I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
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@alice I’ve come to expect the casual street harassment whenever I’m on foot for an extended period.
I was harassed by a medical provider at urgent care the first summer after I came out, and assaulted in a club last year.
I wrote about the latter here: https://chaosfem.tw/@Willow/115032757839470915
@Willow hug offered.
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@alice
I thought about replying to this one. Telling you that I learned to be different, to be just a chill dude who means no harm to no one and respects others.Fuck this shit, that is the minimum behavior everyone expects. I'm nothing special, I should be nothing special.
No, instead I tell you that I raise my sons to be exactly that. To treat girls as equals, to respect their needs, to respect their feelings like everyone elses. It helps that both have AuDHD, they already see the world as a neurotypical, cruel world and themselves as different. And they met enough bullies in elementary school and kindergarden to know how it feels to be on the "other" side. Yes, bullying and sexual assault is not the same, but it takes the same kind of people to do it, the same mindset. Look at your "Grab them by the pussy"-president for an example.
My boys won't grow up being bullies. My boys won't raise into sexual predators. And my boys won't accept this behavior around them, their ADHD-caused Robin-Hood-syndrome is way too strong for that, but I make sure anyway. And THIS is what I want to tell you, what is the important reply to your experience. Not "I'm different" but "No more!"
Nobody cares about "Not all men", it doesn't solve the problem. But I hope this will.
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I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13².
¹ InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
² that I remember@alice I came out later in life (trans femme) and was SA'd within the 1st 3 months at a very "inclusive" venue. I was severely traumatised and mostly stayed indoors for the next 2 months. I anonymously reported to the police just so the venue would be notified as I didn't want my name smeared all over police documents (because ACAB). The 1st time, I was ~12yo.
So OK, there's that right? And I've read thru all the comments. I feel like SA is very desensitised which really bothers me.
The deliberate yet possibly innocent deviation from your original toot (and the reason for writing it) from the "actually" people is quite disturbing. The selfish comments like:
"well, I haven't...." (the worst one, IMO)
"actually there are other factors..."
"not all (group)...."
"what about....."
They are usually followed by a variation of "me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me...."It's beyond distracting and simply hijacks the original comment. It forces the narrator (you) to explain nuances not having to do with the core of the discussion and dilutes the substance of the details. Literally halfway thru reading the comments, I forgot what the original discussion was about, like WTF?!?!
And this is why I don't even bother discussing my experiences with SA, bullying and harassment. No one just stops to say, "wow, that's horrible, I'm so sorry", etc. Instead, it's, "wow, I thought that venue was good" or "my SA experience was way worse" or "actually, you're not the only one so relax" etc, etc, ad nauseum. Anything to distract and make it about them.
So, for those that have read this comment, do you remember what I wrote in the 1st paragraph?
Be honest.
Or did you start to pick apart my piece so you could make a cool statistic, prove me wrong or make it about you?
Again, be honest. To yourself.
I think this is "a" main point of the original discussion. Not "the" main point.
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@Willow hug offered.
@alice Hug accepted 🫂
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I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13².
¹ InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
² that I remember@alice The knowledge of what had been done to various of my partners, is one reason I'm hesitant to present as fully femme.
Then again, I hit puberty a while ago.
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I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13².
¹ InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
² that I remember@alice only once that I remember, when I was 21. I wasn't fem presenting at the time.
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@mayintoronto @alice I feel that more than qualifies to the level of an HR report. Not acceptable on any level, but in front of kids?!
I guess it does depend on your situation, maybe "rocking the boat" could get you in a bad spot, which is a reality in some places, which I hate, but doesn't change the risks.
If nothing else I would report it so it's on his record? I dunno.
So sorry you had to deal with that. Men need to be better, do better. Good luck.
@Sablebadger @alice This was China. We were both foreigners, but he's white. Nothing would have come out of it since our employer sucked.
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@ghostprince It is absolutely not the same proportion. Under-reporting happens all around, for one. From all reliable studies, though, the proportion is heavily, heavily one-sided.
43.6% of women have experienced some form of "contact sexual violence". Half that for men. When it comes to completed or attempted rape, specifically, it's 21.3% of women and only 2.6% of men.
(Note: I'm a little confused about how a man can be "made to penetrate" someone, but that not be rape? That sounds like textbook rape. But even if we use that number, which is 7.1%, that is 1/3 of the rate women experience rape.)
(Note #2: for both "rape" and "made to penetrate", those numbers include both "completed" and "attempted".)
https://www.nsvrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2015data-brief508.pdf
The proportion's not the same, and it's not even close.
Every instance is a tragedy! But let's have an accurate picture of the problem.
@Azuaron Thank you for these statistics! They are very helpful.
I am still of the opinion numbers skew way higher than expected due to just how many cishet men don't even realize they've been raped, but it's good to have a baseline to refer to. I'd like my arguments to be able to stand on two feet, so thank you for your correction!
(also, iirc once we include trans men + mascs into the mix the numbers go up quite a bit...but a lot are categorized as women)
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@alexadeswift @alice huh, that's interesting, I'm a trans woman and i don't think I've experienced sexual assault ? like of course there's the chance that there's something i'm not remembering (yay CPTSD) but i'm pretty sure i haven't. i have had random men on the street or in cars catcall me a few times but that seems to me like harassment not assault
You aren't alone. While it is a common experience for trans people, masc and femme, it's not universal. The closest I ever came was not actually an assault since I was never in any danger. I'd call it harrassment, and I can really only name one incident in my life (which, to be clear, is too much and this was not a trivial incident either - it was an actual criminal act).
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@alice
I thought about replying to this one. Telling you that I learned to be different, to be just a chill dude who means no harm to no one and respects others.Fuck this shit, that is the minimum behavior everyone expects. I'm nothing special, I should be nothing special.
No, instead I tell you that I raise my sons to be exactly that. To treat girls as equals, to respect their needs, to respect their feelings like everyone elses. It helps that both have AuDHD, they already see the world as a neurotypical, cruel world and themselves as different. And they met enough bullies in elementary school and kindergarden to know how it feels to be on the "other" side. Yes, bullying and sexual assault is not the same, but it takes the same kind of people to do it, the same mindset. Look at your "Grab them by the pussy"-president for an example.
My boys won't grow up being bullies. My boys won't raise into sexual predators. And my boys won't accept this behavior around them, their ADHD-caused Robin-Hood-syndrome is way too strong for that, but I make sure anyway. And THIS is what I want to tell you, what is the important reply to your experience. Not "I'm different" but "No more!"
Nobody cares about "Not all men", it doesn't solve the problem. But I hope this will.
@momo @alice it reminds me my former workplace. Almost everyone displayed some kind of bigotry in a way of making "jokes" of it. And they said many awful things related to parenting, about "trophy girls" for sons, family shame if child would turn out queer, girls having to "control themselves" to not taint "their father's reputation"... I wondered what lessons their children learn in their homes and it weren't good thoughts.
Of course the most disgusting bigot was father with three daughters... I don't think he would be happy if these girls would have to endure society full of men like him.
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@alice I came out later in life (trans femme) and was SA'd within the 1st 3 months at a very "inclusive" venue. I was severely traumatised and mostly stayed indoors for the next 2 months. I anonymously reported to the police just so the venue would be notified as I didn't want my name smeared all over police documents (because ACAB). The 1st time, I was ~12yo.
So OK, there's that right? And I've read thru all the comments. I feel like SA is very desensitised which really bothers me.
The deliberate yet possibly innocent deviation from your original toot (and the reason for writing it) from the "actually" people is quite disturbing. The selfish comments like:
"well, I haven't...." (the worst one, IMO)
"actually there are other factors..."
"not all (group)...."
"what about....."
They are usually followed by a variation of "me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me...."It's beyond distracting and simply hijacks the original comment. It forces the narrator (you) to explain nuances not having to do with the core of the discussion and dilutes the substance of the details. Literally halfway thru reading the comments, I forgot what the original discussion was about, like WTF?!?!
And this is why I don't even bother discussing my experiences with SA, bullying and harassment. No one just stops to say, "wow, that's horrible, I'm so sorry", etc. Instead, it's, "wow, I thought that venue was good" or "my SA experience was way worse" or "actually, you're not the only one so relax" etc, etc, ad nauseum. Anything to distract and make it about them.
So, for those that have read this comment, do you remember what I wrote in the 1st paragraph?
Be honest.
Or did you start to pick apart my piece so you could make a cool statistic, prove me wrong or make it about you?
Again, be honest. To yourself.
I think this is "a" main point of the original discussion. Not "the" main point.
@evilyn thank you.
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