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

@HazelCarbyFan

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

Did they isolate you or was this witnessed by adults who ignored it? (Ignore if this is intrusive.)

I was approached at 11 by a man (40s) on holiday by the pool. He tried to give me a key to his room and said I should visit whenever. All whilst feeling my arse. It was in front of loads of families. No one came to my help, my parents were swimming/asleep. I was totally frozen and felt compelled to be polite to him.

I was 11, going home from school in a crowded bus and felt a hand between my bare legs. Fortunately I had a safety pin handy (I grew up in a South Asian country where you learnt to carry something small and sharp for just such an occasion). I couldn't see who it was but a creepy old man got off at the next stop.

My sister was just 6 and sitting on our garden wall when another pervert exposed himself to her.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus witnessed and nothing done. But my school was spectacularly incompetent around violence and bullying - there was a boy with special needs and the boys used to follow him home and beat him up; their solution was to let him out 10 minutes early so he could run home. Girls got sexually harassed in gym class all the time. It was this modern learning school without uniform etc. (which was fine) but the downside was they had the idea that children could govern ourselves and that if they didn’t encourage “silliness” children wouldn’t be self-conscious about our bodies and it led to a Lord of the Flies situation on the playground.

In this case the boys were in my sister’s class. I think they were obsessed with her in a disturbed way so began harassing me. I was too little to understand what was going on, and adults did nothing.

I was 5 when a man tried to lure me into his car. A grown man also said something sexual to me when I was 11.

I was about 8. Fortunately I had no idea what was going on and was ushered away by my DM. It was only some years later that I put two and two together.

A man exposed himself to me and a friend on our way back from school when we were about 13.

5 a group of boys pulled my skirt up in front of the class in primary school. The teacher was there and did nothing.

I can't even write what I want to express because I'm so angry about adults closing their eyes and refusing to believe what they see.

And it's still happening and it's complex or it wouldn't persist.

And I've no idea what part of the network of remedies would be given our wilful purblindness and unwillingness to resource safeguarding and Social Services and so many other plausible interventions.

I remember when I got off the bus (I was going to a friends house - I don’t even remember where she was) we told her mum and she said ‘oh dear. Do you want fish for tea?’ So I didn’t tell my parents.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

I can't even write what I want to express because I'm so angry about adults closing their eyes and refusing to believe what they see.

Yep, or they have seen it but blame you.

My dad refused to talk to me after I was groped by a man old enough to be my dad on holiday in Paris. Infact, I was called a slut or more than one occasion. I was 12 years old.

I was 13 and looked a good few years younger.

I also remember the insurance man who came to our house monthly to collect his premiums (back in the 1970s) always tried to tickle me. It sounds so innocent but it was excruciating and looking back very inappropriate, but my Mum thought I liked the attention and always called me to come and say hello.

Christ I just remembered another family "friend" used to do this thing where when I was about to sit down he would whip his hand underneath me, he would make a first with his middle finger pointing upwards so when I sat down his finger was nearly in me. He would laugh at how funny his "joke" was. A fucking middle aged man, with kids my age, trying to finger a seven year old in front of her mother. They really do hide in plain sight.

I was 11 when I got my arse groped in a bus queue. I was so shocked I turned round and punched him and he ran away. Revolting little creep.

10, while wearing my school uniform.

Eleven