# Women: share your stories of having your crotch grabbed (when you didn't want it) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 9, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105 "2016-10-09T22:32:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/181 "2016-10-12T16:03:56Z")
> [@kayT](#): > > Dear **AK84** , > > In case it’s not perfectly clear to you yet, the vast majority of us in this thread do not agree with your point of view and actually are not even talking about the same things you are talking about. I think maybe if you read what we are writing you might have a better idea where we are coming from but apparently you do not intend to do that. So, may I suggest that you go someplace else and stop starting fights in this thread? Please. Just go. So, you are only permitted in a thread if you agree with the majority opinion? So you are not permitted to offer another one. In anycase, the OP was about women having private parts grabbed and a related tangent began when one poster said that she treated all men as potential stalkers and rapists. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/182 "2016-10-12T16:06:30Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > In anycase, the OP was about women having private parts grabbed and a related tangent began when one poster said that she treated all men as potential stalkers and rapists. That person, whoever she is, is a horrible person. Can you please quote who said that? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/183 "2016-10-12T16:07:31Z")
> [@raventhief](#): > > I have had strange men tell me to smile my whole life. I guess I have resting bitch face. I don’t regard it as a courtesy. > > You have no idea why I’m not smiling. Perhaps I am worried about my dad, or today is the anniversary of my mom’s death, or the doctor called to follow up on something. Maybe my boss chewed me out or I got into a fight with my boyfriend. Some random guy telling me to smile doesn’t improve my day, and it’s not courteous. I’ve heard more of that from other women than I have from men. Here’s one memorable incident from my old job, although it didn’t involve me directly. One of the technicians came in to work and was a bit crabby, and another technician kept telling her to “turn that frown upside down”. I finally told technician #2 that this was none of her business. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/184 "2016-10-12T16:08:30Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > So, you are only permitted in a thread if you agree with the majority opinion? So you are not permitted to offer another one. > > In anycase, the OP was about women having private parts grabbed and a related tangent began when one poster said that she treated all men as potential stalkers and rapists. She didn’t say that! She doesn’t smile and greet every man who expects her to! That’s not taking every man as a potential stalker, that’s protecting herself after learning that SOME men are stalkers or just plain jerks. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/185 "2016-10-12T16:12:23Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > So, you are only permitted in a thread if you agree with the majority opinion? So you are not permitted to offer another one. > > In anycase, the OP was about women having private parts grabbed and a related tangent began when one poster said that she treated all men as potential stalkers and rapists. The thing is, Dude, you have told us your opinion, over and over and over, in a thread where the OP specifically asked for women’s experiences. Now, I don’t object at all to men coming in here and expressing an opinion (well, maybe I object a little bit). Expressing an opinion ONCE and then reading the rest of the thread to see what others think. Your continuing to insist and push and insult, well, it reminds some of us of the very behavior we came in here to discuss. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/186 "2016-10-12T16:12:57Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > And that would be true if I hadn’t written a paragraph before that one where I make it clear I am talking about strangers. > > So yeah, prickly bitch who deserves the abuse… Copy. > > This is my post in its entirety, bolding mine: No, I specifically said that no one deserves actual abuse. [Twice](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19693371&postcount=119). Relevant bits of my post. > [@](#): > > If you are going to treat everyone as a potential rapist or molester regardless of how they actually behave or act, then yeah guys will at annoyed at you. **Except, the actual genital grabbers, and the actual molesters, they deserve everything and more**. Not the guy who acts like a decent human being and gets trampled on for his troubles. > [@](#): > > A**ctual threats, actuals attacks on dignity (and cat calling is certainly one of those) are one thing** ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/187 "2016-10-12T16:16:52Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I’ve heard more of that from other women than I have from men. > > Here’s one memorable incident from my old job, although it didn’t involve me directly. One of the technicians came in to work and was a bit crabby, and another technician kept telling her to “turn that frown upside down”. I finally told technician #2 that this was none of her business. If I know the person telling me to smile, it’s usually a woman. If I don’t know the person, almost always a man. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/188 "2016-10-12T16:23:52Z")
> [@kayT](#): > > Dear **AK84** , > > In case it’s not perfectly clear to you yet, the vast majority of us in this thread do not agree with your point of view and actually are not even talking about the same things you are talking about. I think maybe if you read what we are writing you might have a better idea where we are coming from but apparently you do not intend to do that. **So, may I suggest that you go someplace else and stop starting fights in this thread? Please. Just go.** > [@kayT](#): > > Oh, and by the way the title of this thread is “Women: share your stories…”. So, **AK** , **you are not a woman apparently, so please go away.** Bolding added. **kayT** , please don’t tell other people where they can and can’t post. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/189 "2016-10-12T16:29:31Z")
**AK84** , I have gone back through to read your exchanges with **Mighty\_Girl**. With all due respect, your continued assertion about what she said involves—in my moderating opinion—an untenable twisting of words, and it needs to stop. Additionally, as you yourself noted, it is a tangent. Do not raise this issue again. And to other thread participants: anyone who is tempted to get in a last word on **AK84** on this point is subject to the same restriction. Drop it. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/190 "2016-10-12T16:30:58Z")
I hadn’t seen Asimovian’s post. Dropping this. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/191 "2016-10-12T16:33:23Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > That person, whoever she is, is a horrible person. Can you please quote who said that? You did in the post I responded to. As did **Nawtha Chucka** [in post 70](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19691543&postcount=70). Ok, in the interests of trying to keep this from going into another unproductive shouting match; I’ll ask you a question and I genuinely want to understand you here so. > [@](#): > > What’s wrong with a smile and a “hello”? You see, many of us once smiled back and the creep took it as evidence of interest. It may have even ended in the guy getting verbally abusive, stalkerish, or worse. **We don’t know you. Maybe you are a great guy, but we have no way of knowing, because that other guy also didn’t look like an asshole**. Could you explain what you meant by that? Because to me it seem(ed) that you were saying that since one person or more behaved appallingly, everyone with a Y-Chromosome was suspect merely for being male, irregarless of how they actually behaved. Is that a fair analysis? If so, why do you think that is justified. If not, what did you mean when you said that. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/192 "2016-10-12T16:35:31Z")
Just saw the mod post. Ignore the above post then, as ordered. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/193 "2016-10-12T16:43:32Z")
Twice I’ve had men almost hit me with their cars while I was out walking, then offer me a ride. The first time I said “NO” and the guy drove away. The second time the driver didn’t take my answer, and tried to get me into the car. Knowing better than to get into a stranger’s car, I immediately grabbed the fence behind me with one hand, held up my good hand, and screamed “I SAID NO!!” The guy drove off. If a woman says NO and the man does not give up, she should do anything possible to get away from him. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/194 "2016-10-12T16:54:29Z")
Before I leave, a short note to the men who came to say they believe us, it frankly starts to feel like gas-lighting when our experiences are questioned, like a good chunk of half the population of the world is living a collective delusion. I know most of you aren’t like that – thank all the gods that may or may not exist – but we learn VERY early to be careful. I am sorry for my sisters who’ve had it worse. I know how hard it is to speak out, especially on the internet, when it’s so easy to doubt us and insult us. I, for one, had never told anyone about the harassment because it is, frankly, incredibly humiliating. I am no prude, but some words, I thought, were better left unsaid. Now I know that not speaking about it maybe wasn’t the best thing, maybe my father, my male friends, my brother, my schoolmates, my workmates didn’t know, maybe they could have helped changed the culture, even if clearly none of them would ever do that. The thing is, how do you go home, at 9 or 10, and tell your father than a guy on the street told you he wanted to stick his penis in your little pussy (in not so “kind” words), or worse, that he tried to touch you? How? You think you did something wrong: Were your shorts too short? Should you have smiled back at him? What did you do wrong? Of course, nothing. Today I am going to have a painful chat with my 11 year old daughter. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/195 "2016-10-12T17:02:51Z")
There was a thank you left out of the first paragraph. please mentally add it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/196 "2016-10-12T17:08:03Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Just a minor clarification, the disbelief isn’t just from “I would never act like that.” I have also never witnessed that. I have never heard any man talk about that experience. The concept is so foreign that it’s like expecting someone to pull their earlobe when crossing the street. > > This is not because I’m a “nice guy”, just because this phenomenon exists totally outside my experience and imagination. That, in itself, is strange and disturbing. From social media exposure, after hearing this story repeated hundreds of times, I can’t deny that it’s real (and it’s a shame it took hundreds of repetitions). It feels like realizing there are lizard people living among us. Again, this isn’t skepticism, just ongoing shock. This must be in some ways what people call, and I am not saying it to be rude, unwitting privilege. I grew up very poor and am very critical of the poor based on my observations and experiences. That’s why in a thread like this I don’t downplay the prevalence. From my perspective I believe it’s even more prevalent. I grew up watching at least once a week a neighboring woman or my own mother or child get beat by a family member or s/o. So random ass grabs don’t seem all that spectacularly rare to me at least. I don’t get the sense people are downplaying the numbers or are belittling the experiences shared. I get the sense that people are trying to convey some sort of hope by sharing an anecdote that they aren’t predators. But here’s the thing, just like in a poor neighborhood where you obviously don’t belong, it’s not each individual that’s the danger. It’s the environment. They are obviously related non-linearly but you can’t blame people for caution. It’s sexist or racist. It’s survival. Everybody has the right to act in a way to ensure their survival if such acts biggest horror is merely the offense of someone else. That’s why I don’t care if people are offended. Being offended gives you no right to do anything to anyone. I don’t care if it it’s a word, a flag, a symbol, or refusing to smile. You don’t have the right to attack someone. Finally, I know the lady folks think I’m at some very, very rare times inappropriate and crude. But if the events described operated in sight of me I wouldn’t have been a weak, silent, observer. I’ve been in a few score fights. It wouldn’t these tentacles to engage in another if someone is being sexually assaulted. It would help make up for those times I was too small and weak to help my mother. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/197 "2016-10-12T17:25:56Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > A word to men, if I may: Do you often greet strange men, and smile at them? The answer is yes. You walk down the street, someone’s coming the other way, you smile and nod that person in passing. Man or woman. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/198 "2016-10-12T18:00:09Z")
I don’t know how this went from sharing stories about being grabbed in the crotch without invitation to pissing back and forth about women griping about street harassment but I wish I hadn’t contributed my experience only to come back this irrelevant garbage. ---
**Author:** ![Helena330](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helena330/32/531_2.png) [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/199 "2016-10-12T18:43:22Z")
**Octopu** s, you made some dumb posts early on, but FWIW, you’re ok in my book. What a shame this thread turned into such a mess. ---
**Author:** ![Amara\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@Amara\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amara_1)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/200 "2016-10-12T19:24:04Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I’ve heard more of that from other women than I have from men. My anecdotal experience is to back up **raventhief**. Apparently I also have resting bitch face. I’m generally courteous but apparently walking by someone with a preoccupied look is enough to have strangers (always men) shout out that I need to smile. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105.md?page=11)