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

9 or 10, creepy neighbour who was friendly with my dad and an athletics coach took my sister and i out for a training run with his sons and then tried to insist we needed ti strip down in his car to dry the sweat of with towels, he also tried to get me to "scratch his stomach for him" ie. Put my hand down his trousers. Luckily my instinct that this was wrong was strong and i refused to do anything. He had been going on for years about how pretty my sister was and how she should be entered for Miss Pears (remember that!). I feel we failed the test and he didn't try again thankfully but he also emigrated so maybe he just member got the chance.
It is an extremely vivid memory, probably one of the most detailed memories of my childhood sadly.

8 years old, in 2008. Molested by a relative (on several occasions). I suspect many people think that this sort of thing wouldn’t happen very often these days because children are watched over more by their parents/ can’t roam free like in the bad old days. I generally had a very happy childhood and protective, sensible parents but this man was a opportunist who clearly knew I wouldn’t talk.

@RocketPanda

I was 6. I was being raped and assaulted by a relative on a regular basis and the interest from men since then never really stopped until I was well over the age of 40. Its aggressive and exhausting.

Oh my god I’m so sorry.

One of the things that sticks in my head is the man who was abusing me telling my mother that she should put me in skirts more often, because he liked to see girls in skirts. I think it was about ease of access.

I suspect many people think that this sort of thing wouldn’t happen very often these days because children are watched over more by their parents/ can’t roam free like in the bad old days.

And yet - we have the general concerns about GG who are content not to notify parents about particular matters (see recent discussion about the leader photographed with replica guns and in dominatrix outfits - now under investigation) and parents standing round watching activities with certain libraries' events like Storytime or as above, or even Pup Play and they don't intervene.

Parents and responsible adults are standing around watching very questionable interactions and not intervening.

Presumably there are some men who are present when this happens and they don't intervene. Maybe they are talking to their boys (as in friends) as Daniel Sloss would say but, if they are, we need to know about it and discuss why it's so ineffective.

I developed early - boy grabbed my breasts at primary school aged 11. Catcalls and leery looks - followed by lorry driver aged 12/13 who tried to find out where I lived (I had to duck down an alleyway). I was very shy and awkward and would walk miles out of the way to avoid builders etc. - this was 80s/90s and it was ‘normal’ for builders to shout out at girls who walked past. I hated being a teenager.

Primary 7 - so I was maybe just 11. Absolute bastardy filthy dirty old man. He must be dead by now.

I was 8. I walked into a corner shop and one of the workers tried to fondle my bum after leading me to the back where what I needed to buy was. I moved away and he tried to corner me but luckily the shop owner saw everything (he had those extended view mirrors) and dealt with it sharpish. I was 9 when my friend’s dad got drunk and tried to lift up my skirt at a party. Both men’s excuse was that I didn’t look my age which was ridiculous. If anything I looked younger than my age. They were just pedophiles.

This thread shows why safeguarding is far more important than hurt feelings of adults.

@TheMarzipanDildo

One of the things that sticks in my head is the man who was abusing me telling my mother that she should put me in skirts more often, because he liked to see girls in skirts. I think it was about ease of access.

It is about ease of access. And I've worn jeans and trousers most of my life because of similar comments (you'd look lovely in a dress, do you own a skirt? Etc etc) As for my first approach, not certain as was being badly abused by mothers husband from a very young age. Side note, I think those men that do this can somehow tell when a child is already in an abusive situation. But my best guess is 5. Taken by family member to visit some old man I'd never met before, maybe grandads brother? I was told to sit on his knee, he did the jiggling thing like I was a puppet, I felt the pent upness

Aged 8 on a bus. He sat beside me and showed me page 3 of The Sun.

Then he made me rub his erection.

14, by a married dad with kids.
16, ditto, different slightly younger married dad, kid very young.

I was about 12. I went on a family holiday and was leered at qnd approached by several men daily, I was also groped. My Dad wouldn't talk to me for the rest if the holiday because it was my fault, apparently.

I was also kissed, like a full on kiss, by a man who was late 30s when I was 14.

About 11. My friend and I were sexually assaulted by a stranger. We knew absolutely nothing at all about sex, had never even heard the word.
We'd been brought up to be good little girls and do as adults told us, but at some point we understood on a very basic level that what he was doing wasn't right, and managed to get away.
I didn't tell anyone until I was an adult.

And even before the age of 11 just playing in the park was an open invitation to every passing Tom, Dick or Harry to get his knob out. I must have seen a dozen before I was in double figures.

God this angers me so much.

My heart breaks for you all.

Local old man (70s?) used to drive around with sweets and try and get my and my friends in his car. I must have been about 9 or 10?

Turns out I found out later he used to target my younger brother also.

The next time I remember was the first year in high school being regularly cat called and beeped by men in vans in school uniform. It would have been uncommon to go a day without a comment or a beep.

Then when I was 12 I remember being poached by an older guy (old enough to have his own place) getting me drunk and texting me on my first phone telling me what he'd do to me and making plans (looking back I was groomed, I thought I was special at the time.) I vividly remember him messaging asking me when my 13th birthday was and that he 'couldn't wait because I'd be a legal teenager'. He got me alone one night in his bedroom and tried to 'go down' on me but I was too scared and made excuses to leave.

It all went downhill from there. Regular experiences with older men, attempted rape and sexual assault.

4 years old, first time molested by family member.
6 years old, my godfather was a singer in a band and as a treat I was allowed to see him perform in a local pub, on the way out a guy at the bar said "I can smell your pussy from here"
13 years old, in a waiting room for my therapist the male receptionist made a pass. I was not a very developed teen (now at 41 I'm 5'3" and small chested)
14 to now, too many comments, grabs and men following me to count.
Yet everytime these events come up in conversation with men they all act shocked. Bullshit there was other men in the room when these things happened, yet they all imagine that nobody they know would ever.

About 8, being tricked into showing my knickers by a boy 8n my class

About 10 getting my very small boob groped by someone I was helping to find their way to something

About 12 being wanked at by someone parked up as I walked towards their car

Etc etc

Arseholes

I'm surprised at how this has triggered some bad memories of being shown and asked to touch our trusted elderly neighbour. I was 6 or 7. Late 1960's.
Flashed at several times as a teenager.
I've been told by a male relative that I've been too protective of my girls!
So sad to see similar and worse experiences.

Age 11 sexually assaulted.

Bucking the trend here, my first recollection of being approached sexually by a man was when I was 17 and at university and it took me completely by surprise then. I could attribute this to having been a graceless lump of a girl who had bad hair, spectacles and frumpy clothes and gave out hostile vibes, but I suspect I was just very lucky with my male friends and family members.

@Dontbeme

4 years old, first time molested by family member. 6 years old, my godfather was a singer in a band and as a treat I was allowed to see him perform in a local pub, on the way out a guy at the bar said "I can smell your pussy from here" 13 years old, in a waiting room for my therapist the male receptionist made a pass. I was not a very developed teen (now at 41 I'm 5'3" and small chested) 14 to now, too many comments, grabs and men following me to count. Yet everytime these events come up in conversation with men they all act shocked. Bullshit there was other men in the room when these things happened, yet they all imagine that nobody they know would ever.

So true. This all goes back to the playground though. How many of them were boys who participated or complicit in chasing girls to look up their skirts, or ping their bra straps, or under the guise of 'kiss-chase'?

How many of them were boys who participated or complicit in chasing girls to look up their skirts, or ping their bra straps, or under the guise of 'kiss-chase'?

And the adults ignored the girls' distress and still do. I'm linking to a thread about this with a short quotation rather than reproducing it as it's so infuriating.

In the first incident, a staff member saw the children in the corner of the playground – but then proceeded to tell the girl off.

“She was told off for having her knickers and her tights down around by her knees with one of these boys behind her,” Anna said.

On a second occasion, another member of staff saw one of the boys with his head up her skirt. The assistant told off the girl for letting the boy stick his head up her skirt, and the boys were just told to “run away”. The girl was not talked to separately, asked what had happened or whether she was OK.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3364173-Our-kids-were-raped-by-classmates-DfE-wont-listen

Pinging bra straps on ten and eleven year olds was a favourite pastime of boys in those year groups as I remember. I'd forgotten. Plus the loud noting of who had a bra on yet and who didn't. It was so totally normalised, no one staff included thought it was anything more than messing about. It's quite amazing reflecting on it that women grow up as resilient as they do.

1. A bunch of older boys surrounded me on the playground and asked if I loved blowjobs.