I've never met a femme-presentingยน person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13ยฒ.
ยน InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
ยฒ that I remember
Every single woman, cis or trans, and femme presenting person I know has been a victim of SA without exception. And most have their first assault as a child or early teens.
Under British law, if someone takes any action towards you which causes you to feel fear, that is common assault. If there is a sexual element to it then that is aggravated.
Under the Harrassment Act anything that would not constitute assault is harrassment, but you need at least three recorded incidents in the Log.
@alice I started getting sexualized when I was 10, my first instance of grooming was at 12 (or maybe 13? Its blurry.) As an adult, I would be harassed on the streets daily.
It all stopped when I started taking T.
@damonology @alice I'm glad to hear it stopped for you on T but as a transmasc genderqueer person who cannot medically transition due to health reasons this isn't the case for me.
So yes, men get SA'd too, especially trans men/mascs who cannot transition. Idk op that inb4 was kind of crappy.
@ghostprince
My reading of the "inb4" is more to do with the fact that whenever someone is talking about the disproportionate amount of sexual harassment/assault/etc that femme presenting folks experience, there's often a comment about how "men experience it too, therefore..."
That sort of comment often proceeds to invalidate, diminish, or even shame the OP for relaying their experience instead of using it as a basis for solidarity.
The proportion is the same, under-reported on men's side due to societal stigma.
Is men going "hey, we experience this too" not also a call for solidarity? Why is this call being ignored? Because a specific class of men decided to run rampant with power, we should ignore those pleas for community?
@ghostprince It is absolutely not the same proportion. Under-reporting happens all around, for one. From all reliable studies, though, the proportion is heavily, heavily one-sided.
43.6% of women have experienced some form of "contact sexual violence". Half that for men. When it comes to completed or attempted rape, specifically, it's 21.3% of women and only 2.6% of men.
(Note: I'm a little confused about how a man can be "made to penetrate" someone, but that not be rape? That sounds like textbook rape. But even if we use that number, which is 7.1%, that is 1/3 of the rate women experience rape.)
(Note #2: for both "rape" and "made to penetrate", those numbers include both "completed" and "attempted".)
https://www.nsvrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2015data-brief508.pdf
The proportion's not the same, and it's not even close.
Every instance is a tragedy! But let's have an accurate picture of the problem.
@Azuaron Thank you for these statistics! They are very helpful.
I am still of the opinion numbers skew way higher than expected due to just how many men don't even realize they've been raped, but it's good to have a baseline to refer to. I'd like my arguments to be able to stand on two feet, so thank you for your correction!
@h3mmy @ghostprince @damonology @alice and let's be real, the same mechanism of patriarchy is at play when it happens to men. The assumption that they're all meant to be dominant sex machines and therefore *couldn't* say no and "are you even a real man if you didn't want it?" rhetoric. Patriarchy is more misandrist than any radfem.
When they fail to address the "why" it becomes crystal clear that it's a silencing tactic to recenter men.
@ghostprince non-femme-presenting folx do get assaulted and harassed. I used the term "femme-presenting" because that's who I was talking to (I'm not a woman).
I added the InB4 because every time I talk about sexual harassment, feminist topics, or just about anything that can be interpreted as calling out men, I get (usually white) cishet men derailing the replies to tell everyone that they have problems too.
Also, I'm sorry you're unable to medically transition (assuming you phrased it that way because you would like to); everybody should have the available options (and rights) to present as they feel fits them.
@alice in my case, I'm transfeminine, came out at age 34. I don't have any memories of CSA, but I don't have very many memories of my childhood in general, and some of my trauma responses would suggest that something occurred along those lines. (I don't identify as a CSA survivor, to be clear, because I don't want to speak over those who are sure about their experiences.)
as an adult, though, I've had some experiences both pre- and post-transition that I've reluctantly come to recognize were, absolutely, sexual abuse.
@alice one of the teens I know was going off to uni so I gave her 'the lecture'
I HATED having to, I much prefer speaking to boys and men, and holding them accountable
but there are so many horrible people out there, beyond my community that I'm powerless to stop
every femme presenting person I know has a sexual assault story. one had to have facial reconstructive surgery cause of some asshole
it should be that society protects us from this shit but it doesn't. until we decentralize and distribute power, and have some basic fucking standards, then abusers will rise to the top of things and even be the goddamn President
it makes me sad when women see me, a large man, and have to JUSTIFIABLY assume me a threat
but I have to give women that same advice because so many men just don't get boundaries even when they are explicitly told
I won't stop trying though & I won't stop being there for people in my community
I will always amplify the voices of victims cause so many stay silent
its about them, not me
@alice I don't. I agree with your general premise, that's it's a overwhelming and horrific problem that is egregiously common. And given how most say it's worse as a teen, I avoided it by femme presenting much later.
I only mention this because it's a weird feeling when people talk about this kind of thing as if it is a universal fundamental femme experience and where does that leave the few of us who are fortunate to have dodged that bullet?
It's better than the alternative but also othering.
@ellesaurus @alice the fact you see it this way indicates you see pain as proof & a lack of pain as not having earned your identity.
Such a guideline can mislead you to denying pain when you don't understand it, or denying identity when certain pains are missing.
Here you seem to do both to yourself, possibly seeing it as "possible evidence against inclusion" (a reason to deny your identity), which can trigger a desire to prove your worth to preempt exclusion.
It helps to try & find proof from joy instead of pain so that these narratives lose power.
@ellesaurus I understand you didn't ask & that's why I put a content warning.
I commented because centering your pain from hearing a discussion of other's pain is a function of whiteness.
Calling a discussion of pain "othering" because you're not included, is itself what others.
__
Edit: I will apologize for reacting here by removing ambiguity though. The boundary for me is blurry, between patriarchy causing othering via both violence as a norm & the implications from not being targeted by said violence, & whiteness causing discussions of othering to be seeing as themselves othering. So it's not as certain as this comment implies. My impression was that the emotions were valid (feeling othered by not being targeted by patriarchy), but the explanation seemed rooted in whiteness ("the discussion is the source of othering").
@ellesaurus when I said "never" I suppose that comes with some qualifications.
However, for each qualificationโlike, say, over the age of 4โI know an exception.
So to say "never" is really to say, "for every person I know, the odds of them having been sexually harassed or assaulted approaches 100% over time, but it approaches 100% far faster for the femme-presenting ones."
Also, I'm sorry for othering you. I understand that (even fucked up) rites of passage are still rites of passage, and I didn't mean to diminish your femininity with my choice of language.
@alice It's quite alright, I entirely get it. It's less you and more that I've seen it over and over how it's suggested to be every single woman (or in this case, femme)*.
The discussion of how it's the vast majority is still really important, and more important than getting it perfect. But I also want others who are in my place to also know they're not alone in that.
*I recognize you also didn't literally say everyone, so that's even more where it's about the recurring convo
As I grow older, I've come to realize that speaking in superlatives is rarely an accurate practice. There's always a caveat, and using terms like "nearly everyone" or, "the vast majority", even when talking about your friends, is the best form of speech.
I'm currently 45, and I'm still learning.
๐โบ๏ธ๐
@ellesaurus @alice You know those assholes in Washington currently trying to legislate our bodies, objectify us, turn our existence into a "fetish", and use us as political scape goats?
that's a form of sexual harassment/assault, just probably not the more direct kind you are envisioning.
Even if you escape the more direct and personal assault, you can't really exist as a femme presenting person in North America without incurring the abuse of patriarchy directed at your body.
@ra6bit @[email protected] @alice
This is too real. And I have explained some variant of it to MANY people.
Just think about how people INSIST we disclose our medical history to them to even be in the same social circles as them. They accuse us of assault if we don't tell them.
They're just sexualizing us. They're abusing us by forcing us to disclose private details about our bodies just to exist around any of them.
@alice Admittedly, I haven't gotten out of the house all that much since actually cracking my own egg. But I definitely have a few instances of harassment I can remember from my "I'm a cis guy" "Uh huh, whatever you say sir" phase.
The sheer number of Uber/Lyft passengers that would play with my hair, for one thing.
And then there was that one guy at a Circle K/Valero station that did not appreciate me ignoring his cat calls.
@alice My little sister tried to seek help to stop my stepfather from sexual abuse. Nobody believed her, not school personnel (even with mandated reporting, if the next words out of their mouth is "I have to report this, so you better be sure", most kids clam up or retract because they know they're not going to help you), not even my other siblings.
Then she tried telling me. I believed her on the first attempt. This does not make me a hero, don't praise or star me, please. This is what men need to understand, this story isn't about me. (Keep reading.) I also won't tell her story before that point, it isn't mine to share.
But my stepdad, after several failed stints in rehab and physical abuse on the rest of us, that was the last day he was in our family; he drew a pistol and threatened killing her, then turned it to all of us before the police arrived and took him into custody. Thankfully he was ultimately a coward, he didn't fire a single shot and surrendered. (This went down in the 1990s. He also was cheating on my Mom and had a kid with another woman while playing a drunk game of "daddy" with us, which also came out in the trial.)
What scares me is if I didn't act: knowing what he was capable of since that day, she would have been in grave danger if I left her alone with him. She may have been killed if she did something wrong, and he'd try to hide her, or run from it. After all, that gun was there all along. One bad day is all it takes.
My point: Believe a woman when she says she's in danger. Don't wait. Because if you dismiss her, you don't know if she can survive what's next if you are wrong.
@sefr thanks for sharing. I hope you all are doing okay now.
Statistically the time between deciding to flee an abusive relationship and getting to safety are the most dangerous for the victim. Their odds of death rise dramatically.
@alice I was aged 10... I don't have the words to say on main the severity, the frequency, who was involved. It is nothing short of harrowing.
I still cry for that 10y old.
@alice thank you. I'd like to say time makes for healthier coping methods and being able to forgive. But for me time just made it possible to name my pain and carry it with more familiarity and a little less discomfort.
To those who cross my path I'm the most gentle, kind and generous person, but no one this kind isn't carrying something.
One day, maybe, I'll put what I experienced on main. But this is one thing I cannot share without hurting the person who listens.
๐
@Faith thanks for speaking up.
Also, re: your old accountโwe only geoblocked images and videos from loading for folx with UK IP addresses. All other functions have always remained unrestricted.
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