I haven’t posted anything in a while and I’ve been thinking about what it is I should write about next, my life isn’t exactly exciting, but then again it doesn’t have to be. I want to share experiences with the world (or the few people who read this) and attempt to see things from all different perspectives, opinions and I’d like to understand what makes people do things that they shouldn’t. The topic I’d like to talk about in this post is sexual harassment.
Just over a year ago on a night out a drunk male grabbed me by the arms quite aggressively, I was struggling to get out of his grip. And I mean I was physically yanking my arms trying to free myself from his grip but he was too strong. It was clear I didn’t want to be in the situation and it was even more clear that I was literally trying to get away from him (he wouldn’t of grabbed me otherwise) yet he continued and kissed my cheek and neck. Even just typing this out is making me feel conscious of any skin showing on my neck. It still makes my skin crawl thinking about it. I didn’t even come close to some of the horrific things you hear about on the news and still I felt completely violated and disgusting. I can’t even begin to think about how much worse it could of been if we hadn’t been in a crowded bar.
That brings me to the fact we were in a crowded bar. The first thing that springs to mind now is, who saw what was going on? How many of those people could see that I was struggling to break free from the arms of a creep and how many chose to ignore it? To be clear, I had only walked into the bar from the smoking area to go to the toilet. So my friends were outside and I was alone. Once I managed to break free from his grip I headed straight to the toilet and came across some of the creep’s friends, I told them what had happened and they made me feel like they would give him a telling, I felt slightly better knowing the other guys were on my side and understanding towards the matter. This was probably my only mistake, trusting them to really tell him, trusting them to know right from wrong, of course as soon as they had confronted him about it they were told “She’s drunk, she’s exaggerating” a friend of mine who also confronted him was told “She wanted it”
“SHE WANTED IT”
I wanted it? I’m confused here… didn’t I shout at you to get off me? Over and over again? Whilst forcefully trying to free myself from your grip.
You disgust me.
The people who continue to try and stand up for you disgust me.
It makes me feel sick that you were left to sit near me at work because moving you elsewhere would “draw too much attention”
Why are we trying to protect him? He did something horrible and why shouldn’t everyone know about it?
I know this is extremely mild compared to what could have happened and compared to all the horrible things that happen to anyone out there. But I just think what’s stopping him from doing it again or doing something worse to someone else? I get really angry and worked up thinking that I didn’t have a voice when it came to this. I didn’t get a chance to express my anger towards him and I probably never will, he never showed any signs of remorse because he genuinely believes he didn’t do anything wrong and if he didn’t think he was doing wrong, at what point would he stop?
Please never doubt someone who has been sexually harassed just because they had been drinking. Please listen to both sides of the story. Please tell your mate who can’t handle his drink that he can’t just go around grabbing and kissing people as he pleases.
Blog with no filter 