As she walked the aisles, MR said in an interview, she sensed a man standing close behind her. She turned to confront him and noticed that he was a good six inches taller than her. He was talking in graphic detail about sexual things he wanted to do to her. “You’re so disgusting, get away from me,” she told him, and hurried off to find her friend.
Still, he stayed close, and for a few tense minutes the two of them locked eyes while she waited in line to pay. When at last he left, she thought that was the end of it – until, back outside in the chill of the winter morning, she felt something cold against the back of her leggings.
The man had ejaculated on her.
“I didn’t know how to react. I wanted to kill this man,” said MR, who was 47 at the time, recalling the horror and helplessness she felt as her friend wiped her off with towels. (The Guardian has verified MR’s identity but is not publishing her full name to protect her privacy.)
Hours later, on the advice of a sister who worked in law enforcement, she fished her soiled leggings out of the garbage and took them back to the store to report what had happened. A clerk listened to her account and, not seeming to realize that MR understood Spanish, shouted to a colleague in a backroom: “Tenemos otra.”
“We’ve got another one.”
I’m the girl my friends get to open their tough jars. I can use any tool put in my hands, I can skin a squirrel, and I’ve built a forty foot canoe.
Didn’t stop a dude from smearing jizz on my backpack on the bus. He was gone before I realized what happened.
Your comment reeks of victim blaming, insinuating “toughness” has anything to do with this.
Agreed. But getting to take the violent option is cathartic. Punched a guy in the face at school following a sexual assault. The trouble I got into was worth it.
I’m no stranger to sexual assault myself, but if that’s the way you want to take it, be my guest.
Yeah, that’s how I took it. If you’ve experienced it then you should know that all the violent thoughts and threats in the world can’t stop someone from experiencing sexual assault.
Not only that, but it can make victims feel like they’ve done something wrong, or not enough, by making claims that you could do better in their situation.
We all want to feel like we could stop this kind of creep or get revenge but it rarely works out that way.