men

Jazz

I was 10 or 11, and he was 14 I think. It was in the end of the day, I had just come home from school maybe and hour ago. I was at home (brother,sister,father,and my dad’s friend were home too) I was walking down the hoiallway and I had just walked past my brother slightly opened door. When he called out to me, and I had nothing to do so I called back saying I was coming. I pushed open his door, and looked up at him. (He was lying on his bed, but it was a top bunk so I couldn’t quite see him.) he said he wanted to show me something, so I went up closer so I could see what he wanted to show me. When I went up closer I saw what I now know was an erect penis. (I went to a catholic primary school, and I didn’t know anything about male anatomy at the time) I’m not sure what I did, but I think I made a weird face, and I was totally confused. He put it away in his pants and showed me a stuffed toy that he cut a whole into, (I’m sure you can guess for what reasons) Most of the details and the rest of what happened i can’t really remember. Is all very foggy, and I remember feeling icky for the rest of the day, and days after that as well. I didn’t know it was wrong so I didn’t tell anybody. I truthfully thought it was normal. I remember looking at him and seeing him days after, and feeling weird and awkward. Now that I think about it there were other times where my brother acted very sexually around me. One time he smacked me in the bum. There was another times when he asked me to sit on his lap I can’t remember for what reason. I did. And when I sat down he pushed himself against my bottom. There were times he would say very degrading things, and just all around be inappropriate. There are other times Where I walked home from school and I would notice cars going a bit slower when they passed me in my wind-blown skirt. Or feel unsafe when a group of older guys would pass me on the street. It absolutely sucks to feel that way. I feel like i might have selective amnesia maybe about some things that have happened to me in my past because they were to traumatic to have at the front of my brain. And it took me a while to remember what happened. I only remember because I watched the Netflix show Sex Education. And there is a part in the series where Aimee (one of the characters in Sex Ed) gets jizzed on by a man in the bus. (I actually found this site through a video on Netflix’s YouTube channel about Aimee’s story) and it made me think of times I felt uncomfortable and unsafe, or weird. And then I remembered what happened and it made me feel sick. I don’t know what to do to about it. I’m not sure if I should tell someone. The most frustrating part is that my brain keeps trying to discredit what happened to me. Like did that really happen? You did this for attention? Blah! blah! blah! But I didn’t my brother did. He did it because he wanted a reaction. No I’m not sure what you would even class this as. I looked up (I looked this up after remembering what happened to me) similar things, and the closest thing I could find was indecent exposure. But the definition says it’s when someone displays sexual organs in a public area where it is not wanted. And I’m thinking in my head, well that didn’t happen to you jazz, it wasn’t in a public place, and maybe you did want it. I didn’t even know what a fucking penis was for crying out loud. what happened to me was wrong, and it is wrong. And also the thing is is that my brother was 14 when he did that to me, would he even have punishment or consequences at that age. And as a women I am conditioned to go. Oh well he was just young and dumb. And that it was a boy being a fucking boy. I am done. This needs to stop. I am horrified at what I have come to realise about the world at this time of writing this I am 14. At one of the things that makes me so mad is that no one knew. No one asked me while I was weird around him. No one knew what head done. That’s what sucked the most I felt fully alone. And now I know that I am not. That that feels so good. 😉 Ps, sorry this was so long. I just needed to get it off my chest.

KD

Where is the line between sexism and sexual assault? Do they go hand in hand? Sadly I don’t know one woman who has not experienced sexual assault. I have had male friends approach me for advice, concerned about an experience their girlfriend has shared with them . They cannot believe it when I explain that what happened is unacceptable, but, for me this is not shocking or surprising. Women talk about sexual assault as often as they experience it, sometimes its in the form of a joke, an eye roll, a drunken rant in a public bathroom or in a quiet and vulnerable disclosure. I caught up with a group of boys I shared a uni flat with for our regular Christmas drinks. We drank wine and reminisced about uni days and a bar on Cowley Road a couple of us worked in. ‘Oh the owner was an arse! Remember when he put you in a chicken suit to promote a night!?’, we laughed remembering my poor friend humiliated in a chicken suit. Next I was in the hot seat, I had been fired from that job, the only time I have ever been fired. ‘You know, I think he had sex with me.’ This stopped the conversation dead in it’s tracks. Shit. Now I’ve ruined the mood. These boys, my ‘brothers’, immediately protective, concerned, upset. An onslaught of questions. ‘Well, I was drunk and I don’t really remember.’ I remember, but I don’t want to completely sour our Christmas celebration. There is solidarity in sharing. There is solidarity in this website. Women experience sexism and sexual assault every day. I am thankful for all the women who have consoled me and consoled in me. I think it’s time we share this knowledge with the guys. To the men reading this forum, thank you, for being curious, open minded and conscientious. I’d like to share with you more often. Communication is Power.

Westcliffe

My train home from Bristol Temple Meads has been cancelled and I am sitting on a bench on the platform waiting for the next one. A pair of young women (I am male) are sitting further down on the same bench and in the last 5 minutes 3 different (male) GWR staff have approached the women and asked if they are ok and if they need any assistance for arrangements for their journey. I have been utterly ignored. I guess the age old attitude of if you are a guy you have to fend for yourself still holds true.

Jo

When my husband told his boss he was taking FMLA for a few weeks after our first child was born, his boss said “isn’t that women’s leave?” and all the men in the office were jealous he was getting a “vacation”.

Kim Johnson

At home, my partner and his friends are in the garage gym, training. The talk is about the girls who go to the gym they also go to. Of one girl, who two of the guys like, I hear my partner joke to,them that they should share her. They then talk about how one of the girls wears clothes that she doesn’t have the figure for and she should swap with this other girl. The really sad part is they are all nice men….they don’t mean what they say. It kind of makes it worse.

Dom

I need to get this out. I’ve gone out with my brother and boyfriend for a couple of drinks the past two Saturdays. On the first occasion, my brother who calls himself an ‘anti-feminist’ not necessarily knowing what the word even means, was talking about the kind of girl he wants to marry. How she needs to cook for him and be smart, you know the awful, overrated story. I rolled my eyes and simply said you’ll never find one, women are getting too strong to appease that kind of crap. What got to me more however, was how he spoke to me. He seemed more comfortable speaking about women to my boyfriend, than he did to me, as everything I said was responded to by a ‘F*ck off’. Fine, I dismissed it as a boys topic mixed with drunkenness as well as the probable knowledge he holds of no woman ever being his cook and cleaner in his life. Let the boy dream, I thought. The Saturday after, my boyfriend brought up a topic we argued about. Then said actually he doesn’t want to talk about it, but I insisted that if he started we may as well explain it to my brother fully and see what he thinks. What I wasn’t expecting though, is having every sentence I started being interrupted by him. I didn’t get to explain the tinniest bit of my opinion or argument. Every single sentence starter that came out of my mouth was finished by him. It got to the point where my brother looked at me with the words ‘I’m so sorry’ screaming from his eyes and said ‘Let’s maybe change the subject.’ Just for contextual information, both these guys speak about there not being such a thing as feminist or unequal rights that need fighting for. Yet this happens? Yet I am silenced twice, for trying to T A L K in the presence of two boys? How are they this blind and deaf and goddamn ignorant to the problem they are so casually the cause of? Girls, who’s up for a drink with me, because I’m not planning to go with the opposite sex anytime soon?

Chuyita

I recently purchased the book ‘Everyday sexism’ and it awoke the urge to talk about my experiences with sexual assault and sexism. As a Hispanic teenager, I am expected to know how to cook, clean, be polite and submissive, and respect men simply because they are the ones who will protect me as I am ‘fragile’ and ‘not smart enough yet.’ It really sucks to have to require validation from my father in order to stay in the U.S. and obtain a higher education than i would in my native country. It is extremely exhausting to not be able to hang out with my friends or to burp or to be fat or hairy because that’s not ladylike. At school I have to deal with my fellow classmates looking at my body and I honestly hate being responsible for not getting raped when I walk down the street. I hate having to carry around loose bobby pins and how my brother was forced to teach me self-defense in case someone tries to do something. I don’t like the way I feel when i have to not make eye contact and lock doors behind me when I see a man give me a weird smile. I’m sixteen years old. I don’t like not being able to show my shoulders or my knees because a horny teenage boy might find that attractive and try to take advantage of me. I have been told that they are ‘complimenting’ me and that I should be grateful that someone would ever find me attractive, but the truth is that it makes me feel really uncomfortable and it makes me want to puke. A huge form of sexism that I see in school and in the general public is that we often fail to understand that men get sexually harassed, men get raped. I have met plenty of boys who have also ran away from other men and in some cases women. I have noticed and even done it, with all honesty, I grabbed my friend’s stomach and made my way up to his nipples and everyone took it as a joke, i noticed that even thouhh men are usually the ones to attack they are also victims and they get no validation or respect. You see? Men are also struggling with this because just like how I’m expected to be the perfect wife they are expected to be tough, strong, fearless, and ready to take any compromise or burden on their shoulders and not complain. Men are also victims of sexism. Men have feelings. Men are worthy of being loved. Men are worthy of being held and cared for. Men are a light of love in the darkness of sadness. There are a fair amount of men who have made mistakes or simply bad choices; choices that have affected many of us, but men are also pure and they are victims too. I have been sexually assaulted by both men and women and the only difference were the sound on their voice and their body type. Their intentions were the same and essentially had the same outcome. Is no different. I want to make a change and make school a safer environment for both boys and girls but we need to make it clear that feminism is gender equality and that it does not mean that women are better than men like many of my peers think. This is just a little something of who I am, what I’ve been through, and what i stand for. I might return later on. Thank you

Daisy

Bloke knocked into me in a club (I felt fine about this, it was unavoidable) but he apologized to my boyfriend about it (I was furious), then my boyfriend accepted his apology (I was extremely furious).

Ashleigh

Every time I go out partying with my friends, being fondled or groped is a guarantee, but a few months ago I was left alone in the middle of a crowded club, a man approached me and grabbed at my waist talking to me. I couldn’t hear him, but I replied ‘sorry, I’m just looking for my friend’. He didn’t let go of me, and I pushed his arms off and ignored his continuing advances. I have never really had an extremely violent response from rejecting a guy, but this man grabbed my forearm yanking me towards him and began shouting into my face. “Who the fuck do you think you are ignoring me? You stuck up bitch, you don’t ignore me.” And I was petrified as he grabbed at my bum. I wanted to sob as no one was helping me, and the man was at my face, but I’d heard of girls who fought back and got glasses smashed in their faces. My mother always taught me to just walk away from these kind of men, but she never said what to do if they followed you. Eventually, I was able to wiggle myself away from his grip after a harder shove at him. I considered myself lucky that I managed to escape. That same night, another boy, who was my friend, groped my chest and held me to him forcefully by shaking an arm around my waist and pinning me to his back. The next morning I told my Mum, she didn’t seem worried, I’m still not sure if any of this constitutes as sexual assault.

First date

Met a guy for the first time through an online dating site. The whole date went well, he was nice and courteous throughout. We were standing in front of the beach just as the date was coming to an end, it was windy and we were both facing the sea. Out of the blue he says, ‘are you trying to cover your cleavage?’. I lost my cool completely and gave him a piece of my mind. We ended the date and headed home. He was extremely sorry for his behaviour. But where the hell does such an audacious comment come from when you have just met a girl?