public pool

CAL

When i was about 12, i used to love going swimming at the local pool. At the end of the swim, i would always go for a shower and then my mum would be waiting to pick me up afterwards and take me for lunch. It was always a happy memory. On one particular uneventful day, the pool was especially quiet and not a lot of people was about, while i was getting ready to have a shower, i noticed this man who must have came walked after me who kept staring at me, he looked like he is in my dad’s age range and although he was smiling, i did not feel warm or safe, i just felt completely unnerved by this for reasons i did not understand at the time so i shook it off to just my parents always telling me to be wary of strangers. I went to the far end to try and keep my distance but when i came out of the shower, he was standing literally by my cubicle and had his penis out, again smiling. I panicked but i could not move and he asked me if i wanted to touch it. I then started to tear up with fear and ran off but as his position literally blocked my path to my locker, i had to brush past him and he looked like he enjoyed. I will never forget that smirk on this face. I never told anyone because i thought that as a boy, this never happens and that my mum would make a scene and i just wanted that day to end and never talk about it. I felt, alone, shame, embarrassment and guilt that something in the way i looked or behaved somehow encouraged him. Reading the stories on here has made me feel i am not alone and gives me the courage to tell my story. I still get anxiety at a pool and only go when there are classes on where there is plenty of people around after initially skipping swimming for almost 6 months when it happened. I hope this helps someone and the fear does go in time but there should not be any stigma for boys to talk about what happens to them.

Kate

Stared at my a middle-aged man whilst in a public pool. I was wearing a bikini sat at the edge of a pool with my friend. He was in the pool, treading water about a metre away from us. He noticed that we saw him staring said ‘sorry’ and continued to stare until my friend and I looked at each other, got up and left. We were 14 at the time.