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“Man, I wish I was that straw.”

September 16, 2013 By Contributor

I was waiting on a bus stop in the morning, on my way to work. There was one man sitting at the other end of the bench. After a couple of minutes, he leans over to me and mumbles something. I thought he might be asking, “Do you know what time it is” or “Has the number 20 bus gone by yet,” so I said, “Excuse me?” and he repeated his earlier remark, “My nuts is sweating,” with a leering smile.

On another occasion, I was walking down the same street, in the middle of the afternoon, drinking from a straw. A middle-aged man going the other way down the sidewalk says to me as he passes, “Man, I wish I was that straw.”

Then there was the time I was driving to Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a female friend. As we’re going down the highway (rural area, so there were very few cars), another car pulls alongside us and starts keeping pace with our car. We look over to see the male driver vigorously masturbating while glancing over to make sure we see what he’s doing. We try speeding up, slowing down, but he continues to adjust his speed (of his car, not his hand) to remain next to our car. Again, rural highway, hardly any other cars around and no nearby exits; this was also in the days before cell phones, so calling 911 wasn’t an option.

There have been plenty more instances, but you get the idea.

– Anonymous

Location: The bus stop incident was in St. Louis, Missouri on Delmar Blvd. at the intersection of DeBaliviere. The straw incident also occurred on Delmar, just west of Skinker.

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“This is not ok”

September 15, 2013 By Contributor

My friend and I were walking to her house at around 3 a.m. and some guy came up behind us, lifted our dresses up and grabbed our butts. We both turned around and started yelling and screaming at the guy, but he was already half way down the block. I yelled vulgar things and started to run after him and wanted to call the police but my friend told me to stop and not to call the police because she didn’t want to get stabbed (I don’t know why).

I was very angered and did not want the guy to get away because I wanted something be done about this because this is not ok but my friend didn’t want to so I let it go.

– Anonymous

Location: 610-624 Mason St, San Francisco, CA

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“Why would I agree to go out with him?”

September 14, 2013 By Contributor

I was walking home on the left side of a busy street one night. It was about 10:30 or 11 p.m. on a Friday, so not that late. I was wearing a jacket, jeans, and some cute shoes, but nothing that I would consider to be all that sexy. A man in a nice SUV was driving on the street going the same direction as me. He honked at me and startled me, and when I didn’t respond to him, he turned around in the middle of the road so he could drive up beside me (I was on the sidewalk with about 3 feet of grass between me and the curb).

He asked if he could take me out sometime, as if I were a call girl. I politely said, “No, thank you,” but he persisted. I again said I was flattered but not interested, and I walked away.

I never felt unsafe, but I felt really uncomfortable.

I am really baffled by his behavior. We had never met – he knew nothing about me, nor I anything about him, so why would I agree to go out with him? Why would he persist after I said no? It just seemed really creepy and inappropriate, even though he was polite about it. I tried to be polite to him because I worried that if I was rude (deservedly) or told him off, things might escalate, even though it was a busy street. I should have said something more to him to indicate that what he did was not cool and that he should not try this on other women.

Sadly, I think there will always be men who believe that they have a right to treat other people (usually women) this way.

– Anonymous

Location: 16th St NW, on the border of the Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights neighborhood, Washington, DC

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Racial harassment in Virginia

September 13, 2013 By Contributor

I was driving my car down the street, just dropping my daughter off to school and a white man with short red hair came out of no where and started harassing me for no apparent reason. He was calling me names like dumb ass and making racial comments. He drives a green van and stays close to South Quaker Lane in Virginia. I wrote down his license to report him to the police.

I’m very uncomfortable in this situation because I have a young daughter and she doesn’t need to be in this danger.

– Anonymous

Location: South Quaker, VA

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“This was one of the first incidents”

September 11, 2013 By Contributor

Street harassment is a frequent incident in my life but this was one of the first incidents.

When I was 14 and I was walking home, I was at the bus stop right by my house, a guy around late 20’s/early 30’s started talking me, asked me how old I was, told me I was beautiful and asked where I was going. I told him I was going to my boyfriend’s house (I only said that in hopes it would be a deterrent, it wasn’t).

I can’t really remember what was said after, but I just remember I didn’t want to be rude and I didn’t know how to deal with that type of situation, I think I had said goodbye and then he kissed my hand, said goodbye and hugged me, then hugged me tightly, and tried to kiss me on the mouth but I turned my head and instead he ended up kissing my face multiple times.

I kept wriggling and said can you let me go please, and he eventually loosened his grip and I quickly walked away and didn’t turn around to see if he was following me but I walked around my block three times to make sure he wasn’t following me so he wouldn’t know where I lived.

I get harassed pretty much every time I leave my house but seven years later and this was the worst incident of someone being physical with me when I was 14 and didn’t know how to take care of my self properly.

Do you have any suggestions for dealing with harassers and/or ending street harassment in general?

When I can be in the mood to not be rude, I tend to try and explain how and why it’s not okay to the people harassing me. I usually try the “what if it was your younger sister/daughter/mother” approach. However, I don’t agree as although it humanizes the victim, it only really perpetuates the culture by suggesting that “a woman is only valuable in so much as she is loved or valued by a man.”

However, I feel that as we are not beyond the stages of where this is even actually being taken seriously by many, that having the harassers think of their loved ones in the same situation make them feel gross and yucky about themselves and hopefully stop.

– Nova

Location: London, UK

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