157 Non-consensual touches

[OhRene]

In order to prove that we women are touched, grabbed and assaulted on a regular basis on a night out, a group designed touch sensor dresses. Three dresses for three women on a night out in Brazil. In less than 4 hours, they had been on the receiving end of 157 non-consensual touches by men. That's less than one every 5 minutes.

www.iflscience.com/technology/these-dresses-record-groping-because-so-many-men-wont-believe-women/

I find it so sad that we have to resort to technology to PROVE we're regularly getting unwanted men's hands on our bodies.

My own husband, bless his heart, has said over the years stupid things like, "Yeah but it's not a big deal is it?" Or "Yeah but that doesn't exactly happen a lot" and I'm not sure he actually believed me when I was recounting the times I have had men grab me, attempt to force me into a dark corner of a club, try to pull my friend and I into a car on our way home, had a man push his hand right inside my underwear and physically assault me, grab my breasts, and yes, one even raped me.
DH asked me, almost disbelievingly, if I really was sure I'd been spiked those two times I told him about cos, you know, he's never seen that kinda stuff actually happening. My own husband. Never thought he was sexist but I do think he just nods and 'yes dear's me when I'm reading him things I see on here.
If our own partners who we think are pretty decent fellas still minimise this shit, how will we ever change things?

That article is fascinating and infuriating. The idea is ingenious - the results match women's experience which should probably make me angrier than it does that I'm so resigned to it.

I've had this exact conversation with my DH. He will get sad when I instinctively flinch if he touches me when I'm not expecting it. I have to say over and ovary (that was a typo, but I'm leaving it) that if he had been subjected to a lifetime of groping he'd flinch too.

Your husband 'bless his heart' thinks women are lying when they talk about our experiences of repeated sexual assault?

Not got much of a heart has he?

@Clymene I say bless his heart as intended. As an insult to his idiocy. I love him but he's naive as hell.

His attitude is what I've encountered from pretty much all men. Not disbelief per se, more... not taking it seriously. Thinking it's exaggerated or we've taken it the wrong way, or have overreacted. He cannot completely comprehend things like a man walking behind a woman can be aggressive.

I recently showed him a viral video a woman in Canada took over her shoulder of a man who followed her all around a city for over 40 minutes. Every turn she took, he took. My DH took a long time to realise that this was aggressive, threatening behaviour and not just a bloke walking the same way a woman was. He even said, "but he's just walking! He's allowed to walk!"
I had recognised the threatening behaviour within a minute or two. It took DH a lot longer to say, "Hmm that is bad isn't it?!"

Oh. Rather you than me.

I love him but he's naive as hell He thinks you’re lying. That’s not being naive. That’s thinking that the person you’re supposed to love and trust above anyone else is making excuses for whatever happened to them by claiming that their drink was spiked.

@Sn0tnose

I love him but he's naive as hell He thinks you’re lying. That’s not being naive. That’s thinking that the person you’re supposed to love and trust above anyone else is making excuses for whatever happened to them by claiming that their drink was spiked.

That's a pretty presumptuous statement to make about a person you know zero about.

I think we are often too concerned with not making others uncomfortable - even when we have been seriously assaulted, maybe even because we’ve been assaulted.

We know the pain, humiliation and confusion and don’t want to inflict that on others - even in the slightest - by telling them what we have been put through.

My DS was hugely angry when I was assaulted, and part of that was at me - he was angry I made the choices I did and blamed those choices and me instead of recognising that abusers hide, obfuscate, and misdirect so that victims appear complicit in their abuse, or worse the cause of it.

It is also hard to accept criticism of your ‘group’. Currently I have a friend who has made critical statements about women’s choices and even where those choices seem independent, I have a huge issue getting past my feeling that they were directed by males and male focussed society in those women’s lives.

Maybe some were shit women, currently I don’t want to hear that. My DS wants to believe NAMALT, because he doesn’t want to be labelled.

Of course whatever that quote is about ‘to the privileged equality seems like oppression’ comes to bear because the powerful don’t experience the same restrictions and abuse as those less powerful.

Men don’t want to be seen as the ‘bad guys’ but don’t want to give up their privilege to do as they wish to others so they also don’t want to admit how many of their fellow men totally abuse their privilege, because that would mean they might have to adjust their own (seen as) less harmful abuses.

That's a pretty presumptuous statement to make about a person you know zero about.

Is it? She said she’s told him that her drink had been spiked twice. He responded by asking ‘almost disbelievingly’ whether she was sure. I might know zero about him, but she does. And her feeling was not that he accepted her word for it without question.

The opening post was interesting, shocking, but not - sadly - surprising except for the numbers.
Maybe focus more on that and less on the OP's relationships.
Thank you, @OhRene.

Maybe focus more on that and less on the OP's relationships.

Yeah, you’re right. I apologise OP. It wasn’t the point of your thread.

A short film of a home-travel-street-to-workplace progression with all the males having one colour of paint on their hands and women another.
Except as I am visualising it I realise I am engineering interactions. It would need to be recorded first and reshot, I think. I know squat about the process, clearly.
Very different patterns of touch would emerge, I'm sure.

That's a pretty presumptuous statement to make about a person you know zero about.

Not really. His wife told him things that had happened to her and he told her they didn't. Also known as he thinks she was lying.

To the OP - your dh is not a nice man and god knows what he is teaching your children about respect for women and consent.

@Sn0tnose

That's a pretty presumptuous statement to make about a person you know zero about.

Is it? She said she’s told him that her drink had been spiked twice. He responded by asking ‘almost disbelievingly’ whether she was sure. I might know zero about him, but she does. And her feeling was not that he accepted her word for it without question.

I can understand why you might say that, but it is really a reasonable question. Many times when drinks are tested that are thought to have been spiked, they haven't been. It's just not as uncommon as people think for them to have a reaction for other reasons, be it food poisoning or a sensitivity, or they have miscounted their drinks because they are socialising and having fun.

It isn't a claim that they've lied, or even are foolish, just a matter of understanding that sometimes people can be mistaken. If someone says something that seems amazing to you, it's a natural thing to ask.

Men don’t want to be seen as the ‘bad guys’ but don’t want to give up their privilege to do as they wish to others so they also don’t want to admit how many of their fellow men totally abuse their privilege, because that would mean they might have to adjust their own (seen as) less harmful abuses.

Daniel Sloss has a piece about this (the video is very powerful and hard to locate - it's in the link at the foot):

Were there signs in my friend's behaviour towards women that I ignored? Yes. And then he raped my friend. That's on me until the day I die.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4189208-Daniel-Sloss-Everyday-Women-Are-Trying-Their-Hardest-To-Not-Get-Raped

(Tweet with video in the OP has disappeared.)

Deep down, I know most men are good, but when one in ten men are sh!! and the other nine do nothing, they might as well not f!!!ing be there. "Instead of having this f!!!ing hero complex and being, like, "I'm going to beat up a rapist, stop one, because I know it can be done, because I know how I f!!!ing failed at it.

Were there signs in my friend's behaviour towards women that I ignored? Yes. And then he raped my friend. That's on me until the day I die.

Talk to your f!!!ing boys. Get involved.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity/scots-comedian-daniel-sloss-shares-23688472