They start young, don't they?

[Grawp]

I'm visiting my Dsis at a camp/caravan site (in the U.K.) and I was just coming out of the toilets (there's a communal toilet/shower block) when some boys starting shouting at me and calling things to get my attention. My default is to ignore any kind of shouting/catcalling, so I didn't respond. I also didn't initially realise they were talking/shouting at me as there were a lot of kids around. So because I didn't respond, they then started shouting insults at me. They looked about 12 at the oldest. I don't know which tents/caravans they were staying in but their parents could have been just metres away and it didn't bother them.

For context I am 28, though often pass for a lot younger (often about 18). I just found it really depressing.

I had this from some similarly irritating 12yr old school boys. I'm 40 odd and look it. I phoned the school to complain and the head teacher asked me to come down and identify them from some photos. He said they would get a total bollocking - result.

This also happened to me at a train station when I was 25 and pregnant. Kids about 13 or so shouting and making really lewd sexual remarks. It was horrible, I ignored them and then confronted them, but they continued.
Depressing.

I have been harassed by boys before and having seen and heard some of the comments boys I've come across socially in the past have made about girls and women I can see how many see it's acceptable. My friend was last year followed by a group of boys aged around 13 in their school uniform making highly sexual comments at her clearly lifted from pornography.

I was trying not on underwear in a well known clothes shop. A boy of around 9 pulled open the curtain when I was in a state of undress (topless). He did this at least twice to me and I think a few times to others. He thought it was hilarious seemingly. His mother told him off but he continued to do it. I was surprised at how upset it made me feel. I would have laughed it off if it was a toddler. But it felt like he was old enough to want to ogle women. Frankly it felt like sexual harassment. I mentioned it to the woman on the till when I was paying for my clothes. She explained that the store didn't put enough staff on to man the changing rooms (totally unmanned). And that she would mention something to the manager. I am not generally confrontational and I left it at that.

Frankly I feel that this child, if uncurbed and uneducated about people's right to dignity and privacy of their bodies, could be a future sexual offender. It worries me that this is how it is now, that young boys are getting worse due to more of a sexual culture and increased availability of porn at a young age etc.

Yes it does start young, but where the fuck are the parents of these boys?

Also there are these things where they take young kids to prisons to scare them, show them the road they are headed. This needs to be implemented for sexual harassment, too. Sounds harsh, but maybe even make them experience it themselves. To make them understand.

A group of three school boys, around 14 years old from a small Islamic school that was near our apartment building, grabbed my bottom and put their arms on my waist as I was coming home from work once. I was just outside my door, getting keys from my bag.

It was dusk. For some reason, instead of being frightened, I was absolutely furious and pushed them off and screamed at them and they ran off.

I was particularly annoyed as the school doubled as a very conservative mosque whose sermons I could hear clearly from my flat and they were always going on about how shameful modern life was and how they were idealogicallu superior to most people.

I contacted the iman / head teacher and to give him his due he was very apologetic and asked for additional details of the boys so that he could reprimand them.

Still though, how on earth is it in any way normal to come up and molest someone like that?

Still though, how on earth is it in any way normal to come up and molest someone like that?

Very good question. I honestly don't remember my parents ever really telling me stuff like that was wrong. To me it's just wrong. Maybe it's how they see others act? If you experience respect towards others early on, you go on to respect others.

I'm not sure how it happens but the general culture which presents women and girls as sexual objects existing for the gratification of boys and men, that our worth is our appearance and bodies, the influence of pornography, the internet being full of misogyny must all have an impact. I know of boys who've had excellent upbringings but come out with horrific misogyny and have an awful view of women and girls. There are also many YouTube videos depicting "pranks" or just sexual harassment/assault for amusement or as a normal way to treat women and girls, viewed millions of times - I think it's all very normalised although boys know it's designed to exert power over women and girls.

But also the opposite is true. Depicting women and girls as needing to be covered head to toe in black to show modesty obviously is breeding exactly the same kind of shitty behaviour. So we are basically fucked whatever we wear. Personally I think we just need to all carry a fecking personal bazooka until every little shit of a male gets the message.