I’ve seen a few threads lately where men, frankly, do not seem to get just exactly how common sexual assault against women is, and in one thread, are upset that they’re being treated as potential rapists.
Guys, this isn’t an insult, I actually think it speaks highly of you that you can’t imagine doing such a thing and are so deeply insulted that anyone would suspect you of being a sexual predator. I don’t think the women saying that they sometimes worry about being around straight men are intending to insult you. This is something we’re basing on our own experiences.
I’m making a poll, it may take a few minutes to get it up.
I’ve been made to feel uncomfortable both by strangers and men I know (and trust would not hurt me) countless times. Many different situations, from comments about my body or sexuality that made me mildly uncomfortable (I seem to be more sensitive about this than many women I know - it’s never a compliment to me) to street harrassment and stalking that made me extremely fearful for my physical safety but did not, thank goodness, end in physical assault.
I have been sexually assaulted once (groped), by a manager at a job. I quit when the owner refused to take action.
I consider myself so, so lucky. Most of my female friends have been sexually assaulted many more times than I have. Roughly half (that I know of) have been penetratively raped at least once, usually by men they knew (and usually, trusted quite a bit) - only one has been the victim of stranger rape.
Do you have links to some of those threads?
Are you saying that sexual assault is particularly common or that rape is particularly common? All rapes are sexual assault but not all sexual assaults are rape and using the broad category to refer to the specific category and vice versa can lead to misunderstandings.
I just made a list of the seven women I’m close to, and six of them have reported to me either sexual abuse or sexual assault at some point in their lives. (AFAIK.)
Four were sexual abuse by male family members, one was child sexual abuse by a female friend, and one was acquaintance rape at a party held in her own home when she was a teen. So I guess they were all child victims.
I’m the only one who said I’ve never experienced any of those situations. I usually am extremely confident I can deal with whatever arises…excuse the pun. Maybe that confidence has broadcast itself, but no man ever has touched me in an overt sexual manner without my permission.
I voted for the first two options. I’ve had a stranger expose himself to me at a bus stop (trench coat and everything, no kidding), and I’ve had coworkers who have made some very inappropriate comments about my breasts. Luckily the coworkers knocked it off after I told them to quit it or be reported.
I don’t consider either or those situations to be sexual assault, though. Uncomfortable, maybe, but not assault. Just my view, I guess, but unless I’ve been groped or something worse, I’m just calling it an icky uncomfortable situation, not a sexual assault. If this poll was simply “have you ever been sexually assaulted”, I’d have clicked on “no”.
I’m happy to hear that you’ve never been in such a situation, but consider what you are saying. Do you think that women who have been hurt aren’t themselves confident? That it’s the attitude that a woman projects that causes men to react in a certain way?
Am I the only person who finds it annoying that some people want to take someone’s words and twist them until they mean something bad?
I think it’s quite obvious the poster was just trying to figure out a reason she’s never been assaulted, and was not trying to impugn anyone else who had. To assume the latter seems to me to be looking for a reason to be offended.
And here I was thinking Elysian and I could have a civil and potentially interesting conversation about this topic. Do you have anything constructive to add, or are you just interested in name-calling?
When I voted I forgot to check to see if I could click more than one.
I have been sexually assaulted by a stranger and I have been made to feel uncomfortable in a sexual situation both by a man I thought I could trust and by a stranger. I have also been a victim of date rape once and have come close to being a victim of date rape about three other times.
I was assaulted at a gas station while pumping gas, so I chose assault by a male stranger. That’s pretty straightforward.
A dude from the internet found my phone number (at work) and started calling me and saying he was going to rape me. I don’t know if that’s exactly what being “made to feel uncomfortable in a sexual situation” is, but I did choose that option. So, if that doesn’t really qualify, ignore one of the votes. (I also had a stalker in college, but it wasn’t explicitly sexual.)
Oh, in describing my ‘‘tally’’ of women I know, I didn’t include myself. I have never been sexually assaulted as an adult, but I was sexually abused by two different stepfathers as a child.
In my circle, child sexual abuse is way more common than adult rape, however I don’t really hang with the kind of crowd likely to be in social contact with a lot of different men.
I’ve never really had an issue trusting straight men my own age. When I said in that previous thread that being around gay men as a teen felt ‘‘safe,’’ I meant it in the sense that I didn’t have to constantly worry about how my hair looked and whether he found me attractive. If you think of high school as this constant performance in which you feel the need to look and act as attractive as humanly possible, hanging out with gay men was like hanging out backstage, the one time where being attractive wasn’t an issue.
ETA: I should probably go clarify that in the original thread.
