shouting across the street at me “I’ll suck your clit love”. I was 14 and in my school uniform.

One thing that doesn’t help is the normalising of massive age gap in relationships. You see on here all the time “oh I met DH when I was 17 and he was 35 and we’ve been married 20 years so it worked out for us”. Predatory as fuck.

MsTSwift · 05/09/2022 10:29

Dd and I go to an all female kickboxing class together it’s mostly mothers and daughters. Would LOVE to punch those perves right in the face but sadly I would then get into trouble

PutinIsAWarCriminal · 05/09/2022 10:30

Awful. This is why my teen dd hides under huge clothes. I think the early teen attention terrified her.
It was almost socially accepted that grown men chat up or cat call young teens when I was a kid and often seen as a compliment. Thank goodness attitudes have changed, we just need the behaviour of men to catch up.

Suetwo · 05/09/2022 10:32

I'm sure it has always happened, but I wonder if internet porn has made things worse? If you are a middle-aged man with a thing for young girls, you can now indulge that fantasy 24/7.

What worries me is the anger and aggression. When real teenage girls reject them, they must assume they're playing hard to get, or just tormenting them. After all, the images they see on their laptop make it seem normal for an ugly older man to have sex with a pretty teenage girl.

TheHideAndSeekingHill · 05/09/2022 10:38

hewouldwouldnthe · 05/09/2022 10:10

Some of these men actually get pleasure from seeing how uncomfortable she is and how vulnerable she appears. She needs to learn a veneer of toughness and street smarts because they get less out of it then.

That's right - it's the same kind of mentality as flashers I think but sadly more accepted by society. I remember walking down the street with my older cousin as a teenager and being utterly baffled by the fact that men literally asked if we would have sex with them. Did they really think we would? She quite rightly pointed out that they didn't think we would as literally no-one says "oh yeah that'd be great creepy old man", they were just saying it to make us feel uncomfortable.

Having said that I think the "vulnerability" can also be dispelled by being told to piss off in whatever terms. They want the shy teenage girl lowering her eyes, looking uncomfortable, knowing he's thinking about her body etc. It's a fucking disgusting paraphilia of some kind I swear.

Deadringer · 05/09/2022 10:42

Perhaps we need an alarm that can be set off when men are being inappropriate, a universal type government issue sort of thing so that when it sounds the man and everyone in the vicinity knows what is occurring. Even the stupidest most deluded men would understand that when it goes off it's a big fucking NO. Then every teenage girl/young woman in the country could be issued with one.

FlipFlops4Me · 05/09/2022 10:52

Deadringer · 05/09/2022 10:42

Perhaps we need an alarm that can be set off when men are being inappropriate, a universal type government issue sort of thing so that when it sounds the man and everyone in the vicinity knows what is occurring. Even the stupidest most deluded men would understand that when it goes off it's a big fucking NO. Then every teenage girl/young woman in the country could be issued with one.

I absolutely love this idea. A universal sound that has only one meaning - "a perv is hitting on a kid here" - wonder how much that would cut down the attention.

Aikko · 05/09/2022 11:00

These men can and do whack themselves off to teen fantasy 24/7 via their screens, and at a certain age - after many many years of indulging in this fantasy, they eventually lose all sense of inhibition and reality, and this spills over in to their real world interactions.

Doorhandleghost · 05/09/2022 11:00

This is so disgusting. I don't know what the answer is. It's so difficult for young women to challenge this, especially when the predator is a much older person.

Incidentally, my DD is very beautiful and already gets looked at by much older men. She doesn't notice it yet....

She is 10 yrs old.

Stretchandsnap · 05/09/2022 11:06

My DD is 12 and vulnerable, she is also 6’ and has a figure much older than her age, but you can see from her face she is a child. The amount of inappropriate attention she gets is awful - it’s got to the point where she won’t go on the bus to school as she has a couple of really bad experiences.

If she is with me and men are being inappropriate I do say loudly ‘she’s 12 you peado’ works a treat, but alone she’d never ever speak up (awaiting ASD diagnosis). I love the idea of a perv alarm. I would buy both my DDs one - Dragons den idea?

Chooksnroses · 05/09/2022 11:06

It's horrible. I used to tell men I was only 15, long after I wasn't! Nearly 60 years ago so things haven't changed...

musicaldilemma · 05/09/2022 11:11

My DD and her friends tend to say “sorry I am not at all into men, I am a lesbian.” Might be worth a try.

FrancescaContini · 05/09/2022 11:14

FlipFlops4Me · 05/09/2022 10:52

I absolutely love this idea. A universal sound that has only one meaning - "a perv is hitting on a kid here" - wonder how much that would cut down the attention.

Show quote history

I love it too.

BurnDownTheDiscoHangTheDJ · 05/09/2022 11:21

I was never beautiful but I had (have!) a ginormous bosom and my first job at 16 was also as a waitress... similar things happened to me. As you say, men in their 30s and 40s who should have known better, skeevy guys on access day out with their kids. Used to get phone numbers on bank notes as tips. I also didn't like getting buses after a couple of incidents. The only advice I have for her is to develop a thick skin and start having some pre prepared back chat ready to go. It's shit, I'm sorry.

Jewel7 · 05/09/2022 11:22

Maybe when you are there, you need to speak up. This may teach her to speak up to. As the ignoring it technique isn’t working is it. I would start with “she is a child” they don’t need to know what age. Maybe she is best to say nothing at all as they will get bored. What a horrible situation. Off subject but I think certain social media/tv programmes teach that it’s ok to pursue and that girls need to get the attention but it’s not ok and not appropriate.

Opentooffers · 05/09/2022 11:25

Total sleazeballs, they are sadly out there and were when I was young. Not necessarily a good thing for her to say she has a boyfriend tbh, so get a better retort worked out. These men aren't after a relationship, so the idea she has a BF, could actually inspire them more - which you really don't want.

J0y · 05/09/2022 11:25

Tell her not to say she is 16.

Tell her to say

"You don't know me. You are confused".
Then IGNORE every single word uttered afterwards.

I used to say my granddad has a lot of friends, I don't remember them, and then IGNORE

puddlesofmothers · 05/09/2022 11:30

A guy told me once not to say I'm married or have a bf as a guy will read that as if I'm interested in you but I'm attached. I think politeness is the problem we're brought up to be polite and let people down gently but this is clearly being taken advantage of. A no or "I'm 16 you nonce" sounds perfect to me.

J0y · 05/09/2022 11:32

Yeh, if you say "I have a boyfriend" they hear "im sexualky active yes".

"You're confused, you do not know me".
Then ignore, don't try to be polite.

YRGAM · 05/09/2022 11:33

Aikko · 05/09/2022 11:00

These men can and do whack themselves off to teen fantasy 24/7 via their screens, and at a certain age - after many many years of indulging in this fantasy, they eventually lose all sense of inhibition and reality, and this spills over in to their real world interactions.

@Aikko I agree with this and I would even take it further - many men who are compulsive porn watchers begin to think that all women are up for sex and are looking for sex all the time, purely because most of their 'interactions' with women are via a screen where he can create his ideal scenario. The increase in 'amateur' porn is very bad for this - men see 'normal' women in these videos and start to get a warped idea that more women are into public sex than actually are (in reality it is a tiny, tiny percentage of women who would even consent to being filmed at all during sex, never mind having it distributed). The constant exposure to porn melts these men's brains and completely warps their idea of what the average person's attitude to sex is and how often they think about it.

Although this is less applicable in the case of the OP and her poor DD, where that kind of comment is made purely for the thrill of a man having power over a young woman or girl. I don't really know how this can change apart from more men putting pressure on their peers to do better, more men publicly calling this behaviour out (unfortunately this comes with a risk of a violent escalation), and to a lesser extent (as I don't want to victim blame at all) more women feeling empowered to raise their voices and shut down the comments without having to people please. It's a really shit situation and I just don't know how I'm going to handle it if I ever have a daughter.

madasawethen · 05/09/2022 11:43

I had this when young and so did my daughter, starting around age 12.

There was no compliance or ignoring it from me at all.
I would lay into them and hard. The ones that would sneak and do it while their wives were off shopping got it the worst from me.

I modeled taking zero shit from a man and my DD takes zero shit and shuts them down. She'll be 40 soon and she shuts them down with an outstretched stop hand and "Why are you talking to me?" then "Fuck off"

So many nasty vile predators.