Mary Harrington's Thread: how old at your first sexual approach by a man?

[EmbarrassingHadrosaurus]

The thread is a hard read. However, it's eye-opening to see how shocking it is to men. Is this one of the reasons why they don't understand why women are on default alert for an unwanted approach and why we need our single-sex spaces?

Quick Q to women who follow me: if you’re willing to share, how old were you the first time you remember being approached in a sexual way by adult men? (I was probably 13)

twitter.com/moveincircles/status/1465634247729987588

Not on twitter but I think I was 13. I definitely remember men in their 40s or 50s leering at me out of their car or van windows as I stood waiting for the school bus when I was 12 or 13. So grim. I'm early 30s and the idea of being attracted to a boy 20 years younger revolts and bewilders me at the same time.

When so much aggression is passed off as banter I often end up thinking if men have absolutely no idea what most of us go through.

There are so many horrendous items on that thread - not least the number of women who were assaulted as girls in plain sight (intimate tickling on someone's lap) and their innate sense that something was wrong but their parents weren't intervening…

I was generally oblivious but I remember being made to feel uncomfortable (undressed with his eyes) when I was 13 and also being felt up by an adult man on a fairground ride when I was 14.
Had a boy grab my (not very ample) boobs when I was 13.

I was first molested by an adult aged 11 . He was such a creep, I have no idea why my parents let him come around - red flags all over.

Saying that there was also a very creepy neighbour that was always trying some pretext or other to get us into his house. I was maybe 9 when I was tempted in with some books, nothing serious happened, but my hair was standing on end by the time I made my excuses and left.

12/13 when I was leered at from passing vans on my way to school in my uniform. 14 when I was actually subjected to a clear attempt at initiating sexual activity. I was a very young-looking kid as well. No chance I was "innocently" mistaken for a sixth former (not that I think "I thought she was older m'lud" is ever a believable or acceptable defence for an adult male who has sexually assaulted a child).

10

That's a disturbing thread.

Disturbing cos they can remember an incident. It does make you what happened before then that just didnt register if that makes sense.

Often I'm completely oblivious to a situation until its at a point where it becomes difficult to get out of it.

I remember my teacher telling me not to talk to a man I would speak to almost daily. I would just ask him about his dogs that were tied up close to my form room.

I dont remember anything dodgy about it. I thought my teacher was being a bit weird tbh

One incident I do remember is from when I was 14/15 . A guy tried to kiss me. He was only 19 but still am adult/child situation. Plus he was an instructor at a school residential I was on

Probably 13 by an older teenager at a party (maybe 15/16) and I recall being enthusiastically snogged and groped by a far older man - probably well into his twenties at an estimate) in a pub when I was only just 15.

I was underage drinking in a pub (it was the 90s and pre photo ID) and came to no harm but still it really is pretty gross when you think about it. As a mum of little daughters it horrifies me and I am glad now that young girls can't go out drinking in bars and clubs like we used to (although there are other dangers around now that weren't around then!).

I was 9 and that's the first one I can clearly remember

Not on twitter but I was 9 and in my Brownie uniform. Started with "look at the legs on that" and went downhill fast. Although as a tall girl growing up on a series of military bases, I'd hope I was an outlier. My dad's squadron took to calling me jailbait and lolita around the same time. Was showing my kids old photos when we helped my mum move in the summer and dc1 (6) stopped at one of me sat on Santa's knee to ask why I looked so miserable. I was 10 or 11 and Santa (one of the pilots) had insisted. He wouldn't let go and kept asking if I been a "good girl". That's when I learnt squirming isn't a good move when someone much bigger/stronger than you is holding you on their lap. It's over 30 years ago but I still remember the smell of his aftershave.

There were loads more incidents and yet the blame always seemed to lie with me. Apparently I'd managed to weaponise my body, hair and smile. Or at least that's what the squadron leader's wife said after her husband was found wrestling with me on my bedroom floor. I was 11 at the time. It happened more than once and no one seemed to care.

I have a daughter now who looks just like me...and I'm terrified for her.

This is so interesting. I'm also not on twitter, don't know if anyone can compile our answers and post them there. I was about 7 years old. And it was not a single event. It was playful and I remember the mix of excitement and fear being very confusing.

l was literally only six or seven, my Mum was useless and allowed me to go out to the nearby park on my own, walking back along a busy road, a car pulled up, the man asked me where the train station was , but whilst he was asking me he kept trying to make me look down towards his lap, he was playing with himself, l remember feeling so utterly shocked and ashamed, he then asked me to get into his car to show him the way to the station, which luckily l didnt. Because l was so young l felt l should do as he said, and l often think about the consequences had l got into that car.
When l got home l felt so upset l curled up under the sideboard, l never told my Mum.
l am in my 50s now but still remember his dark shoulder length hair, beard and sunglasses.

I'm so angry at the number of women telling stories about teachers for whom the coda is that they were later jailed.

How much harm did these men do - and just how did they get to do it for so long?

And why do so many men not understand how this apprehension affects us in our daily lives and just why we care so much about safeguarding children and vulnerable adults?

Just reading other posts, I should have added that my experiences were with a man in his early 20s and a man in his early 40s.

age 14.

Also had a teacher "show an interest" when I was 15 and he must have been 40ish. He didn't do anything physical beyond brush against me or touch my hands, but he was obvious to the point where all my friends noticed and it became a big joke. My mum knew too and found it funny

I was regularly kerb-crawled, in my school uniform, from the age of 12 or 13. The first time it happened, I had no idea what was going on - luckily I had an older friend with me, otherwise I might well have stopped to speak to him. After a while it became such a routine event that I stopped even noticing.

I was about 10 and was in a park with my Aunt in the daylight she was sitting on a bench l was wandering around looking at statues etc l eventually noticed l was being followed by a man when l looked around all I remember is an erect penis and running back to my Aunt l was distressed but couldn't say why and didn't want to explain How do you it was the first penis I ever saw as I lived with this Aunt and my Grandmother.
A few years later walking to school in my uniform l used to pass a fire station l was always wolf-whistled at eventually I would find alternative routes and to this day I can't stand firemen.

I was sexually assaulted age 10 in a public (but sadly secluded) place by a stranger, told by someone’s dad at at girl guide event that he had noticed my breasts were jiggling while I was dancing age 11, chatted up and offered a drink at a bar age 12 (it was a bar at a hotel as we were at a family party thing, and lost my virginity age 13. Uncoerced I just add- but I think I just assumed this was what I was for… sexual activity.

I feel like we keep these sharing stories, like after #MeToo and after the murder of Sarah Everard. Surely it can't still be shocking to men? Didn't they hear us first time round?

Its not shocking. They just like to pretend it is. We are supposed to pretend we don't see/hear them cashing in on the creeps.

As much as they will denounce the creeps to our faces, the rest do still know they are onto a good thing. After all the existence of the creeps means that by merely not acting as a creep they get be seen as the good guys with zero effort at all.

Who would want to lose that?

@icantlivewithouttea

I feel like we keep these sharing stories, like after #MeToo and after the murder of Sarah Everard. Surely it can't still be shocking to men? Didn't they hear us first time round?

Exactly.

For the self-styled logical sex - where is the joining of the dots? Why are we still encountering the #BeKind nonsense and asked to suppress our protective mechanisms?

NAMALT doesn't matter when SMALT (Sufficient) go unchecked by them and wreak this harm that we carry with us in our day-to-day wariness.

We need men to intervene with eachother. I don't agree with him on many matters (nor would he with me) but Daniel Sloss got in (the video is now impossible to find. Benedict Cumberbatch gets it.

Sloss
--
The Scottish comedian said he has been thinking of a solution to the problem for a year.

He said: "It has to involve us. And by 'us' I mean men."

He says that he is not attacking the men in the room or his friends, before proceeding to tell his harrowing experience.

The comedian said: "I knew this man for 8 years and he fucking did it. There are monsters amongst us and they look like us."

He told his male spectators that if they are sick of the narrative, they can feel free to change it but they have to get involved.

He urged his male audience not to "sit back" and think "I'm not part of the problem."

"Deep down, I know most men are good", he said, "but when 1 in 10 men are shit and the other 9 do nothing, they might as well not fucking be there."

Speaking of his experience, he said that, looking back, there were signs in his friend's behaviour towards women that he ignored.

"And then he raped my friend. And that's on me until the day I die."

"Talk to your fucking boys. Get involved."

www.joe.co.uk/entertainment/daniel-sloss-monologue-goes-viral-and-every-man-needs-to-hear-it-266286

I think I knew my power at about 14. I hate to say it but I quite enjoyed the attention 🤦🏻‍♀️

I don't know if I could put an exact age on it but certainly around 9 or 10. I developed breasts very early and was definitely a D-cup by the time I left primary school at age 11. Previous to that I remember friends of my father leering and making inappropriate comments while I tried desperately to wear the baggiest clothes possible and sit hunched over with arms folded.

My first real experience of very overt and direct attention was at 13. We were on holiday and my mum had bought me a cropped top to wear. I was skeptical but she really built up my confidence by telling me how good I looked and I should show off my body more. I wore it one day and for about the first time in my life, decided I really liked how I looked and felt confident with my appearance, so I wore it again at night to go out for dinner. Mum and dad would always let my sister and I go for a walk alone in the resort after dinner, to get ice cream, while they had a drink. Walking down the street, I ended up surrounded by older teenage boys and men in their 20s. Several put their hands on my bare midriff, one tried to put his hand under the top. I clearly remember one of them saying he had seen me earlier and had watched me all day. I had been completely oblivious in the daytime and was terrified by the ordeal. My sister managed to get between them and me and got me back to my parents where my mum blamed me for wearing such a thing in the evening, asking what on earth I had expected and that it served me right. I binned the top after that.

My view on this is not that men are shocked by the revelations but that they are shocked to hear that we are and were so affected by these comments and actions. I think they still believe we should be flattered and are only now starting to realise the comments were creepy and damaging.