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

Share your street harassment story for the blog.

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

Share your street harassment story for the blog.

Laci Green, a sex educator with a popular YouTube series, takes on street harassment in her latest video.

In it, she shows what street harassment is and covers why it’s not okay!

She’s getting a lot of hate for it from people who want to defend street harassment as being a compliment, so show her some love via the comments to the video or on Twitter.

Thanks, Laci, for using your public platform to speak out!

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

Share your street harassment story for the blog.

I am a straight man and a group of young men in a truck pulled up next to me while I was biking home from work and commented on my ass, saying, ‘Nice Ass.”

I ignored them at first but they kept shouting so i gave them the finger. They drove off. But I felt uneasy, like they would maybe loop around and cause trouble. It made an otherwise enjoyable bike ride into one where I felt unsafe fearing aggressive retaliation.

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

– NP

Location: Snowy Range Road, Laramie, WY

Share your street harassment story for the blog