The first time I experienced street harassment (that I was aware of), I was 14.
It was around 7:30 p.m. I was walking back to the car with my mother and my brother after having dinner at a favorite cafe. We were enjoying the nice night – until we neared our car. A group of young men, obscured in the shadows of a tree, had a megaphone and began shouting at me through it.
My unusually long hair seemed to be their chosen target. They shouted through the megaphone for the whole street to hear that I looked “like a horse or a cow or something,” that they wanted to pull on it while they did me from behind. One of them ‘asked’ if he could cum on my hair.
I was shocked, confused, humiliated, angry, ashamed, and frightened. I was a very sheltered child and I had no idea how to deal with the fact that these strangers were yelling these things at me, in front of my family no less. We hurried to the car and left.
My first experience with overt street harassment was the most blatantly sexually aggressive incident I’ve experienced to date.
To this day it comes to mind and I wish I had done something to confront my harassers, or called the police to alert them of the men harassing passers by, or anything in addition to leaving. As soon as we had left and I was safely away from them I started wishing I had shouted back at them, that they were losers, were pedophiles, anything – once the fear was removed, the anger simmered.
I hate that they got away with it with no reprimand, no confrontation. I wonder what I would do if I was put in the same situation today.
– TN
Location: Noosa, Qld, Australia
