When I was 15, I was on a plane to Thailand for a highschoolers program and on the plane, I was in the middle seat between a woman and a large older man maybe in his 40’s or 50’s. It was a really long flight and by the time it was night time on the plane I woke up and the man next to me was hugging my arm. I didn’t think it was wrong or felt uncomfortable at that point, I thought he was just sleepy and that it was ok if I let him hug my arm while he sleeps. The whole plane was quiet and the woman next to me (she had the window seat) was asleep and this man then put his hand on my thigh. That was when I defineatly felt like no that’s not right and uncomfortable so I elbowed his hand that was on my leg and he made some grunt and rolled over to face away from me, pretending to be asleep. At that point I was so completely shocked and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to get out of my seat but the man was blocking the way to the aisle and I certainly didn’t want to have to talk to him so I could get out. The woman next to me didn’t see it because she was sleeping and I felt like she wouldn’t be able to do anything if I woke up and told her. Plus the guy would have heard me tell her and I was really worried he would call me out and say I was lying and I wouldn’t be able to defend myself. So I just felt trapped. I wanted to get out so badly but I just froze and couldn’t. I just sat in that plane seat between these two people, one of them who had touched me for the next 9 hours until the plane landed. The man just got out and left and so did I and when I was in the airport I told my cousin who was the same age as me. She didn’t say anything and I didn’t want it to ruin my trip by telling any teachers that a man on the plane had touched me so I just told myself to try your best to just forget about it. I haven’t told anyone except my cousin and she hasn’t said anything about it. I still think about it every now and then and get quite triggered when I hear sexual assault stories on the news. I don’t feel like I can tell my parents because it was 2 years ago now and its almost embarrassing. This is going to sound wrong but I don’t want them to think their daughter has been ‘tainted’ in some way or that I’m anything less than innocent. I know that’s a disgusting way to see it and I hate that women are supposed to be ideally ‘pure’.
