I remember the first time a man “grabbed me by the pussy”. I was at the Easter Show with my girlfriends. We went one afternoon straight from school, taking a spare change of clothes and stuffing our uniforms in our bags. We felt so grown up. Giddy with independence.
I was 13-years-old.
I didn’t notice him until it was too late. His hand grabbed me forcefully as he walked past. And he kept walking, disappearing into the crowd.
The shock hit me instantly and confusion was right behind it. What just happened? I felt sick. I knew it hadn’t been an accident. This was different to someone rubbing up against you on public transport when you find yourself second-guessing the sick feeling in your gut.
What he had done was obvious. And I felt dirty and small and vulnerable. And suddenly, I didn’t want to be independent. Suddenly the thought of being young and out in the world on my own, with my friends, felt frightening and like something I maybe couldn’t handle.
So that was my first experience of being sexually harassed or assaulted in public.
Back then – in the 80s – there wasn’t a name for what happened. Maybe groping. That’s the word being used by so many in the media to describe Donald Trump’s casual conversation about ‘not even waiting’ for permission to kiss women who he finds “beautiful”. To “grab them by the pussy”. That’s not called groping anymore.
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By 7 years of age I was regularly forced to give a much older relative blow jobs plus be touched whilst doing it: so by the time I was routinely "grabbed" throughout my teens and twenties, it barely registered that perhaps it was assault until reading this.
Having large breasts in highschool seemed to mean the boys were entitled to just walk up and touch them during school discos.
Regularly attending concerts and liking to be upclose to my favourite bands apparently means that it is okay to squeeze my bum and boobs.
Then enter night club sceen where not only have I repeatedly been touched but had guys stick their tongues down my throat (or try too) and force my hands on their crotch. I never really thought I had a choice in any of this.
Just felt like some 'sexual object' that now in my 30's has reached my use by date.
There was a boy in high school who used to routinely do this to the girls "grab them on the pussy" , this was in the eighties. We were torn between a sense of being flattered that we were the subject of his attention/horrified and trying to run away and pathetically worried that he might detect that we were wearing a pad and how off putting he might find that and the shame if he realised (that we were real human girls who had periods). It was probably only in the last year or so that it dawned on me that "these days people would call that sexual assault" and then the correction of my thoughts "NO not "these days" it was sexual assault". I've got no idea whether this man may now look back on his teenage actions in horror or even give it a second thought.