I am an escort, and generally, my work conditions are reasonably safe. However, some of the laws around sex work in Canada make it a bit more difficult to avoid dangerous situations while at work.

For a while, I had a regular client in downtown Vancouver, in the rough part of town. My driver did not like to drop me off in front of his SRO (rooming house) because the police tend to hang around, and he could be charged with ‘living off the avails.’ One night, he dropped me off in the rough part of town on the corner and I had to walk towards the rooming house in my club dress and heels. Five drug dealers who hang out on the corner immediately started aggressively harassing me. “Get over here!” Where are you going looking so hot?’ “Oh yeah baby, come here.”

I told them I was going somewhere. They followed me yelling for a block.

When I got to my client, I was shaking. I took a few deep breaths in the hallway to calm myself down. The session went well. Afterwards, I knew that my driver would be expecting me on the same corner. I called the agency and told them to send him and prepared to walk the gauntlet again.

I decided to play nice with the drug dealers until the driver came back. I flirted a little, told them I’d been dancing at a club and that I was visiting a friend who was down on his luck. I said that my boyfriend would be coming to get me any minute. The whole time, I was terrified. I kept praying that they wouldn’t figure out that I was lying my face off and put two and two together about me being a working girl.

In a culture that treats people in my profession as something less than fully human, street harassment while working can take on an even more sinister feeling. Especially with the amount of street sex workers who have been murdered in this city.

– Carmen

Location: Vancouver

Share your street harassment story for the blog.

I was stopping at a convenience store on my way home from running an errand after work. I was dressed in my attire from work that day – a knee-length pencil skirt, short-sleeved top and heels. There were two men loitering outside the store as I entered, and one of them asked me if I had a lighter as I passed. I replied politely (and even apologetically), “No, sorry, I don’t,” and continued into the store.

I noticed while waiting in line that the two men were still outside loitering and talking to other patrons filling their gas tanks, presumably still asking for a lighter. By the time I came out of the store and headed toward my car on the other side of the gas pumps, the men were walking away and were now a short distance down the street. When they saw me, they turned and started walking back, shouting in my direction. I momentarily ignored them and began getting into my car, but before I closed the door I heard one of their shouts, “With a body like that, ma…”

I stood up back out of the car and turned to them and shouted back directly and clearly, “Don’t talk to me like that; don’t talk to anyone like that; and I didn’t ask what you think of my body,” and got back into the car.

They continued walking back toward me, still shouting/commenting to me, though I now had the car door closed and could no longer hear them. Before I drove away, I noticed that a truck with two men inside had pulled up next to me and were yelling back at the two loiterers on foot. I assume by their intervention and sympathetic looks that they were defending me and/or yelling at the men for their comments. It made me really proud for speaking up and proud that there are bystanders who will step in and do the right thing, too.

As always, I credit this community for the awareness and encouragement of standing up against street harassment. These stories and dialogues enable me to envision how I could handle harassment before it occurs, so when it does I am prepared and not flustered or caught off guard. I love that this community helps us all stand up for ourselves, influence others, and ultimately effect positive change. Thanks & kudos to everyone who contributes to these discussions.

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

– Sarah

Location: Valero Corner Store, US Hwy 281 N just south of Thousand Oaks, San Antonio, Texas

Share your street harassment story for the blog.

I am 14 years old and I live in southern Wisconsin. I was grocery shopping with my mom. This was a couple months ago… This was my first time getting harassed.

So I was wearing some really skinny leggings. And I felt confident, then my mother told me to get milk. So I was walking towards the milk and there was a whole bunch of people. As I was walking I got these weird stares and I felt uncomfortable. Suddenly I felt a light finger touch my butt. I was really shocked and I wanted to cry. I turned around and a man said, “Oh sorry”.

I wanted to claw his face but I thought I could get in trouble. So I let him go free. Nobody saw!!!! I was so mad!!! I am scared of men now. Even my own uncles and father!! I told my family and they took it as a joke and laughed away the serious conversation.

I need some real help!! Can anyone suggest something’s that can help me? I am very depressed and terrified of even looking my best for anything! I sometimes cry myself to sleep. Help!! Oh and people honk at me when I walk around my block.

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

– Anonymous

Location: A grocery store in Wisconsin

Share your street harassment story for the blog.

Trigger Warning

My walk home today was 15 minutes. In that 15 minutes, a car full of men drove by and yelled out the window, “You better run and lose some weight, you fat bitch!!”

I yelled back “F*** you, asshole!”

They then drove around the block to come back and yell, “I bet you’d beg me to rape your whale sized pussy.”

– Bridget

Location: South Bend, IN

Share your street harassment story for the blog.

Two weeks ago, when I was followed home after working, was not the first time someone followed me through the tangled streets of Jerusalem. Sadly, I’m sure it won’t be the last.

I walked back from a catering event, beer in hand (the manager is a friend of mine, and generally snags me drinks at the weddings we work together), on the phone with a girlfriend.

I walk past a garden, next to a small neighborhood bar. I notice a Charedi (Ultra-Orthodox) man, holding two beer bottles in his left hand, one green and one brown, stop and watch me as I pass. I see him take in my exposed knees, the beer bottle in my hand, and what he thought was my lack of awareness due to my phone conversation.

I stop laughing. My voice gets low, as low as it can, as I say to my friend, “I think I’m being followed. I’m on Shilo street, next the market.”

I go to stand under a street lamp, my back against the wall, relieved by the presence of several tourists and another young woman in the immediate area. I’m talking loudly again, making my existence known to everyone, hoping he’ll see the other people as well and give up. I watch him as he passes me, head down. I see him turn down a side street. I breathe a sigh of relief.

I continue on, glancing to my left as I pass his turn, making sure he can’t see me walking past, all the while narrating everything to my friend, hoping that all I’m saying is unnecessary, that it’s in my head, that I’ve shaken him.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I see only his back heading away. I read the end of the street, it’s 3 flickering streetlights are the most safety I’ll get for a few blocks. I tell her I’m turning around, just to make sure he’s gone. He isn’t. He’s back behind me, his pace still steady, but faster.

I’m trying to keep calm, I say to my friend- “I’m glad I’m in a neighborhood I recognize. I’ll shake him the alleys, twist and turn around.” I walk faster, turning right and then left and then right again, thanking my love of wandering through the neighborhood during daylight hours.

I’m trotting now, a fast and efficient shuffle, the adrenaline erasing the pain of my weak ankle and still-healing knee. I bless my ankle brace, my practical shoes, and break into a run, still narrating on the phone, still trying to shake him. I make a final turn, hoping please please please let the construction be finished, let the street be open, please please please I’ll go to my friends’ house, they’re a bunch of guys, I’m yelling in the phone now, my bag slams against the metal sheeting around my recently re-opened escape path. I don’t have to turn around anymore, behind my hyperventilation, behind the smack of my sneakers on the cobblestone road, I can hear him behind me, hear him catching up.

I reach my friends’ building, run up the one flight of stairs to their floor. I pound on the door, screaming, Open up! Open up! My phone has gone dead, there’s no service in their stupid stairwell.

“Who is it?” comes a voice from behind the door.

“It’s Deb,” I scream, “It’s Deb, please let me in, just open the door!”
“Who?!”
I can’t blame him for not opening the door at 11pm for someone pounding and screaming.
“Deb!!”
Apparently my hysterics makes my voice less clear, I keep pounding, he finally opens after 3 or 4 more exchanges of “who?” what?”
I fall into the apartment,  relief that he finally opened.
“What, what’s going on?”
“This guy… following me… running when I sped up…” I manage.
“Who, that guy?” He points to a figure walking up the stairs.
I freeze.
It’s another roommate.
Now I cry, I haven’t been followed up the stairs, at least.

“Oh yeah,” he says after I explain why the sight of him made me freeze and then cry, “That guy was hanging outside the apartment when I walked up, pretending to be on his phone.”

They gather another roommate, we walk outside to look for him, to make sure he knows following women around is unacceptable. He’s gone. We search a few more side streets nearby, nothing.

I’m shaking still, crying, shaking for a half hour until I can finally stop, and I get walked home.

Two weeks ago, when I was followed home after working, was not the first time someone followed me through the tangled streets of Jerusalem. It’s not the first time I’ve gone into what I call “defense mode,” where I do everything not to walk alone at night, and never leave the house without my pepper spray and brass knuckles, where my friends know where I am if I leave the house after dark.

Two weeks since, my anxiety levels have been higher than they have been in years, two weeks since I can’t lay next to my partner at night without a tshirt and underwear, brutal in the Jerusalem summer. Two weeks of every man on the street a potential threat, two weeks of tossing and turning in my sleep, two weeks of awful dreams, two weeks of nonstop triggers and flashbacks, of thinking of nothing but street harassment and rape and dead women in alleys.

Maybe this time the aftershock will only last a month. Maybe only two. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll hit my head on the cobbles and forget the whole thing.

It’s not the first time I’ve been followed home, and I know it won’t be the last.

deborah kadishelby, 26, is originally from Illinois and currently resides in Jerusalem where she works with youth-at-risk and regularly gets into screaming matches with guys who comment on her ass.