I just finished reading Wally Lamb’s book Couldn’t Keep It to Myself. It’s a collection of autobiographical essays by women in prison, and it was very interesting. Of course, all of the women had had terrible experiences in their lives, but sexual abuse was the common thread. And as I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with anyone I know (female, that is) who had not been molested or raped. Any woman I have ever gotten onto this topic with has had some similar experience. I can’t speak for the menfolk because I haven’t had this conversation with many men, but is this universal for the ladies? I have a daughter, and I’d like to think nothing of the sort has ever happened to her or ever will. So am I living in a dream world?
The closest I’ve come was in college, when the old lecher on my work crew grabbed at the elastic waistband of my sweatpants and snapped it. I’m sorry to say that I said and did nothing at the time; if someone like that tried that now he’d be pulling back a bloody stump. I’d call it harassment at worst, not molesting; he did not touch my skin.
But other than that, no, nothing.
No, but it’s early today. There’s always hope my wife will molest me at lunch.
No child abuse, but 1 attempted rape that failed when i bit out about 2 oz of flesh from his shoulder…though i did get a broken jaw it was worth seeing the guy going to jail=) [idiot turned up at the same hospital I was in and all they had to do was compare meat to shoulder=)] happened after i turned 18.
I had a distressingly white bread normal childhood=( so I am SOL if i want to become a serial killer … I cant pin it on anything=(
I wasn’t. As a teenager and as an adult I’ve had to slap a few wayward hands and issue a few verbal threats, but that’s about it.
I’ve never been raped, molested, or sexually harassed, and I’m female. Of course, I could just be repressing. . .
No, I kid. Never happened to me. It happened to almost every single one of my close female friends, though; also to some of my acquaintences. Admittedly, one or two of them rank pretty high on the “probably doing it for attention/sympathy/god-knows-what-reason” scale, but until I have proof otherwise, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Nope. Never so much as a hint of it unless you consider the few idiots I went to school with slapping my chest (I’m male but overweight) to be sexual harassment. If so, a handful of times over four years.
I have never been molested…
but if any nubile, young lovelies are looking to put a molestin’ on somebody, I can free up some time in my schedule… 
Pardon me if this is a hijack, but how do you differentiate among harassment, molestation, and assault? I assume there are legal descriptions. Or are these the kinds of things that everyone “knows”?
I’ve never been raped. I have been harassed. I have been assaulted, in that I was the recipient of unwelcome groping back when I was too scared/shy to deck the groper, but it was more in the harassment league rather than threatening - I was mostly annoyed but not in fear of rape. Is that what one would call molestation? To me, it was stupidly hanging around with a bunch of drunks.
To my mind, molestation is a systematic, deliberate series of actions, definitely a power play by the molester, which could easily lead to rape. So with that in mind, I’d say I was never molested either.
I do wish someone had told me as a child that it’s not impolite to demand that a person stop touching or stop saying certain things. I must have appeared to tolerate more than I wanted to because, you know, I didn’t want to come across as discourteous…
ditto this for me
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I have never been raped or molested, but my and best friend was raped when she was 15.
I have had traumatic experiences, but I stop short of calling it rape.
Okay, so there are a few. Good to know. It’s possible that some of the girls I’ve spoken to exaggerated in some kind of misguided plea for attention.
I’m trauma free, in this regard at least.
Well, once I was shopping and a guy was walking around without pants of any sort. Some people might say that was harrassment. Since it wasn’t ermm, directed at me in particular, I just thought it rather oogy and got on with my day.
I’ve had kind of a rough life at times, but there has been no sexual molestation here either. My mother, on the other hand, is a different story. . . 
As I was reading this thread I was thinking, “no… not me, never had anything like that happen to me…” And then I remember! How weird… I was visiting NYC with my friend a few years ago. We were both wearing shorts or skirts at the time and we were on the subway at rush hour. Both of us had a guy repeatedly try to feel us up. We kicked the shit out of him. Ew-bad memory. There are some sickos out there arent there.
I was in business school during the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings (1992?). One day all the women in my class were watching the hearings on the lounge TV and we began sharing our experiences. Every single woman had a story of being sexually harrassed on the job - the attractive ones, the not-so-attractive ones, the straight ones, the not-so-straight ones. Every. Single. One.
Some incidents were verbal (coersion, etc.), some were physical (groping, etc.). None went so far as rape, as I recall.
Up until then, I thoguht my experience had been fairly unique. It made me feel better about being 18 and not doing anything about getting trapped in my boss’ car (offered me a ride home after working late). (Just one incident in my work life. If I knew then…)
Molestation (i.e. in childhood) is not as universal as harrassment in my circle of intimates (thankfully), but still too common. And affects (happened to) men as well as women, of course.
I was going to say no to this, but when I was quite a lot younger, my cousin used to do stuff. I was about eight and he was fourteen (and he has learning difficulties) and while it never got to anything approaching rape or assault, I know now, looking back, that it was molestation. Did anyone else not realise at the time?
I’ve never been raped, have been harassed, but am not sure about “molested.” It all depends on the definition, as Fairy Chat Mom says. I had a traumatic experience when I was young, but I’m not sure if it would quite qualify as being “molested.”
Female, and I have never been raped, molested, assaulted, sexually harassed at work, etc. I’ve never had to deal with anything worse than a few drunken propositions from strangers. In fact, my husband is the only man that I’ve been more than kissed by.
I don’t know of any of my friends being assaulted either.
I’m feeling rather dismayed by the percentage of people on this thread who have had these experiences.
I’m female, and the only men who’ve laid a hand on me against my will have been over 60! 
I’d prefer not to discuss the incidents, but I’m afraid they have left me with a lingering distrust of old men and an awareness of one, rather frustrating fact. If a 20-something year old man touches a woman inappropriately, people will understand if she slaps his face, decks him, etc. If it’s a 60-something year old man, any physical defense leaves the defender looking pathetic.
I also had a 30- or 40-something year old coworker who tried to sexually harrass me on the job, but there were two problems. One, I worked in a different department; two, I outranked him. When I was eventually asked to help out in his department, which would leave me working under him, as it were, I went to his supervisor and told him what had been happening over the last several months so that the supervisor wouldn’t be surprised if I told him off. My coworker apologized to management about this, but never to me. Unfortunately, after I left the company, he turned his attentions to an 18 year old woman who did work directly for him. She chose not to sue, but if she had, I would have testified on her behalf.
I’m also happy to know there are some women this hasn’t happened to. In my case, the first time I was harrassed/molested/touched inappropriately was when I was 16. Nothing was done about it, despite it clearly being over the line.
CJ