Underage

ellie

an old work colleague used to make inappropriate comments about me when we worked together. I was 16 he was around 37. he found my baby photos on my Facebook tagged and sent them around. when he eventually quit he sent a message to my childhood best friend who also worked there about how he was going to miss looking at my bum. my colleagues still tease me about him.

M

Hi, I will be 15 in two days and, I thought it was important to talk about how even when your as young as 12 sexual harrasment happens… When I was 12 I had gotten an in school suspension for pushing a boy back when he was being cruel to me. It had happened a lot and I was tired of it, my anger got the best of me though. I should not have pushed him I admit yet the way he got me back was something that I felt very demeaning and uncomfortable. So I went to the in school suspenion and there was only boys even a male teacher. The start was okay but as it went on it got bad. Iwas an early bloomer so my breasts were evident. They started talking about my ass and breasts and after about ten minutes of it my cheeks had become a dark shade of red and I could feel the tears in my eyes. I tried to tell the teacher which keep in mind as a 12 year old was very uncomfortable telling a male teacher what was going on but I did… He did fucking nothing! He told me to go sit down or I would get into more trouble and that I should ignore it because “Boys will be boys”. By this point the boys were talking about sex and one of them, even talking about screwing me and what it would “be like”. I was 12 I wanted to call my mom and go home. Yet they wouldn’t let me even call her. After the awful say I packed up and got ready to go home and went to tell my main teacher and I remember shaking and feeling scared but I walked up to her and told her. I ranted and explained for a good ten minutes. And she looked at me and smiled and said “Don’t woory sweetie that just means they like you. And plus boys will be boys”. Hearing those words I cried and ran outside ready to go home because I was embarrassed and felt like I was nothing, as a 12 year old in 6th grade. So I walked outside and waited for the bus and low and behold there was that [boy] who already me feel so fucking upset, and with good reason. And this little fuck looked a me smiled and started making these groce sex signs for me. So at this point i am done, I get on the bus I ride home quietly my eyes still puffy and my face bright red. And I am a pretty loud open person, So when I got home I told my mom what happened and she was furious and I looked at her and said “mommy, It’s okay we can’t do anything about it boys will be boys”. My mom sent a angry email and the school apolagized and that was it. no punishment. nothing. the school didn’t fucking care! Well they convinced me that boys will be boys. That I was making a huge deal out of nothing, that It was stupid and if anything It was my fault. It wasn’t I did nothing wrong I was wrong and hurt and it made me realize and figure out things no 6th grader should have to think out. Things like if I wear these pants are they going to say something again? Does this top show to much? What if they do something worse next time? It cause me so much anxiety and stress and yeah eventually I felt better and stronger but i was 12 I shouldn’t have had to deal with that, and yet I did and so many other girls do at such a young age.

ruf

Me and my best friend, who is 12, were walking down the street after going to Tesco when I left her side for one second and an adult man came and slapped her bottom. When I came back to her, unaware of what had happened, she told me what had happened and covered up her whole body with her hoodie. She said she didn’t want to make a fuss about it, the man was probably just drunk and it happened all the time. I felt so sorry for her and disgusted at the world that this had been normalised for her and she tried to make excuses for the man and say she was making a fuss. It is also so saddening that she felt she had to cover up her body as if it were her fault that this happened to her.

Sara

When I was 13 I was walking on a country road not far from my house (I’m from Italy, although I now live in UK). It was 2 pm and I was looking at flowers and minding my own business, when I heard a car getting closer, with loud techno music coming from it. I already knew what was coming, and I wasn’t wrong. The car stopped next to me, 3 guys in their ’20s came out, while one remained at the wheel (please remember I was 13, and looking younger). One blocked my path, and the others went behind me and next to me. The guy asked me if I wanted to get in the car for a ride. My reaction to these sort of things has always been to get aggressive, so I started to yell at them that they were disgusting paedophiles and picked up a rock telling them I would throw it at their faces (I was bluffing of course, as to really do that would have put me in the wrong in case the police was called, I already knew at 13 that I would be blamed for defending myself, even from 4 adult men). The guy in front of me told me I was crazy, and they all got in the car and left. This was one of the scariest but not the first or the worst instance of sexual harassment I experienced. No 13 yo should ever have to pick up a rock to scare some men off.

Still Affected

I was 14 doing a Saturday job in a garden center. I was tasked with clearing out one of the storage units with a colleague. He was probably at least 50 and quite overweight. As we worked we chatted and laughed etc. Then at one point he pulled me over to him and kissed me. He took my hand and pushed it down his pants. i remember thinking he had a really small dick and not really knowing how to react. He started to undo my trousers but I told him to stop because I was on my period. He checked, and I was, so he stopped. We went back to work like it was nothing. I told a colleague and he said “Yes, [he*] can be persuasive.” He told me he’d put a knife in the drawer in the storage unit for me as I was working in there with [him] again the next day. The abuser approached me on my next shift and told me that I can’t tell anyone else because I was underage and he’ll get reported. I repressed that memory for years until one day it came back to me. I still wonder what would have happened to me if I wasn’t on my period. I know I wouldn’t have stopped him, we were out in a storage unit and he was twice my size, he could have killed me. As I’m typing this out now, so many years later, it’s juts suddenly made me realise… the person that I told, the one who put a knife for my protection to be helpful, actually chose to warn the abuser that I’d said something instead of reporting the sexual assault of a 14 year old. That really stings… all these years I thought he was the good guy of the story, he’s not… he was just covering for an abuser instead of being one. (*I’m not protecting his identity, I just don’t remember his name, and I don’t want to.)

Anon, 15

I was on a school trip to the beaches of Newquay, Uk and the football world cup was on at this time. England seemed to be doing pretty well everyone was getting a bit excited by this first night, we were sent on an assignment that was a bit like a hunt to find our bearings around the area. when some drunk men came out from watching the match (we had won) and came up to the group of us about 5 girls and 5 boys and asked “are any of you ladies down to fuck” I was very taken back by this but my best friend without missing a beat turned to him, with a sassy tone in her voice, responded “underage, honey” this caught the attention of the crowd coming out of the pub and the other group from our class and everyone seemed so happy she actually bucked up to him. as we were too afraid to even though he didn’t hold any real threat to us as he were even struggling to walk straight. despite this and knowing I could outrun all of them with no problem, I still found my self afraid that someday I might be alone in a similar situation with a more sober man and freeze my real problem is I know that if I was to get raped my mental health would get really bad and I am 80% sure I will attempt suicide after something like that. especially as I am a lesbian who generally finds the idea of just kissing a guy repulsive

Catherine

I’m 17, and a man who looked like he was in his 30s hit on me on the bus. He then asked me whaty stop was, and when I refused to answer, he called me a frigid bitch.

Jamie

First time I was sexually harassed was when I was 14 by a boy who was 16. He thought it was okay to hit my butt because i walking up stairs in front of him.

sara

At the age of 16, i was the only woman employed in a family business who wasn’t related to the owner. After about 6 months and a promotion, i was finally being seen for my skills and i had proven myself (i was an assistant advertiser and advisor for website creation). There was one particular day in the office when the owner and another male co-worker came in later because they had been working form home. I was slightly bent over the desk writing things down whilst on the phone. The two of them stopped dean in their tracks and one whistled at me. The owner then said ‘thats the real reason I hired her’. I was mortified, knowing that the only reason I (who was 16!!!) was hired was because I looked ‘pretty’. Other things happened too that made me uncomfortable: 1. I had to clear all of the computers search histories and all cached data to speed them up, I found that the owner had been watching porn whilst i was in the office sat in the desk opposite him. 2. Another male coworker left so I cleared his desk only to find a thick stack of the suns page 3’s (around 4 months worth) under the desk pad. 3. the owner once had an affair, and showed me a photo of the woman, she was naked, and his current wife was in the adjacent room. He said he paid this woman for sex whilst she was at university and worked at me. The only good thing that came out of that job was the support i got from the other women in the office, whilst the owner did recognise me for my talents, i was more of a ‘pretty play thing’ in the office.

Silhouette

I’m too young to experience any of the everyday sexism, but my sister is not. She is only 16 but one day when she was walking our three dogs an adult man walked up to her and grabbed her wrist then starred at her breasts and said ‘your hot’ then ran away.