A man said the most vile thing to me today

[CircleSquareCircleSquare]

I was getting the kids out of the car today at the garden centre. I was flustered and probably looked grumpy because I’d just mopped up vomit and as I was chucking tissues into the bin a guy walked up to me (he actually seemed to change his direction of travel to engage with me) and said “hey baby, smile”.

I ignored him and started to walk in the direction of my kids and the car when he half shouts “hey baby, HEY BABY, you’re beautiful when you’re angry, let me suck your clitty”.

A woman walking nearby toward her car was stopped in her tracks by how foul it was and turned around and said “what did you say?” but the idiot was off and running.

Why do they think they can say this stuff to us? Why did he think he could interrupt my day with his odious, aggressive expression of control?

I’m going to talk out every single time a man makes me feel like this. I will not allow men to feel comfortable living in a world where this happens. This is not fair.

No it’s not a physical assault but it will stay with me for weeks, I won’t feel safe in that car park, I’ll be on edge even more than usual for weeks, everywhere I go. WHY should I have to feel like that because of his pathetic controlling, sexualised nature?

Blimey. I really think mommy is genuinely mystified why a comment about 'wanting fries with that milkshake' is offensive....I don't suppose you think it's anything really to do with McDonald's, mommy, and you do understand it is a gratuitous comment about your body. And you don't understand why other women would take umbrage at it.

It's not because we think the man is poised to rape us.

It's because it's an invasion of personal space in public. It's objectifying. It's taking ownership of the woman's right to walk on the street unremarked on, uncommented on, unevaluated, unjudged. The 'right' response to that sort of remark is to simper and smile, even if we don't find it funny. To ignore, or to look annoyed, is to invite a further comment along the lines of humourless bitch or worse. So our response is commented on, evaluated, judged.

That sort of restriction, that sort of control of our everyday feelings and responses, that sort of cavalier attitude to whether we want to engage or not, is part of what posters here have described as 'rape culture'.....mostly, happily, this stupidity does not progress to rape, of course. But it reflects the same male outlook.

Please don't be naive enough to feel flattered by it.

Hope that helps.

Not all men rape but it is exclusively men who rape. I don’t know which ones are going to do it but if someone shouts at me and uses vulgar, sexual language (which I personally found threatening - remember words are not all the sum of communication), they might well make their way on to my list of sexually threatening people for that day, yes.

It is not the same as physical sexual assault. But it’s not the bloody sexual grievance olympics and I’m not going to start putting things on rungs. As a rape victim (and I’m sorry to hear there are so many of us on this thread, you included Mommy) I feel sick at the thought of any man making a woman feel threatened. If I had been a few years younger or didn’t have to keep it together for my children that interaction would have broken me.

It is a misogynistic, degrading act.

If you can’t see that men saying things like this to women is a form of belittling, of control, of sexual humiliation then we probably are going to have to agree to disagree. I hope you have a pleasant remainder of your evening.

Poor you OP that’s disgusting.

When is this king of thing going to stop? As another of 3 daughters I fear for them.

I’ve been grabbed on the arse and worse, flashed at, had men jump out at me and say some vile stuff on two occasions, had a man offer me £80 to have sex with him whilst I was sitting reading a book on a train and I’ve been sexually assaulted.

This has to stop.

It's because it's an invasion of personal space in public. It's objectifying. It's taking ownership of the woman's right to walk on the street unremarked on, uncommented on, unevaluated, unjudged. The 'right' response to that sort of remark is to simper and smile, even if we don't find it funny. To ignore, or to look annoyed, is to invite a further comment along the lines of humourless bitch or worse. So our response is commented on, evaluated, judged.

Gosh yes this.
It’s a form of theft.

But equally as I said, I have no idea who is a bloody rapist and comments like today don’t make me think I should drop my defences around this adorable banter filled man.

He was about 40-45 btw. Much taller than me, much bigger than me and is body language was not filled with humour.

I have reported your goading, TerranceandPhilip .
Fortunately for you we all took the TGLWGH pledge.

However the reality would probably be that I wouldn't want to cause conflict just in case it escalated especially if my children would bear witness to it.
Thats why they do it. They figure that you won't react when you are with your children. Utter cowards

I'm liking cocolepews reaction of an immediate punch in the face!
I have also experienced men trying to make me feel scared in quiet places-walking too close etc. The most sickening thing is that they do it so much more when you are really young, and too scared to confront. Nowadays I am likely to turn around and and say " WHAT??!" The best thing I ever learned to do was to force myself to stare out men who stare at me. So, for example, on the tube, if a man was staring at me I would very deliberately look him up and down and then stare fixedly at his crotch. They get oddly flustered when you for that..they want to stare at you and make you look away, like prey. It's funny when you train yourself to turn the tables.
Some men just get off in the idea of intimidation because they are basically inadequate. It's shit and it needs to be named, taken seriously and dealt with.
Sorry this happened OP. Hope you feel better soon.

*or those with a hate crime qualifier

You really are not a serving police officer are you Terrance?
Because you still have stuff wrong and are pretending to know it.
Just some wierdo trying to intimidate women on a Forum into not reporting other wierdos to the police.

I have reported your goading, TerranceandPhilip .Fortunately for you we all took the TGLWGH pledge

All except your friend it seems. Did you report hers as well, or is it only when someone says something that you disagree with that you polish your prefects badge?

You really are not a serving police officer are you Terrance? Because you still have stuff wrong and are pretending to know it.Just some wierdo trying to intimidate women on a Forum into not reporting other wierdos to the police.

Yep. Really intimidating

What stuff have I got wrong?

Some men are nasty bastards.
I also think you should report it. Even if they don't get him it's recorded for statistics. If more people report this shit an idea of how widespread this abuse is.

Just some wierdo trying to intimidate women on a Forum into not reporting other wierdos to the police.

you still continue with the personal attacks....

This is why we took the pledge. So people like this could not derail threads where women are discussing a common experience.

All except your friend it seems. Did you report hers as well, or is it only when someone says something that you disagree with that you polish your prefects badge?

As I said... not a real police officer imo etc.

@TerranceandPhilip why are you trying to take over a thread about someone who was harassed and felt intimidated, disgusted and afraid? You don't seem to have acknowledged @CircleSquareCircleSquare at all, or considered why she posted this thread.

@OP I apologise if my comments upset you. I was asking a question and trying to give example with my opinion but things were assumed by other posters. I was not aware that the man was being aggressive to you or his body language was that threatening I have obvs missed a post despite reading comments before I posted.
I wish u a pleasant evening as well (what's left of it)
xx

@assinated I am intrested in anything some1 has to say whether they agree with what I have said or not, when I ask a question (I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know), what I am not intrested in is people who resort to nastiness because they don't agree with my opinion. As I said I give as good as I get so if people want to get nasty with the name calling, but get all offended when I return the favour that is not my problem.

@thebewilderness I have read them several times (I do believe I wrote that in my last post) and it is just a list. There is nothing in the links that highlights my particular faux par. I am not stupid I can read and it is obvious that I am being accused of breaking the rules but no1 seems to want to contact me/reply to me to say which rule/etiquette i have broken, nor do they want to contact me on why I have not been given a reason... it's all good making accusations but you need to be able to back them up with something more substantial than "because it's 1 rule for you and another rule for every1 else" or "because we say so and that's The end of it".

Not sure who asked but yes I do know what the comment made to me means, its fairly obvs. And as I said previously, no I don't give a shit. I do not care if men (or woman) want to look at me/my body and make comment. Obviously, I do care if some1 puts their hands on me when I have said no but as far as I know that didn't happen.
No the "right" response is not to smile and simper, there is no right or wrong. Me personally, i will make some come back depending on the situation hence why I called it banter. Aren't we all judged by every1 who sees us though? I have been judged (not in a positive way) by my looks, weight, whether my clothes are 'in' etc and yet funnily The nasty comments always come from other women and not just to me, eg "wow hun is that ur thighs or ur fanny flaps rubbing together I can hear" was said by a female to a large young lady who was with her baby about a year or so ago. The young woman told her to fuck off with her ugly heart but you could see the pain in her face. It was a man (I don't know if he was known to her), who told her to pay no mind as she looked beautiful.

Thank u for explaining it (yes it was a genuine question), I now understand that some/most woman find it threatening, invasion, an attempt at control

But whatever, its obvious to me that no matter what I say it's going to be deliberately misunderstood and picked apart and those who can't come up with anything in reply just tell you to "get the fuck off the thread" or to "fuck off back to my woman beating OH, who was probably the 1 to assault me" so what's the fucking point?

MN delete posts for 'not being in the spirit of the site'. I would say dismissing and minimising someone's upsetting experience of harassment qualifies and may well be why your posts were deleted.

I’m going to leave this thread for a while but thanks everyone. I appreciate your comments.

As I said... not a real police officer imo etc

Believe me/Don't believe me. It honestly doesn't matter to me what you think.

You don't seem to have acknowledged @CircleSquareCircleSquare at all, or considered why she posted this thread

Because the OP has had a shit time. I'm not after causing her any dramas. I've no truck with her at all. If she'd like me to leave her thread I'll happily do so and wish her a good day. I'm not trying to take over any thread. I'm posting in response to posts made to/about me, that's usually how these boards work.

You're not covering yourself in glory here Terrance.

Here's a poster who has had a horrible, distressing experience and you offer not one word of comfort or sympathy.

Nope, you just steam in and start mansplaining all over the shop.

And bloody nasty, patronising posts to Crusty to boot.

Take a good hard look at yourself.

It's still absolutely enraging that one horrible man can ruin your day and make you feel intimidated like this. I hope that tomorrow is a nicer day for you @CircleSquareCircleSquare, and that the effects of this incident starts to fade.

Your dismissal of the OP's clearly stated experience and feelings was inexcusable, mommy2018.
And yet you repeat the same comments that got your previous posts deleted.

Nope, you just steam in and start mansplaining all over the shop

Ah FWR never fails to disappoint.
Personal attacks- tick
Good old fashioned pile on- tick
Assuming I'm a man- tick
(Anyhow I always thought mansplaining was when a man talked over women who knew more about a subject then he did, which is demonstrably not the case here)

And bloody nasty, patronising posts to Crusty to boot.

Which were in exactly the same style as the ones she posted to me. Exactly the same.

Why would an alleged police officer spend six hours on a thread about women's experiences of offensive sexual comments, and not once encourage them to speak to a local police officer?

I think we all know why...