This isn't just something that happens to women... as a ten year old boy I recall my mother flipping out at me for not noticing that she was honking the car horn like crazy while I was on a pay phone, getting directions-- apparantly some guy had strolled up to the side of the pay phone and started rubbing his crotch and looking at me while I innocently tried to remember directions for navigating the streets of the east village.

Anyway, it's a kind of auto-frottage: sexual rubbing in a public place. That doesn't quite work in the staring element, so maybe the best way to say that would be 'harassing fixative auto-frottage', or HFAF.

Not so snarky, but gets to the point.

Yes, this definetly happens more often than anyone ever seems to acknowledge.

It happened to me once over Winter Break while I was visiting a friend in New York. It also happened to me as a child. Some dude was looking up my skirt in a grocery store (I thought he thought I was stealing. It seems crazy to me to be so naive, but I was about 6 years old at the time).

When I worked at a major chain bookstore this happened to a customer near the Sexuality section (because if you're browsing sex then you want people to violate you?) She reported it to us, thank goodness, but I wonder how often people don't.

I think I'd refer to it as a 'violation', maybe? More than sexual harassment, less than sexual assault.

I had a friend, (I emphasize "had" because I no longer speak to this person anymore) Who used to do this to me. We would be hanging out just watching a movie or something, and I would look over and he would have his dick in his hand.

His actions became worse and worse over time. Eventually he started sending me obscene pictures on my phone and I had to cut him out of my life.

He has been sexually abused and clearly has misconceptions about what is healthy sexual behavior. But I very vocally called him out on his actions, and he admitted how messed up it was.

I guess my point is that some of the people that pull this type of stuff have been victimized as well. That is not an excuse, but it shows how the cycle of abuse can continue even when the offender is aware of how twisted they are.

I'm glad you posted this Courtney. For a long time I was too embarrassed to tell any of my friends about what happened to me. It always is comforting to know you aren't alone.

I had a friend, (I emphasize "had" because I no longer speak to this person anymore) Who used to do this to me. We would be hanging out just watching a movie or something, and I would look over and he would have his dick in his hand.

His actions became worse and worse over time. Eventually he started sending me obscene pictures on my phone and I had to cut him out of my life.

He has been sexually abused and clearly has misconceptions about what is healthy sexual behavior. But I very vocally called him out on his actions, and he admitted how messed up it was.

I guess my point is that some of the people that pull this type of stuff have been victimized as well. That is not an excuse, but it shows how the cycle of abuse can continue even when the offender is aware of how twisted they are.

I'm glad you posted this Courtney. For a long time I was too embarrassed to tell any of my friends about what happened to me. It always is comforting to know you aren't alone.

We should call it sexual harassault.

This old man once tried to rub the inside of my thigh on a bus once, so I got the driver to kick him off. I felt bad because he was old and probably a bit off his rocker, but then again I don't really feel bad because he was tying to cop a feel.

I dont' have a name for it, but I think it has happened to every woman I know. My story is that I was reading in a park and the perpetrator was sitting in a parked car with the door open. The worst part is not know what to do. I ignored the behavior, but now that I'm older and more self-assure I think I'd call the perv out.

I have never had this particular sort of experience, but I have heard friends talk about it. It is sad, because they tend to talk about it like it was a joke, or even funny, when clearly it is not. Even if the person doing the rubbing has been hurt in the past, it doesn't change the fact that it is wrong, and they should be told that. Calling them out is probably a good idea if you feel safe. If not, getting someone else involved is great.

I can't really imagine what this would be like. I rarely even get hit on by guys...and I mean that in a less...disturbing manner.

This happened to me and a friend as we were walking down the street at night. A man was standing in an alleyway with his dick out, looking right at us and jerking it. I don't think I've ever felt so appalled and helpless. There are so many things I wish I had said to him. The friend I was with had had this happen to her twice previously, in different cities.

It happened to another friend of mine a couple years before that, as she was walking to school. When she told our female prof, the prof told us about the time it had happened to her. Last year, yet another friend of mine was groped as she was walking down the street, in broad daylight. And on and on.

Thank you for posting about this - I think it is a HUGE and unbelievably widespread problem. I also believe that if a man gets away with it, it can escalate (masturbating turns into groping, and so on). It is definitely something that needs to be addressed.

And I agree with moley, we should call it sexual harrassment.

A guy did this to me in my own apartment....it was a basement apartment and he was in the window watching me as I was watching TV. I had never been more scared for my safety. I learned that it often falls under sexual assault law when I reported it. Unfortunately I was unable to ID the suspect they picked up; I never saw his face (the windows only went up to his shoulders) so I only had clothes, skin and hair color to go on.

There was an article in the NYTimes a few years back about a police detail in Rock Cewnter that used to bust guys for rubbing up against women in crowds. They had narrowed down a certain set of behaviors these guys would go through, where the guys would look like they were in a trance as they entered the crowds and rubbed themselves off on unsuspecting women. They guys rarely denied what they were doing; they usually were humiliated and declaired no contest and were ticketed.

Heh, and people say there's a taboo about masturbation. I guess it's not okay to do it for self pleasure, but perfectly okay to do ito to harrass people ...

People do this shit because we let them, and because there are little consequences to it all. Imagine what would happen if every person who did this got their pecker chopped off (I exaggerate, of course).

There's a really wonderful piece called, "Why I Fight Back," in a feminist primer called, "Listen Up: Voices From the Next Feminist Generation" about women taking a stand and fighting back on this shit. I recommend it!

A side story: a few summers ago, the girl I was dating was at a coffee shop waiting for me while the guy sitting next to her was just sitting there, staring at her. It turns out he was masturbating while staring at her - she got the manager, who kicked him out, even though he was a regular at the coffee shop ...and the guy wans't even a creep either. I guess sometimes, people can't control their actions.

Back in college my friend had fallen asleep on the living room floor while studying. She woke up to find a man outside the window looking in at her and masturbating with his pants around his ankles. I wonder what they would do if we all started throwing rocks at them (or whatever's handy at the time)?

As to actual touching or having someone masturbate directly ON you (usually while riding mass transit from all the stories I've heard from friends), as far as I'm concerned that's sexual assault. Period.

This hasn't happened to me. I get the random guy sticking his crotch a little too close to my face if the bus has standing room only and he's right in front of my seat, but I always feel too awkward about calling them out on it. I should say something next time.

When I was in undergrad in northern New Jersey, we had a serial masturbator who would pop out of bushes and fondle himself while staring at women who were walking home from class or work. The administration and students got together and formed an escort service (not the shady kind) who would walk you to and from common places on campus if you felt unsafe. In my senior year the guy finally got caught- a group of guys saw him from their car and ran him down and turned him in. It never happened to me, fortunately, but it was definitely an issue that affected how I made decisions about where to go and what to do and whether or not it was safe to be alone.

This happened at my parent's restaurant when I was a teen. My father served the man a hot towel on a plate before kicking him out.

This one eighteenish year old that I worked with a few years ago had this happen to here at WORK!

She was alone in the store with him and didn't know what to do (I wish she would have called the police-- the store was downtown and there were always cops patroling within a few blocks). So she just cleaned up the jewelry case after he "finished" up on it.

It is sickening people have to deal with things like this.

Even though I've taught self defense and feel pretty confident in my ability to notice strange behavior, I don't recall any specific instances like this. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen. I would not be surprised if most women have experienced such a violation.

But my thoughts about this are complex:
My first thoughts are about female objectification to the extreme. We've grown so accustomed to drooling at models, posters, movies, pornography, advertising, etc., etc., that some people may find it difficult to draw the line between private fantasy/ sexual fulfillment and public actions. Society has never drawn the line for them. We barely do so when it comes to assault and harassment. Why would anyone care about this?

I find it interesting that several individuals said they felt sorry for the guy. I know that is real. And I'm not sure if it's out of my own curiosity of the individual circumstance to wonder if women are socialized to feel sorry even when they are violated.

Do we find a difference in the violation if it's someone we know or a stranger? Kind of like date rape compared with rape by an unknown.

Then, there's this part of me that I think would feel confusion between sexual power (for being able to turn on a man just from sitting at a cafe table) and creepy dirty (for being the object of such sleaze). How do we reconcile all that?

I used to work in advertising sales, so I'd be out hitting the streets going from business to business to sell. Once I was walking on the street to a meeting w/ a client and I noticed that this car started to follow me slowly down the street. I looked over at the car and realized the driver had the passenger window rolled down - as well as his pants - and was masturbating while following me down the street. I started screaming to get the fuck away from me - and he sped off. I got the plates, ran to the nearest public space, and called the cops. Unfortunately, they never found the motherfucker. Although, it was hard trying to get the cops to take me seriously.

An incident like this was just in the news: http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2008/04/02/basketball_player_to_be_charge.aspx
On a personal note, it has happened to me twice. One time my friends and I were downtown and there was a guy parked in his car with the windows rolled down and the lights on masturbating in full view of a busy street. We were all really disturbed and shaken up.
The second time I was at a nude beach for a project for my Human Sexuality class, and a guy was sitting within a few feet of our group masturbating. Just so you know, this type of behavior is NOT accepted at nude beaches, and all of the regulars were really appalled when we told them. We told the park ranger but the guy left as soon as we started talking to the ranger.
I think men who masturbate in public enjoy the fact that everyone is so appalled and feels so violated, I think that adds to their pleasure.

I had something like this happen to me while I was driving to work at 5am, on the highway. I was in such shock that I momentarily stopped driving with my foot on the gas and decelerated to about 30mph--the entire time, the guy kept pace with me in the next lane. I sped up to get away and he sped up too and kept pace with me (so I was never able to get his plate number). When I reached for my phone he slowed down to about 20mph and exited the highway. I wish i had done several things differently, and also it sucks to call 911 from the highway because the dispatcher has to reroute your call...at any rate, I kept a lookout for that guy in the maroon chevy during every commute after that like the cop told me to although I never saw it again.

And also, this was in the university paper today,

http://media.www.dailycollegian.com/media/storage/paper874/news/2008/04/03/News/Umass.Student.Arrested.For.Lewd.Behavior-3296320.shtml?reffeature=recentlycommentedstoriestab

@ sarahd_lush: that's terrible the police wouldn't take you seriously! No wonder this stuff is so common if the police won't do their duty on it.

For my case, I have to say the police were wonderful: they took me seriously, looked for and caught (probably) the guy, escorted me to my friend's house because I didn't feel safe at home that night, and made sure to follow up with me later. Even though I couldn't for sure ID, everything about the way it was handled was great and left me feeling safer. I wish all police were like that. The only bad part on that end was, when I called 911, I got yelled at by the operator for waiting too long to call (I was young and didn't know 911 was appropriate so I took time to look up my local station and call them, they told me to call 911; I also took the time to get to a safe location).

Ugh. Yeah. This has happened to me numerous times, to numerous degrees, and in numerous ways. Like Leah, I have had a masturbatory peeping Tom (he even brought his own towel and wore it on his shoulder while masturbating outside my window - classy!)

When it happened to me as a child, I was humiliated and ashamed and tried to hide it and forget about it. My adult responses have ranged from lauging outright at the wanker to violent rage.

I think the reason it upset me, when it did, was that I felt like I had been reduced to whack material for some jackass completely against my will. Like my will, consent, privacy, dignity, and personhood were all utterly inconsequential. To them, I was a porno, not a person.

This has happened to my mother her entire life, and usually there's not much you can do except tell an authority figure, and by the time you've done that the creep has left the scene - a lot of the stories here seem to involve that. But once when she was younger she was in a parking lot, sitting in her car going through her schedule or something like that, and looked over to the car next to her and what do ya know.. some perv jerking off, in a very obvious, demonstrative way. My mom gave him a disgusted look and drove away, but not before taking down his license plate number... she then proceeded to take him to court for sexual harassment and it turns out he had a record of similar incidents, and so the judge (female) was disgusted and gave him a huge fine. So if something ever happens like that to you, know that it is not ok and you can take action. And everybody should also know that my mom is awesome :-)

Argh, this happened to me just before Christmas and it was horrific!

I had come home from a club with my boyfriend and one of the local neighbourhood cats followed us home. I went into the house to get some cat food, came out to feed it and was kneeling beside it. I looked up and some guy was masturbating at my garden gate. Needless to say I ran in the house terrified screaming "THERE'S A GUY WANKING OUTSIDE!"

I did go to the police, but unfortunately, because the light was shining from behind him I couldn't give them much in the way of identifying features. They were generally pretty nice about it but they did ask if I was sure he wasn't just peeing.

If he was he was shaking it pretty fucking hard. Hmph.

A lived in an apartment a few years ago that was on the third floor, but backed up to a building that was on higher ground, so our apartment faced the parking lot behind the other building. We didn't have any curtains in our kitchen or living room (they opened on an alley and were on the third floor) and we used to see this guy with a flashlight in the parking lot from time to time--eventually we realized he was looking in our windows and masturbating. I called the police, but he was gone by the time they got there--I moved out (for other reasons) a short time later.

I also sometimes see people who seem to be clearly crazy masturbating on the street or the subway--the impression that I've gotten is that they're so crazy they're doing it without really realizing it, or without realizing that they're doing something wrong. On one level, i don't really mind that, because they're crazy, but on another the fact that they have untreated mental problems sometimes makes them really scary.

I remember hearing about men who would wait underneath the train platform steps to look up the high school students' jumpers while I was a freshman. It was especially frustrating because we weren't allowed to wear jeans underneath our jumpers. I wish more attention was brought to this type of harassment.

I don't know if you get used to this kind of thing, but the first time that a man exposed himself to me on the street, I had no idea what to think or feel. It was all very surreal. One moment I was walking and the next all I could see was exposed flesh. Granted, I never even managed to focus my eyes before I realised what was happening, but then he got on the streetcar and sat in the seat across the aisle from mine. I kept my nose in my nintendo DS until he debarked, his pants still around his knees.

In my case, at least, I'm fairly certain that his problems ran deeper than wanting strangers to his naked body. I didn't take it personally. It was deeply upsetting, though. So, uh, yeah. I'm pretty young, and I've spent most of my life in a small town out in the country. I have a whole life ahead of me in the city. I'm sure this isn't the last or worst thing that will happen.

What we need is ubiquitous cell phone cameras and a public website called something like CaughtInTheAct.com. Nightly news broadcasts of the pictures of the uploaded pics of the perpetrators wouldn't be bad either.

If they knew it was extremely likely that they would be captured on film, publicly shamed, and basically have their lives ruined over that behavior, they might think twice about doing it in the first place.

This happened to a colleague of mine on the CTA in Chicago. She was on the train and looked over and saw a man going it at. He stared at her and said "Don't move." She was too terrified to move until he finished and got off the train.

It happened right after she moved to the city; she never wanted to take public transit after that. Can't say I blame her.

he was a regular at the coffee shop ...and the guy wans't even a creep either. I guess sometimes, people can't control their actions.

No, he was a creep. He didn't look like a creep, but clearly he was one.

This kind of attitude really pisses me off. It absolutely explains why most people refuse to believe rape victims. Since most rapists, by all appearances, are completely normal and not creepy, the bitches must be lying.

And, yes, he can control his actions. He chooses not to because, to him, women aren't human and aren't deserving of him exercising his self-restraint so we can be free of harassment and assault.

This just happened to my sister and I on Easter! We were at the pool at my Grandmother's 55+ apartment complex in broad daylight and some dude whipped it out. It was the first time anything like this had happened to either my sister or I.

And as terrible as that was, the worst part was that when I told my closest guy friend about it. . . he laughed. His ass off.

Needless to say, he and I aren't speaking at the moment. . .

What we need is ubiquitous cell phone cameras and a public website called something like CaughtInTheAct.com. Nightly news broadcasts of the pictures of the uploaded pics of the perpetrators wouldn't be bad either.

Sounds good to me, but I'd rather put their pictures up on billboards, bigger than life, with the nasty bits blurred out, of course.

This just happened to me and my sister on Easter! We were at the pool at my Grandmother's 55+ apartment complex in broad daylight and some dude whipped it out. It was the first time anything like this had happened to either of us.

And as terrible as that was, the worst part was that when I told my closest guy friend about it. . . he laughed. His ass off.

Needless to say, he and I aren't speaking at the moment. . .

yup...it's happened to me three times.
twice on the subway
once on a plane...the guy next to me (not even joking)

though i must say, i am beginning to prefer this silent, neighboring masturbation style more than the guys who call me a "fat ugly bitch" after they catcall me and i don't give them the time of day. at least the wankers are quiet.

I stopped after reading the first ten or so posts. I find in disturbing that some of the victims of this offensive behavior seem to think it reflects on their level of attractiveness. Like, I'm so hot the horny beasts loose all self control. These are acts of people who are deeply sick and insist on using others against their will. If is more an issue of power over the unwilling then sexual need.

Curiouser

My most memorable experience with this was when I was in a metro station in Athens, Greece. Two of my friends and I were coming back from the art museum, and as I boarded the empty metro, I felt something squeeze my bottom, extremely hard. When I sat down, an older male was standing by the door of the car, staring at the three of us. It... being rubbed/tugged on/manipulated profusely. Luckily, I always wear sunglasses on public transit to avoid making eye contact with someone, but one of my friends accidentally made eye contact while he was doing this. We all felt disgusted, but every guy that was on the trip with us thought it was funny.

This has happened to me more times than I've ever counted. But I'll count now.

1) My best friend and I are in sixth grade on the subway on the way to school. I look up to see an old guy grinning at us while playing with what looked to me at the time to be a rubber ball. Then I realized it wasn't. My friend and I changed subway cars.

2) I was sixteen and in the public library. While I was in the stacks looking for a book on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, I become aware of a man making a rhythmic motion near my head (I was kneeling). It was a homeless man masturbating. I went and told a librarian.

3) A few years ago, a friend and I were in a coffee shop hanging out when I became aware that the teenage boy at the next table had his dick out and was...waggling it around under his table. I shouted "Hey, dude? What the hell do you think you're doing?" He stuffed it back in his pants and acted like I was the crazy person.

4) Same friend, a few weeks later. We were in the park this time, hanging out, when we realized the seedy-looking guy across the way was stroking his penis while looking at us. We got up and moved.

Is anyone else reminded of the book/movie "Little Children"?

This hasn't happened to me personally (although being physically groped and accosted has) but it has happened to more womyn I know that I'd like to think about.

And from my research into the psychology of these creeps, it seems that the fear they visibly see from the womyn and the fact that it IS illegal (and therefore "thrilling") is what makes it "appealing" to do.

From a feminist perspective, it seems to be that it is the ultimate way of bringing a strong womyn down. I mean, you can visibly see it in our faces as we are shocked and often times, frozen in fear.

Sick, sick, sick.

Waterpixi- I find it interesting that the UMass guy was permanently suspended from the team, when James Harrison of the Steelers broke into his ex-girlfriend's home and slapped her to take their child and nothing happened to him. What are the standards in our society for violating women whether it be physical or non-physical? I need time to work out in my head what exactly is bothering me most...

I don't get it, why do some of the guy friends think this is funny? jrirwin, Simplejewel, and annie_lady had friends that didn't think it was a big deal, and laughed... I'm just confused, did any of them give reasons for laughing?

This happened to myself and two friends waiting in line for the Metro in France. When I first noticed what was going on -- how often do you see a dick out in public?! (well, a penis, I mean) -- I was kind of stunned into inaction. Then I ran up to the ticket counter and by the time I turned around, he was halfway across the station. Probably if I had just yelled "What the f are you doing?" he would have run off.

When my sister was 14 she was with a group of her peers watching some kind of outdoor magic/acrobat show and one of the guys in the show had his pants *altered* so that when he crouched down, everything "fell out"! Amazingly, NONE of the kids in the audience told the supervisors, and maybe the supervisors didn't notice? I don't know.

Another sister went on a date once with a guy who "took it out" in the car, ala Elaine from Seinfeld. NOT funny in real life. The thing is, the guy begged her not to tell anyone -- he seemed ashamed and freaked out.

Who knows...!

One of my co-workers alerted me to this posting--just yesterday I had quite the experience involving a public masturbator. I jumped into a cab at 8 in the morning, and started feeling a bit uncomfortable when the cab driver told me I looked 17 (I'm 24), and mentioned that I should just live at my boyfriends so we could "do it" all the time. I heard strange noises coming from the front of the cab and realized that the cab driver was jerking off while driving. I jumped out in mid traffic. Now that i think about it I wish I had damaged his car or at least thought enough to get his lisence plate number before he drove off. Now, all I have is a creepy feeling about getting into cabs coupled with an image of his wrinkly hands reaching for a tissue.

my story:

A few years ago when I was still in college I was driving on the highway back to school from my mom's house, and there was a car that kept pulling up right next to me (you know how annoying that is on the highway!) He was in the fast lane and I was beside him, so I look over after about the 2nd time I tried to slow down or speed up to get him away from me, and he was just DRIVING his car, STARING at me through his window, and JERKING OFF!!
I couldn't believe it. I had to pull over at the next exit and regain my composure because it freaked me out so much. I mean, we were on the highway for crying out loud!

Ugh. That happened to me on Amtrak once when I was in college. A dude switched seats to sit next to me and then started rubbing himself through his pants. I was mortified but was kind of too young to know what to do about it. So I just turned up my music and pretended it wasn't happening.

To this day, I wish I had said really loudly "Excuse me sir, PLEASE STOP MASTURBATING." Ugh. I'm getting creeped out again just thinking about it.

I've found one tactic to be particularly useful in these sorts of situations - I whip out my cellphone and take a picture, telling the jackass in question that I'm going to immediately take it to the police. They usually take off running. If that fails, I go the old public humiliation route, along the lines of "Hey everybody, look! That's got to be the smallest penis I've ever seen!"

I've found one tactic to be particularly useful in these sorts of situations - I whip out my cellphone and take a picture, telling the jackass in question that I'm going to immediately take it to the police. They usually take off running. If that fails, I go the old public humiliation route, along the lines of "Hey everybody, look! That's got to be the smallest penis I've ever seen!"

This happened to my aunt when she was swimming in a hotel pool late one night. It was a glassed in room and she saw something on the other side of the glass and realized it was a man standing outside masturbating while watching her. She immediately got out of the pool and went to get the manager, but she hadn't gotten a good look at him, etc.

And I remember my mom telling me a story about when she was a kid and her mother had left she and her cousins in the car while she ran into the store. My mom says she saw a man outside their car playing with something in his hand, but at the time, they didn't know what it was. Thank God the creep left and didn't do anything else. It's such a scary thought.

I think this is one facet of the major disrespect of women on a societal level. Although it makes women embarrassed and feel helpless when this sort of thing happens, I believe we should try our bests to let men doing this know it's not ok, whether it's through calling them out or taking legal action in whatever way possible. It's hard in the moment to know exactly what to do, but even just humiliating the person by saying "THIS MAN IS MASTURBATING ON ME!" lets people know what is happening.

My friend noticed a man filming up her skirt in the Goodwill one day and she called him out immediately, screaming "That man is filming up my skirt!" Two fireman standing near the man immediately tackled the man and he was taken in. My friend (who is aspiring lawyer and women's rights activist) took the creep to court and ended up getting him registered as a sex offender. He also spent some time in jail for his actions. She fought back and could have possibly saved other women from going through the same thing.

The interesting thing, though, about my friend's court case was that the man's lawyers were all about blaming my friend for her attire and everything! Because she is a pre-law student, she was able to handle the questions with some familiarity of procedure, but it still caused emotional distress. It made me think of normal women who go through these things everyday but may not have any idea of legal procedure and may be too scared to prosecute or made to believe they are in fact responsible. It's a vicious system.

Hasn't happened to me personally.

Although I have been groped and harassed plenty.

I read this book about sexuality in general. One thing the psychologist talked about was that negative sexuality habits (and he included exhibitionism here) tend to be developed by people who were experiencing some degree of self-loathing at the time their sexuality developed.

So some of these guys probably felt threatened by women at some point in the past, and so the public exposure and masturbation is a way for them to feel powerful over women.

Some of these other guys are actually turned on by feeling humiliated, which public exposure can also lead to.

Yeah. So it's quite psychological and not something every guy would do, not even your typical steet-harasser douche. Unfortunate though, no doubt.

keshmeshi, I have seen a site like that . . . I think it was mentioned here on Feministing. The girls were posting descriptions of the perps, where it happened, and pics if they had them. I think taking pictures is a good deterent. I also think, if you feel safe, laughing at them would turn them off. Laugh hard, point, call them pathetic, whatever would humiliate them. I felt like crap after a guy grabbed me in a library, and I hope I will handle it better if/when it happens again. God, it's depressing how common these violations are.

Except the problem is, some guys are /more likely/ to do it again if you humiliate them. Because of the way the whole psychology thing works, at least as this one book I read explained it.

So I don't know what's best. I guess asserting your rights and telling them to stop is important, and then some kind of legal or authoritative action if possible...

The site is mentioned at the end of this post. It's called Hollaback.

I'm a little confused by Deb's post. People in this thread were saying they were harassed because they're so hot? I don't recall seeing that here, sorry.

This happens to me quite a bit. I will tell of two instances here in DC.
The first is when I was sitting on the subway here in DC. A guy literally sat next to me on a train even when empty seats where available. This does happen pretty frequently with me, and its pretty annoying to begin with. However this time eventually I noticed his hands were down his pants.
I got up shortly afterwards.

The second time happened on the metro bus here in dc. I was sitting down in a crowded bus, and this guy was leaning against me with his hands down his pants. This time I felt what was going on, but was for the most part stuck.

I never really get to report people because of the public transit element. I usually leave when I notice its happening or they leave. I really should report it the next time it happens. Because twice on public transit is enough.

When it gets down to it, this is a form of sexual harassment, and in some cases like the ladder, it hints at sexual assault. There is little question this goes beyond crazies and there is an element of objectification.

When I was about 16 I was at a concert with my older sister (I think it was the first time I saw New Order--I'm old, too!) and it was standing room only. This scuzz apparently starting rubbing his crotch against my backside, but I didn't even notice because it was so crowded and we were all dancing smushed together--I thought it just unavoidable contact. My sister saw it though, and she punched him right in the eye. He kind of wandered off dizzily. Awesome.

ProFeministMale wrote:

"It turns out he was masturbating while staring at her - she got the manager, who kicked him out, even though he was a regular at the coffee shop ...and the guy wans't even a creep either. I guess sometimes, people can't control their actions."

That guy WAS a creep. He was doing something creepy.

This isn't about not being able to control one's actions and not being able to wait until one gets home to masturbate. It's about the shock on the women's faces. It's about horrifying them and forcing them to look at your genitals.

You're pro-feminist? I don't think I want you on my side.

I know this has happened to me before but the only particular instance I can think of was when a guy at a concert was rubbing up against girls. Luckily, this was during the time that I still wore a spiked bracelet so as soon as he tried it on me, I made sure to press the spikes back into him. He freaked out and left the club.

Screw the cops or the legal system; they can only do so much (and sometimes will do nothing at all, as we've seen in this thread). Personally, I have few qualms about physically assaulting someone who is harassing me or one of my friends in any way. I'm not a big girl, so it's not like I can usually do much damage anyway, but it turns the shock back on them (they never expect you to fight back!) and puts all that rage I feel exactly where it belongs. I think part of the reason these people do this is because they think they can get away with it, so I don't just do it for myself but in the hopes that it will make them stop doing it altogether.

When I was studying abroad with a group from my college, some of my classmates had horrific experiences with public masturbators. It was a twisted situation in general, because the international students at our university were heavily pursued for sex by other students and people around the university. I received lots of unwanted advances just walking around that particular neighborhood, because it was assumed that American women were open to sex with strangers. In this environment, it was particularly disturbing when my classmates were harrassaulted (I like that term!) twice by different taxi drivers. The drivers basically saw my friends walking on the street, pulled over, whipped it out and started jerking off while watching my friends go by. The saddest part was when these girls' host mother told them they shouldn't be walking around in shorts (even though plenty of women, foreigners or not, wore shorts in this area). She wouldn't give them a ride to their classes and told them it wouldn't happen if they didn't dress that way. In this situation there was a pre-existing cultural stereotype combined with the twisted actions of some sick men. The host mom's reaction was the bow tying it all together. That's just one example of how this kind of behavior can be justified by a particular community. I think it happens in different ways in different places, but what perpetuates it are ideas like, "the guys just can't help themselves," or, "she was dressed provocatively," or "(x) kind of women are promiscuous, so she wanted it..." I was sorry to read that early post from a guy who was harrassaulted as a little boy; it just goes to show that anyone perceived as vulnerable can be put in this situation. It's not about mere arousal, it's about power and intimidation.

Well I'm going to post here too. Hopefully this will make up for all of the times when my story was dismissed as "no big deal" from the guys.

So anyway it's a blazing summer in the late 1970s, I think I was 9 years old. This yellow car starts showing up in the neighborhood. One day the car stops near us and a guy asks me and my friend for directions.

We approached the passenger's side; I looked down to see his pants scrunched down at his ankles, he was wanking and um' let's just say he was finishing...

We gave him the directions and then he drove off. The stupid thing is that my friend didn't notice, so she thought I was lying. So each day we looked for the car to come back, so that I could prove that I wasn't lying. Crazy, I know.

Anyway the car came back; he was wanking again but this time he wanted us to get in. By this time we figured this was a bad guy so we told our parents and the cops finally arrested his ass.

The thing is, this was my first experience with seeing a man masturbate. And throughout the years, I've told this story; no one has ever laughed, but a few guys seemed to brush the story off. That's just not right. Something is very very wrong.

Anyway, this is a good reason to teach kids at a young age about sexuality (the good and the bad), lest they find out on their own as I did.

i've never witnessed anyone jerking off in public around me, but not long after i moved to boston, i was on a very crowded green line train and a guy pushed on behind me and proceeded to rub himself against me until the next stop, at which point i got off the train since it was my stop. this was nearly 8 years ago and i still have real issues getting on overcrowded trains.

when i'm sitting on the train i have noticed that a few guys, when standing right next to my seat, have put their crotches awfully close to my face, sometimes using someone walking behind them as an excuse to lean in extra close. i've never witnessed a guy so much as lean in towards a guy's face without turning sideways or somehow moving so crotch is not at face level.

if there's one plus to my experiences, it's made me become extra vigilant: on a couple occasions i've kept an eye on a guy who seems to be getting a little unnecessarily close to a woman who's not paying attention to him. i give him periodic "wtf do you think you're doing?" looks and when the guy notices me looking his way, he moves away slightly from the woman.

I was confused by Deb's comment, too. Does she think that the women who are talking about this kind of abuse are bragging about it somehow? Seriously?

This has happened to me three times. Once I was in middle school and it was a high school student who rode the same school bus as me. Another time I was 14 and it was a guy outside of a bowling alley. Both times I ignored the guy, which I now regret.

When I was in college and studying abroad, a guy whipped it out in the middle of the street while my friend and I were getting off of the bus. I whirled around to take a different street home, but my friend, who is a feisty, awesome lady, said, (cue thick south jersey accent) "That's just great, you've got your little dick out. Great. NOW MOVE!!!!! Jenny, come on!" Everyone around turned laughed at the guy, and he did seem pretty embarrassed.

Oh actually, I realized I do have a good and somewhat related story.

I art model, professionally (i.e. nude modeling for artists). I haven't really had bad experiences with that -a couple of uncomfortable ones, but nothing horrible, and mostly positive experiences.

But once when I was advertizing on craigslist, I had a guy e-mail to ask me if I would pose for him to masturbate just watching me, and he'd pay me $100 per session, and wanted to do it 4 times per month. I didn't reply. I posted another ad about a month later, and the same guy wrote me (not knowing the ad was by the same person), except this time he was being very shady about what exactly he was wanting to, just saying he'd pay me well. So I wrote back and said I was interested in art modeling and that's what I posted for and it was inappropriate for him to e-mail me if he wanted anything other than that.

But then, I told a guy about the situation, you know complaining about it. And this guy was all like "jeez, $100? Why wouldn't you do it?"
It was frustrating to have someone else completely not understand why that would make me uncomfortable -although my cousin's bf was pretty pissed, so that was good.

This has happened to me a number of times. I deal with it different ways depending on the situation (are other people around, do I get a vibe that the guy might escalate his behavior if I react rather than just leaving, etc.) The last time that I recall was on the subway pretty late at night. The car I was on wasn't very full, but there were a number of other people on it, all men so far as I could read. One dude sat across from me and was just acting weird, shifty and then, of course, he had to pull his dick out and start masturbating while staring at me. I very loudly said something like "Excuse me, could you please put your dick away, no one wants to see that", which worked like a charm so far as the masturbater was concerned--he stopped immediately and did what I said and got off at the next stop. What really bugged me was that as soon as i opened my mouth all the other men got really interested in their newspapers, no one acknowledged that anything was happening with so much as a supportive look towards me or a glare towards the guy or anything.

I like the website idea but would like to echo the concerns others have voiced that such a thing would play into the erotic humiliation aspect of this behavior.

I think based on my limited knowledge of this kind of behavior (including conversations with men who at least claim to have engaged in it,) that a lot of people who do it don't get that it can be deeply disturbing to others, that it is violating. I'm not trying to say "oh, the poor dears," but rather to place this fucked up behavior within a larger context patriarchy, ignorance on the part of men as to their role therein, and a prudish culture around many aspects of human sexuality in which people are not encouraged to learn about themselves or think about why they like what they like or figure out ways they might be able to enjoy, say, erotic humiliation/public exposure without dragging unwilling participants into their fantasies.

This happened to me once while I was jogging, a guy was following me around in his car. I ended up going into a restaurant nearby and calling a friend to come get me.

Then a few months later the exact same thing happened to my sister while she was jogging.

The worst thing about all this was how many people thought it was "funny." I had to very strongly inform them of how fucking scary it is to have that type of thing happen to you.

If this ever happens to you again, please, call the police. It has been years (about 20) but when it happened to me, I chalked it up as "par for my life," until a friend INSISTED I tell the police. The police officer told me that people who do this almost always escalate. And yes, this is an arrestable offense.

Eesh, some of the stories you guys are posting are so harrowing. I've *never* seen anyone masturbating in public. About the worst experience I've had was a 70+ year old guy leaning against me and feeling up my knee on the city bus when I was 14. I totally did not know how to deal with that - you're supposed to be polite to old people, right?

It's so weird because the other day, I was eating lunch with my boyfriend and he asked me if I would tell if I was in class and saw some guy staring at me and jerking off. My initial reaction was, "I guess I'd ignore it. What can I do about it?" and then at his shocked look I realized, "Oh my god, that's sexual assault, isn't it?" and he nodded.

So not all guys think that's acceptable behavior.

I used to have to take the bus to work when I lived on the other side of town, and there was a while when the main bridge was down so the schedules changed and the only way to get to work without being late was being there 40 minutes early. So to kill time, I'd go to the cafe down the street and have tea and toast. There was this obviously mentally challenged man who would come in. He came in for the first time since I started going there maybe 2 months after I started going regularly, and after that he came ALL THE TIME. He'd stare at me and stare at me and it made me SO uncomfortable. The one time, he sits down at my table and starts asking me all these personal questions. I felt so awkward and looked down at my food and gave short answers, but about five questions in, this older man who is always there in the morning as well told him I wanted to sit alone and to basically get away from me.

Another time this man came in, he stared at me for what seemed like forEVER, went into the bathroom and didn't come out for 20 minutes. I don't know if he was jerking it for sure, but that's the impression I got, and just thinking about it makes me sick. I know that it's not exactly public, but I still felt violated and disgusted. Like I was on display or some shit. I couldn't even imagine having someone do something like that TOWARD me and in front of me. Pervs.

I had this happen to me this summer. I was studying abroad and we were spending the weekend in Budapest. All the girls were back at the meeting place waiting for all the guys to show up. A guy walked by and we all noticed him because it was a particularly cold and rainy night but he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. We were all a little creeped out by him (it was a weird mutual gut feeling that something wasn't right). A few minuted after he had passed us, I looked down the street he had gone down to make sure he was gone, but instead I saw him with his hand up his shorts, masturbating. I quickly told all the girls to get up and walk to the next corner to wait for the guys. I left when he realized we saw him, but we still had to stand there and wait for the rest of the group feeling alone and vulnerable. The worst part was that when we told the guys what had happened some of them laughed at us for being scared or upset. I will never be able to think about that Budapest without thinking about that awful experience. It definitely needs a name and some harsh consequences.

This happened to me once. I was walking down a steep flight of stairs that were kind of switchback style. It's hard to explain, but it was the sort of thing where you couldn't see the level of stairs below you until you rounded a corner, so to speak, and there wasn't anyone else around. I rounded a corner in the middle of the stairs and came face to face with a guy masturbating. It scared the crap out of me, and I turned around and ran back up the stairs (there was no way I could go around him, obviously). The whole time running up I was terrified that he was running after me, but thankfully he wasn't. What was even worse was that that was the only way to get where I needed to go, so I just had to scrap my plans entirely.

Another horrible thing happened to me once that I don't even know how to classify. I was sitting on a bus while it was waiting at a transit center. I was the only one on the bus (even the driver was off), and I was looking out the window when a man turned his back to me and pulled his pants down. I thought he was just mooning me, which is bad enough, but then he actually started crapping. It was the most disgusting thing that I have ever experienced, and I had no idea what to do.

Stories like these make me so angry! I've never had this happen to me, but I can picture myself getting violent. I'm sure if it actually happened I would have a moment of shock to get over first.

On another note.....
guy's crotch in your face on a crowded subway when he clearly has plenty of room to turn away? A quick "accidental" smack with your umbrella, bag, etc. should do it. I've done it at concerts before (used my elbow)

You know what's pissing me off about all this? How many of you say that you've had guy friends laugh when you told them about it. I mean, what the fuck? They are supposed to be your friends, and that means respecting your feelings about a given situation. I'm almost more offended by that than I am all of the stories that everyone is telling, since these people should be the ones not just taking you seriously but backing you up and making you feel better if they can.

I realize that one of the question asked was "does this shit happen to you?", but nobody's really done much to come up with a name for it. how about "assaulturbate" or "masturbassault"?

Although those could be confused with the yet-more-alarming stories of guys who actually masturbate so that their ejaculate hits another person-- this post's subject is different...

My Human Sexuality textbook (Our Sexuality--Crooks and Baur) mentions this and a lot of people in my class shared similar stories on the day that we discussed it. According to my textbook, what Courtney described would be a form of exhibitionism, although anytime someone purposefully rubs up against another person (usually in crowded places) for sexual gratification it is known as frotteurism. Interesting, the books notes that it is relatively common (21% of typical college men in one study were found to have engaged in 1 or more frotteuristic acts) but often goes unnoticed.

It is mentioned in a section called coercive paraphilia (paraphilia = sexual behaviors often seen as deviant) along with exhibitionism, obscene phone calls, voyeurism and the more rare zoophilia and necrophilia. It does say that many people who engage in frotteurism and exhibitionism suffer from powerful feelings of social and sexual inadequacy and may have been raised in environments with shame-inducing attitudes towards sex. In the case of exhibitionism, the offender is usually after the horrified or shocked reactions of victims, so it is best to calmly look away and walk away (though understandably it is probably very difficult to remain calm).

I'm glad to hear BluCheez mention that a police detail in NY has tried to address this issue.

The last time that happened to me, I hollered bloody murder and had the guy's ass thrown in jail. And I'll do it again next time.

I have so far never experienced this. I honestly don't know how I would react. Something is wrong when this kind of harrassment is so common. If everyone was taught good manners, no one would have to worry about this.

I agree with Christine and her boyfriend. That is sexual assault. At the sexual assault centre I volunteer at, we define sexual assault as "any unwanted act of a sexual nature" and we believe that anyone who feels that they have been sexually assaulted has been.

I realize that this is nothing like the legal definition of sexual assault and probably never will be, but the legal system isn't designed to come down hard on these asshole pigs.

Listen to what all of us are saying about these experiences--we do not forget them. They shape where we can go, when we can go there, how we react to other people in public spaces. Just as the threat of sexual violence affects us every single day, experiences like this encroach on our ability to feel safe in places that we should feel safe. Hell, once some asshole in one of my classes first tried to lay his greasy head down on my coat, which was in the chair between us, and I moved it out of the way. He moved into the chair next to me and tried to put his head on my shoulder. I pulled away and said firmly, "ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? Get off." Now, I personally did not feel that I had been assaulted, but it made me nervous and uncomfortable to be in that class and in public spaces on my university campus, where I knew I could run into him again. I later saw him pull the same type of crap on other women.

As for my experiences with this specific type of shit:

Eighth grade, walking to meet a friend so we could come back to my house and hang out. I got to the bottom of my street where I usually turned the corner and saw a purple truck with a cap on the back. "Huh," I thought, "That's funny. Didn't that truck just pass me?" It had. I crossed the street instead of turning the corner, and someone yelled "Hey!" once I got to the other side. I looked over, and he was standing outside his passenger side door, waving not just his free hand, but his dick too. I ran away and called the police once we got back to my friend's house (we didn't go back to mine because we'd have to pass where he'd been again). They told me not to bother pressing charges because there was no way they could find him anyway.

So that's my two cents on the matter.

This happened to a friend of mine when she was just sixteen. Some guy was masturbating in a van parked next to her car, and showing off to her. My friend was just shocked into immobility, and then another man jumped out of the same van and grabbed her and started dragging her into the car!! Luckily her mom came out of the restaurant and started screaming, and the assholes jumped back in their van and drove off.

There is definitely a connection between the seemingly "harmless" public masturbation and more serious sex crimes. I know it's probably hard for the police to catch these freaks, but...deriving sexual pleasure by involving someone w/out their consent is fucked up, even if you're not touching the other person. It's a violation, and it's a slippery slope to rape. IMO.

This happened to a friend of mine when she was just sixteen. Some guy was masturbating in a van parked next to her car, and showing off to her. My friend was just shocked into immobility, and then another man jumped out of the same van and grabbed her and started dragging her into the car!! Luckily her mom came out of the restaurant and started screaming, and the assholes jumped back in their van and drove off.

There is definitely a connection between the seemingly "harmless" public masturbation and more serious sex crimes. I know it's probably hard for the police to catch these freaks, but...deriving sexual pleasure by involving someone w/out their consent is fucked up, even if you're not touching the other person. It's a violation, and it's a slippery slope to rape. IMO.

I can't believe I've never been masturbassaulted, especially after having lived in big cities for the past eight or so years.

I've been harassed and rubbed-on, but I can't recall ever being masturbated-at.

After reading all of your stories I just feel so helpless and angry.

I completely understand what it's like to be dumbstruck in the moment, only to come up with a good comeback later (people often assume I'm pregnant and say the rudest things). But if a cab driver ever does this to you, please report him to the cab company!! Masturbassaulting a woman whilst working has got to be a punishable offense for cabbies. Note the cab # when you get into the cab, just in case something shady happens, you know? Then you don't have to be quick-thinking if something does happen.

The reason guy friends find shit like this amusing? One word: privilege. It's appalling that they can't stop to put themselves in the victims' shoes.

Fortunately I've never had this happen to me, but not too long ago I was waiting for the train and I could feel that someone was staring at me. When I figured out who it was, I tried glaring back with a death stare (I don't mind if someone checks me out a little, but staring like he was is both creepy and rude). Instead of being embarrassed and looking away like any normal person does if you catch them staring (I had pink hair in high school, I know how to handle being stared at), he mouthed something at me. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but I probably don't want to know. I tried to walk far enough away from him so I'd get on a different car when the train came, but he followed me. He sat right across from me and stared the whole time. He wasn't technically doing anything illegal so I couldn't report him or anything, though. I was with my mom, so I just made sure we were deep in conversation the whole ride. Thankfully he got off at a stop before mine, because I was starting to worry that he would follow me off the train.

Best newsstory ever of catholic school girls who beat up a guy who was flashing them:

(first and third paragraphs)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4742395/

Seriously. Best. Story. Ever.

As for myself, I have run across men masturbating. And once was deliberately done for MY attention. Lovely. I laughed at him loudly then got on the bus.

Once when some random asshole decided to strongly grab my ass in broad daylight. I chased after him and punched him in the back a few times while screaming my fucking head off about "what the FUCK do you think you're doing...blah blah blah"

Then he got away, and about halfway down the block there was a woman there who was looking at me and I ust yelled to her (All the way down the block mind you) "That guy just grabbed my ass! Yeah that guy right there in the blue shirt" to which she replied "EWWWWWWWWW what an asshole!" Then stared him down as he passed and scurried hurriedly down the street. As well as every other person on the block who was now aware of the fact he grabbed me.

I was LIVID. No WAY was some random jerk going to get away with touching me. He was shorter than me though. But I may have still reacted the same way even if he wasn't, as I have a really bad temper when it comes to these things.

I was 17, working my first job in an ice cream shop. It was 8 at night and I was completely alone. Some guy came in, he was kind of odd. He would not leave me alone. He stood talking to me for about 15 minutes while I tried to get him to order something.I remember him telling me that he had been in jail. Finally he ordered some kind of CHOCOLATE ice cream and sat down. After that I walked into the back room. When I came back out he was standing at the counter showing me his hands. He had some kind of white goo all over them which I took to be melted ice cream. He asked if he could use the bathroom. I said yes. I looked over at the table he had been sitting at and saw melted chocolate all over the table, and then i remembered the white all over the guys hands. It dawned on me that the guy had definitely cum on his hands. A couple walked in and I begged them to stay with me until the guy left. The guy came out of the bathroom and came up to the counter. He kept saying "I won't tell if you don't tell" he repeated it a few times then left. It shook me up pretty bad, I was definitely afraid to work alone at night for awhile.

"There is definitely a connection between the seemingly "harmless" public masturbation and more serious sex crimes. I know it's probably hard for the police to catch these freaks, but...deriving sexual pleasure by involving someone w/out their consent is fucked up, even if you're not touching the other person. It's a violation, and it's a slippery slope to rape. IMO"

Except, I think it's important to remember that the guys who do this stuff and the guys who rape, are often not the same people at all. They're both problems, but I haven't studied this one to know whether their source is the same...

It first happened to me that I was aware of when I was about 14 and at a gas station on a car trip with my mum. She was still in the restroom, and I came back to the car and there was a truck driver just staring at me jerking off in his truck. When he caught me looking, and I looked (I'm sure) horrified, he just smirked at me.
I've never told anyone that, because it always made me feel like I had done something wrong.

This has happened to me a number of times. The first time I was 13. It was my first time in a big city on a subway. A huge scary man wearing spandex was standing up watching our school group of young girls and rubbing his errect penis against the metro wall. I was terrified. No one else seemed to notice or comment and I was powerless to do anything. He watched me watching him. One of my proudest moments came about 4 years later when I was on a bus and the man across from me took out his penis and started rubbing it while looking at me. The only other people on the bus were rows in front of us. I was again scared but it didn't take long before I grew angry. Why did I have to put up with this terrorism? I gathered up my will, and, at the very top of my lungs screamed, "Put your dick back in your pants!" The bus driver, shocked, stopped the bus, and the man immediately ran off. I still like to think about him standing on the side of the road in the rain, in the absolute middle of nowhere, on a bus route that was done running for the day.

I don't have any personal experience with this, thank goodness. But I did watch a Dr. Phil (yeah, I know, but I was in the gym watching a shared TV while I was on the treadmill) where one of these guys was a guest.

He claimed that most of the women he showed his prick to enjoyed it. Dr. Phil was dubious. But, no, the guy insisted. He'd done it about 1000 times and only 10 or so women called the cops on him.

In this guy's head, as long as the women didn't call the cops or raise an obvious fuss, they were enjoying his little show.

It was a disgusting episode and the guy seemed more like he was bragging about it than trying to get Dr. Phil's "help." He said he was "trying to stop," yet he had a 15 year old girlfriend.

I felt ill after watching the show.

So, if this guy was any kind of representation of public masturbaters, it may be best to raise a fuss so they don't think (in their disgusting, sick minds) that you enjoyed it and proceed to do it to other women.* I hope, if it does ever happen to me, I'll have the guts to say or do something.

*This is not to say that women are responsible for his future acts of sexual assault. These people shouldn't be doing what they're doing, period. I'm just trying to shed some light on what appeared to be a look into this sick fuck's head so that we can learn how best to defend ourselves from it once it starts happening.

I don't know if the guy was masturbating or not, but when I was 16 I was bent over at a car wash place, vacuuming my car. I look up and see this old guy parked and staring at me, and I smiled innocently at him (which I know is seriously retarded, but I was just being naive and friendly). But then it hit me about 5 seconds later that he was being a creep and staring at my ass, and after that I was just really uncomfortable. He didn't leave, either. I couldn't see what he was doing with his hands from my angle, but the thought just freaks me out.

Another time I was walking around a track behind the middle school (I was in high school), and this guy drove by at my walking pace and kept whistling at me and calling shit out. By the time I did my second lap, I was frustrated as fuck and ended up throwing him the finger and shouting at him to fuck off. He got offended and called me a bitch or something, then sped off. *eyeroll*

Then of course are the ass grabbings in crowded areas.

If someone actually pulled their dick out in front of my I'd freak. All these stories are really horrifying.

"Posted by: T-Monster | April 3, 2008 02:40 PM

I don't get it, why do some of the guy friends think this is funny? jrirwin, Simplejewel, and annie_lady had friends that didn't think it was a big deal, and laughed... I'm just confused, did any of them give reasons for laughing?"
------------------

In part because we lack empathy on this issue--many if not the great majority of us men can only begin to imagine the things women face on a daily basis.

Furthermore, having some guy wrestling the bald headed champion in public is so far beyond our experience that it's obviously perverse. And things that are odd and perverse are often exploited for comic effect in our culture.

If I found a woman masturbating in public while checking me out, I'd probably feel bad for her--she's mentally ill. Similarly a guy who is sexually inappropriate is mentally ill, yet for some (probably sexist) reason, he seems like more of an object for ridicule.

When I was a 12 year old boy, I was on a road trip with a group of kids (and some of our moms) and we stopped at a rest area. When I went to pee at the urinal, there was an old man also at an adjacent urinal who tried to make small talk with me (a violation of urinal manners to begin with) and, who I soon found out, was standing way back from the urinal gripping his erection.

I haven't had anything like this happen as an adult, but I do recall a fair number of other times when I was a kid in a pool men's locker room where there were adult men who were unusually eager to remain in a state of total nudity and talk to me.

The two cases I've described, though, have the difference of plausible deniability since they took place in a bathroom. That may not have helped Larry Craig and his wide stance, but I do think that public restrooms do provide cover for exhibitionists who like to target little boys.

Although my experience does not involve masturbation (from what I could see) it still scared the shit out of me.

Recently my friends mom was driving a group of us up to the mall to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. All of us were acting silly, snapping photos of us posing and making funny faces with her digital camera inside the car. One of my friends started giggling and suggested that we take a picture of the people in the car next to us.

I guess we were partially to blame for the situation because the moment my friend jokingly aimed the camera at the truck next to us (she didn't even snap a photo) we caught the eye of a group of creepy old men who started mouthing things to us and making obscene hand gestures to us through the window. My friends and I immediately stopped what we were doing and faced forward, we were all pretty scared. Finally, the girl whose birthday it was asked her mom to speed the car up, it took us twenty minutes to loose them and none of us felt like walking through the mall alone anymore.

Not exactly public per se ... but a few years ago I was at a party at a friend's house with some kind of shady friends of friends. I had a little too much to drink, passed out and woke up to a strange man with his dick out straddling me and jerking off. I said "get the fuck off me." He didn't move. I said, "WHAT PART OF GET THE FUCK OFF ME DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?!?!?!" He moved. He ended up (consensually) fucking another girl at the party.

I got groped by a random man in the grocery store when I was about 5. I told some friends about it a few years later and they laughed at me and said I was making it up. Not cool.

I also had some friends who worked at poms car washes in high school and said they saw a guy or two servicing themselves while their cars were being washed.

Last year I was heading north on the Orange Line at night towards Boston suburbs. There were about 10 other people in the train car. I was reading and zoning out but when I looked up, I saw this old guy sitting directly across from me staring directly at me. It creeped me out but took me a second to realize that he had his dick in his hands and was jerking off. That was clearly awful and disgusting but I was even more creeped out because there had been a few seconds before I realized he was jerking off that I was looking back at him. That felt even more awful to me. I quickly got up and moved to other side of the train car but he was still there and was still staring at me. I don't know if the other people in the car didn't notice or just didn't say or do anything. The next stop was my stop and I quickly got off but he followed me off the train. At this point I was incredibly scared but ran to get into the elevator that fortunately had no room for anybody else. That was where I lost him, but I was terrified during the entire walk from the station to my friend's house. I kept looking over my shoulder the whole way and am still incredibly freaked out when I think about that experience.

I found out shortly after that that the friend I had been going to visit had the same experience at the same stop on the same train line! Why do men feel like it's okay to do something like this? It definitely felt like more than sexual harassment. He was using me to get off and forcing me to be complicit!

I consider it sexual hurassment. it may not be verbal but the intent is all the same.

I've had it happen. several of my friends have had it happen. my mother had it happen to her. and thease instances were mild masterbation or cop a feel moments. I have a real cake topper of a story that still horrorfies me today that it happened.

Here we go... (excuse my rant)

Paris for new years. We went out dressed up for a drink and to count down new years in a very similar way to times square.

Myself and two friends together(3 of us) were groaped and mauled and subjected to various levels of the men in question masterbating, numberous times in one night in Paris just trying to get back to our hotel.

One of the scariest nights of my life. the men would try and separate one of us from the other even when we held onto each others hands/arms as hard as we could. I got separated right as we crossed the seinge.several boys pushed me up against the railing of the stone bridge over the river below and I was suddenly incircled by the bunch of teens lighting fire crackers. They decided it would be fun to try and pull up my skirts(I ware full length victorian skirts with petticoats and the whole works thank goodness or it would have been much worse)it was still scary as hell having 3 or 4 boys pulling up your skirt as they did luid things to themselves.

Thankfully my two friends had turned around when they lost site of me and dove into the boys to try to get me. as my friends managed to grab my hand and pull me out of the guys grasp, they as a parting shot, lit my skirt on fire. We almost thought we were home free till we were chased by 3 italian guys who kept trying to pull one friend away saying they were going to take her to their hotel room. we finally had to duck into a cafe and ask the waiter to tell them to leave.They did thankfully.

Two more times it happened before we got to the hotel. one was me again, a guy grabed me and tried to cop a feel saying that seeing how I was an American, american girls always put out. and on the metro back to the hotel some guy put his hand up my friends skirt but the train was so crowded she didnt tell us he was doing it until we got off the subway car. Theres more to the story which includes riots under the eiffle tower cars being lit on fire, store windows being broken,and continual masterbation of the men, continued attempts to fondle,kiss, touch and the like.

by the time we got to our hotel we fell into a ball on the bed and cried into each others arms. It was so shocking that in a modern day and age, 3 single women could not walk down a street(a main public street, not dark alleys) in a major city at night with pretty conservitive clothing, without getting mauled multiple times. It didn't happen to women who had a man with them. They left the couples alone. but the 3 of us, they chased us all over hell in back.

To this day, any time someone trys to say women are equals I recall that night in Paris and how lucky we were to get out of so many of the bad situations alive and only mildly senged. What would have happened to me on that bridge if my friends had not been able to pull me out of the boys grasps?

It's a scary thought.

"If I found a woman masturbating in public while checking me out, I'd probably feel bad for her--she's mentally ill. Similarly a guy who is sexually inappropriate is mentally ill, yet for some (probably sexist) reason, he seems like more of an object for ridicule."

Nick, I think it's because, as you hinted at earlier in your post, women are made to feel threatened by male sexuality far more regularly than vice versa, and men have trouble imagining what that would even feel like.

I agree that most men who do this are mentally ill. Personally, I think that nothing anyone can say or do at a distance from me in public is nearly as bad as sexual assault or rape. But, that doesn't mean that my rights aren't being violated if someone does something blatantly sexual in public that makes me uncomfortable, and that he should know would make me uncomfortable.

If you caugh a woman looking at you in public and blatantly masturbating, /and/ it made you uncomfortable, you would have a right to call the cops on her under the indecent exposure law (or whatever) and vice versa. Because it's better she gets the professional help she needs, than continue to act inappropriately in public...

I think you might be right, Nick. When I told my husband about this thread, his response was disbelief that such things even happen. I was equally surprised, since I thought it was common knowledge that this kind of thing happens to women all the time.

This has happened to me at a public bus stop in the middle of a sunny day in Cambridge, MA. The man next to me on the bench just whipped it out and started masturbating next to me. I was on my way home from a Pride Parade, which made it seem even more horrible somehow - maybe because I thought he knew I was queer and that's why he was doing it. But, it doesn't really matter why - it shouldn't have happened in the first place.

This has happened to friends as well. One friend had a coworker masturbate in front of her multiple times. He was not fired - she was transferred to another location.

In the late 90s, some friends at a university in Seattle had a man hiding in the bushes and masturbating in front of a lot of the female students very regularly until he was caught.

In high school, I had a math teacher who would rub his crotch up against your head or the back of your chair while leaning over your desk to "help you with your homework." I don't know if that counts as public masturbation, but it's pretty damn close. We were young and scared, and kept telling ourselves that he must not realize what he was doing.

Sigh.

Ninapendamaishi-- in general I think your conversation with your husband illustrates that there is so little discussion between men and women about every day sexual violence, that its no wonder that men have no idea what is going on.

It's amazing/disturbing to read everyone's stories. Here's one of mine:
When I was in high school, I used to wait until my parents went to bed to do the dishes so I could gab on the phone uninterrupted. Our kitchen window faced the kitchen window of the house next door. Next to my neighbor's kitchen window was another window-- the size of a full length mirror or so.

The husband/father (I babysat their kids) masturbated in the window on several occasions.

I told my parents WHO DIDN't BElIEVE ME. So one night while the neighbor was wacking off, I crept upstairs and grabbed my stepfather, whispering "He's doing it!" I made my stepfather creep down the stairs with me to see it.

I had no idea what to do. I think we called a Rape Hotline but they didn't have anything to suggest. When we called my cops, my stepfather hesitated to get involved, because the neighbor was a doctor at a nearby university/hospital.

After the cops stopped by and paid a visit to the neighor, I wasn't asked to babysit anymore.

But in a moment of levity, when my stepfather told the cops the neighbor was a doctor, the cops asked, "What kind? A proctologist?"

Courtney-- thanks for the forum on this topic.

This thread got me thinking and blogging about strategies to fight this kind of behavior and what we can do about it.

This thread is shedding a lot of light on the disparity in male/female reactions to the story of the woman who is suing American Airlines after waking up to find some sleazo masturbating next to her after already ejaculating on her once.

It also reminds me as a mom to remind my kids yet again to kick up a huge fuss if they see someone doing this near them. It's a lesson I've been remiss on.

I had this happen to me when I was in my twenties and took the bus into the city where I worked. It was a long bus ride and early in the morning, so I would fall asleep after taking my seat and wake up a few blocks before my stop.

Because I was one of the first on the bus, I usually chose a window seat. All the riders were regulars, and this one older guy who got on at a later stop started sitting next to me.

One morning I woke up a little earlier than I usually did and realized that the man sitting next to me was kind of rhythmically bumping my arm.

His coat was across his lap so I couldn't see anything, but why would his hands have been UNDER the coat in his lap?

When I got to work that morning, I talked with a coworker about it and told her I think he had been masturbating while I was asleep. I was creeped out, and she was upset for me.

I was upset because I had no other way to get to work. This was the only bus line that ran between my town and the Big City, and the only bus that would get me to work at the appropriate time.

My coworker and I discussed strategies for getting this creep away from me. Chief among them was sitting next to someone else, or putting something in the seat next to me to discourage takers.

I tried the first and ended up next to some guy who thought I had "chosen" him. What an uncomfortable ride.

The next time I put something in the seat next to me and when Mr. Perv got on the bus, I glared at him when he walked past. He sat elsewhere.

The nice thing about this whole incident is that I eventually became friendly with a regular rider, a nice Jewish lawyer who was newly engaged and in love, and we started to sit regularly next to each other. I loved hearing him talk about his fiancee because his love for her shone through in every word he spoke. I also learned a lot about Judaism.

As I was writing this, I realized there was another incident. I was on a train, pulling out of a station and at the very end of the platform, I remember seeing a man standing there in the shadows behind a pillar, whacking off as the train sped past. I was appalled but also intrigued because as a sexually inexperienced girl, I hadn't realized that men masturbated so vigorously. For the few seconds I saw him, he looked like he was going to pull it OFF.

Strange that I forgot that incident until now.

Nick said: "If I found a woman masturbating in public while checking me out, I'd probably feel bad for her--she's mentally ill. Similarly a guy who is sexually inappropriate is mentally ill, yet for some (probably sexist) reason, he seems like more of an object for ridicule."

I would not feel physically threatened if a woman did that in my presence, but I am sure women typically do when a creepy guy does this in theirs.

As for why some guys laugh about it, I am fairly certain it's not that they think it's in any sense acceptable. I think we generally assume that people like these depraved men are not a threat (maybe we should put ourselves in womens' shoes). Moreover, our gender is given to so much more extreme behavior of every kind (hey, good and bad), the vast majority of men (1) can't even fathom someone doing this, so it has an air of the absurd about it, and (2) frankly, we don't look at it as a gender issue and don't really think about the fact that women feel vulnerable to this misconduct solely because they are women. The reason for the latter is that, again, we feel zero solidarity -- nothing whatsoever in common -- with the perverts who do this. In general, guys don't really look upon ourselves as part of a "guy" group because the range of "guy" behavior is so vast, we skew so wide -- again, a lot of good but a lot of bad. It would help if we reminded ourselves that while we have nothing in common with the creeps who do this (except the organ they are misusing), this sort of crime almost always targets women. Even though WE'RE not victims, we need to take this thing just as seriously as you all do.

My mom told me about an experience as a small girl (6 or 7), when she and a girlfriend were sitting on a concrete ledge and some guy pulls up across the street, gets out of his car and pulls out Mr. Johnson. My mom said she and her friend looked at each other, jumped across the fence and jogged home.
---------------

The movie 'Waiting' has a running theme where male waiters and cooks expose themselves to other guys and get points depending on surprise and the type of exposure. At one point one of the female waitresses says 'You want to know why women don't play that stupid game" and pulls up her dress with no panties underneath with triple canopy foliage dotted with bits of cotton. It was amusing because shocking because so unlikely.

When I was 16 I had this really shitty grocery store job and one manager always use to harass me like that. I told a few other people in the company and they just told me to leave or I'd get fired. I know how fucked up that sounds, and I tried to get them into some sort of trouble but there was nothing I could do.

One of my friends was at a clothing store in philly and she had her ipod ear buds in her ear but they weren't on. One of the guards started following her and saying really horrible sexual things to her thinking she couldn't hear him. She was so freaked out that she pretended that she didn't and just left the store.

That friend and I now carry mace with us. I would suggest to all women to carry it, for $10 the feeling of more safety is priceless. Now if I suspect men are about to harass me I get my mace in my hand and my camera phone (either to call 911 or take a picture). Get the mace with UV dye in it, because it make the perp easier to track. I know some people question if its legal or not, and it is as long as it's only used for self-defense. So basically it's fine (atleast in PA) as long as you aren't using it to harass people.

Emily -

I wasn't defending the guy. You misread. I meant to say the guy wasn't a creep up until that point - having been a regular at the coffeeshop for a long time. He was a normal person. My point was that sometimes, people can't control themselves. I spoke nothing of defending their actions.

I can't say that I'm surprised at the huge number of responses & similar encounters. Almost every one of my female friends has had an experience like this...especially in or around NYC. It happened to me on the platform of the L train and another time at an NYU restaurant table near a window. I have come to the point where I am vocal about this if I ever see it happening. Most of the men that do it are cowards who run away as soon as they're called out. It's disgusting & violating without direct contact. We should not have to put up with this shit.

I can't say that I'm surprised at the huge number of responses & similar encounters. Almost every one of my female friends has had an experience like this...especially in or around NYC. It happened to me on the platform of the L train and another time at an NYU restaurant table near a window. I have come to the point where I am vocal about this if I ever see it happening. Most of the men that do it are cowards who run away as soon as they're called out. It's disgusting & violating without direct contact. We should not have to put up with this shit.

This kind of thing is just one more reason I get pissed at people who think kids should be completely ignorant abotu sex until it's pretty much unavoidable. And people who raise girls to ignore things like this. It makes girls and women feel isolated and embarassed, as if they've done someting wrong and as if it's wrong to talk about it.

I don't know how many of these men are potentially dangerous. It seems from anecdotal information that they mostly stop when they're called on their behavior. We need to teach girls to stand up for themselves so they can feel it's their right to challenge these guys, not just take it in silence.

I didn't get the chance to read all of the comments so someone may have brought this up, but coincidentally I have been reading a lot of new stories about this issue. Men , two out of three being college students, getting arrested for masturbating in public. One of the situations happened in my area, western mass five colleges, and a woman who he was masturbating to reported him. He was also reported earlier that day for grabbing a womans butt on the street earlier that day. Funny that I read these on my guilty pleasure, Perez Hilton. They charged him with open and gross lewdness. Also, since a lot of people were sharing personal stories, this has never happened to me, but one of my past boyfriends told me a story about he was playing basketball with his friends in Queens while in High School. I guy pulled up to them and asked for directions, when they approached the car he has his penis out and then drove away.

Years ago, I was sitting in my basement apartment watching Law & Order in the wee hours of the morning, and I had noticed some guy standing in the parking lot facing my window, smoking a cigarette. My curtains were open a bit, so I decided I should close them up tighter in case he was a perv. A short while later, I heard a very loud and distinct *cough* come from RIGHT outside my window; it sounded as if someone were standing RIGHT there! So I ran into the bedroom right next to the livingroom to peek out the window to see what was going on, and this guy was practically pressed right up against my livingroom window jacking off. I went "EWWW EW EW EW!" and called the police. By the time the cops got there he was gone of course, but I found it very infuriating that the first thing the cops asked me was "What were you wearing?" - I was wearing the same thing I was as I stood there talking to them, which was a an old tank top and a baggy, ratty pair of sweatpants - and then they asked how sheer my curtains were. I told them that although they were a light ivory colour, you couldn't see through them, they were not sheer at all. One of the cops went outside to the parking lot to see for himself. I was disgusted that they seemed to be implying that I was dressing in skimpy lingerie and parading around in front of the window for passersby to see, thus creating a nuisance when someone took the bait just so I could call the police! Because then it would have been my own fault of course. >:(

Anyways, my bf (who was working night shifts at the time) had to clean the goo off the window, and we were very careful from then on to make sure the curtains were always pulled together TIGHTLY.

WTF is wrong with some people????

This sort of thing IS illegal, it's called public indecency and it happens far too often.

It's happened to me three times, twice on the nyc subway and once here in DC. It's a violation and some perpetrators are prosecuted for it. Specifically, there was a case against a man who exposed himself at a children's public pool. Sick.

Give me a break, PFM. You are right; sometimes people can't control themselves. Sometimes if I wait too long to go to the restroom, I pee myself a little. That's an involuntary bodily function.
Removing your penis from your pants and using your hand to stroke it is NOT involuntary. It's a conscious decision, except in the rarest occasions when the offender is seriously mentally ill.

Mz.Stilletto, your story makes me STABBY!!!

This happened to me once while walking to an evening class in college...there was an alleyway that the commuters would walk through to get to a certain building and I happened to be walking through it alone at dusk when a guy pulled his car in and masturbated as I walked by. I was terrified and ran...I didn't call the campus police about it until 2 days later because I was afraid they'd tell me I shouldn't have been walking through an ally by myself. They did.

If I found a woman masturbating in public while checking me out, I'd probably feel bad for her--she's mentally ill. Similarly a guy who is sexually inappropriate is mentally ill, yet for some (probably sexist) reason, he seems like more of an object for ridicule.

You're right. He shouldn't be subject to ridicule, he should be subject to threats of serious bodily injury.

Many men pull this shit. Almost all of them are not mentally ill. You would assume that that woman was mentally ill because women don't behave that way. Women don't see men and children as property for us to use as we see fit. There are still many men who see women and children that way. Ergo, many completely sane men expose themselves to women and children.

They are not to be pitied.

This happened to me in college, too. I went to an itty bitty little liberal arts school. There were only about 2000 students. I had heard rumors of a "campus masterbator" -- some guy who masterbated at girls who walked alone on campus at night, but I figured it was a just a campus myth. Nope. The one time I went somewhere alone after dark, a guy followed me along the footpath for a while, passed me, then turned around and asked me for the time right outside my dorm. When he turned around, it became obvious what he was doing. I was so stunned I didn't really react, told him it was 11pm, and went inside. Then, I freaked out, called the police and had to make a report.

The worst part about this is that a few weeks later another girl was "harassaulted" by a campus masterbator, but hers was a different guy. Different race, different age, height, weight, etc. There were at least 2 guys doing this on a campus of less than 2000 people and neither have ever been caught by police.

I wish now I had had the presence of mind to blow my rape whistle or something.

What is the appropriate response? Run? Fight? Laugh? I don't want to enter a physical confrontation, but something in me just wants to lash out at people who would do this.

Although I do not recall this actually happening to me, but who knows? My best friend from college told me that one time she was on the "El Train"-that's in Chicago and a guy sitting right across from her just on a whim whipped out his wee-wee and started jerkin it in front of her. All she said is that she could only think "Oh my god!" It is just so sad that this happens to many women and if it happened to me, I don't know what I would do.

i know this is a bit off topic, but reading this post and your replies i wanted to ask somthing.

there was an incident where i was groped at a bus stop-and it really had an effect on me. anyways i never told my family. one day my brother in law started a convertaion about sexual harassment which infuriated me to the point where i just blurted out what happened to me. about 20minutes later-when the mood had changed, he made a joke about how i should have let the guy "have a better grope by taking my jumper off". at that point i went to storm out-where he said if we didnt talk about why i was upset he wouldnt talk to me ever again. so we did. but i was still angry.

anyways he sent me an email days after saying how ME being upset was a great insult to the women he talked to (he did some charity work helping abused women) and an insult to his previous two girlfriends who were both rape victims.

and you know what-i felt really bad and apologised. but you know what. what i wanted to ask was-why should I BE FUCKING SORRY for his stupid remark? surely if he'd worked with abused women it makes his remarks even worse? basically-if felt like he was saying unless i was raped to the point of penetration i shouldnt be making a big deal out of such an "small" incident.

my feelings are i think its a shame that women have to put up with sexual harassment however "small". after reading your comments i didnt know this kind of thing was so common. however i still feel i had "no right" to take up police time or complain about such an "small" incident. i'm still a bit in limbo about how i should feel.

what are your thoughts?

p.s-sorry about the long post but i wanted your opinions on the matter as you are the only one's mature and reasonable enough to discuss this with.

Sarah Connor,
your brother-in-law sounds like a total idiot and an asshole. The reason some men thinks it's okay to grope women at a bus stop is the same mentality/cultural programming that causes some men to think rape and abuse is okay. Thinking the one is bad doesn't at all preclude thinking the other is worse.

And I'm so tired of men who think they should win some kind of award for helping out abused women and having patience with girlfriends who have been raped. Hell, it's the only human thing to do.

Yes, has happened to me several times though the men are usually driving by very slowly in their cars. In one case, the guy drove around the block at least three times to keep going past my sister and me as we walked down the street. Also, once when I was looking for a roommate, a guy came by, ostensibly to see the apartment, and pulled out his big boner and started masturbating in the middle of the bedroom. I was terrified, as we were alone together in the house, but I managed to calmly ask him to leave without screaming or reacting, as I know that's what they're generally looking for.

"This just happened to my sister and I on Easter! We were at the pool at my Grandmother's 55+ apartment complex in broad daylight and some dude whipped it out."

Hopefully he had Alzheimer's or something. They do stuff like that pretty frequently, without knowing or understanding.

This has never happened to me, that I know of, but I'm off in la-la-land all the time, plus I'm painfully shy and avoid eye contact whenever possible. I live out in the boondocks where there's no public transportation either, but even then I've had my fair share of groping, staring, street harassment, etc.

15-guy on bike masturbating erect penis hanging out of his pants on my way home from school, on the same block the school was on! and you thought you were safe...
16-guy in running shorts with entire package hanging out, not masturbating but literally saying "look at me"
18-walking home from work guy on bike circles the block a few times to ride past me. finally ends up groping my ass and riding away.

Sarah Connor, I don't think there is a "should have" about your reaction. In other words, how you reacted was how you reacted, period. It wasn't "wrong" and it wasn't "right". How can there be an "appropriate" reaction when each person is different?

Society tries to tell us all the time that we shouldn't feel the way we feel about things like this (your brother-in-law being a mouthpiece for that, unfortunately), but I have found that the most empowering (in the true sense of the word) thing I can do personally is to refuse to dismiss my own feelings just because I'm "supposed to". So I think you had/have a perfect right to feel however you feel, including "in limbo about how you should feel", and no one should be taking away your self-determination and self-awareness by telling you exactly how you should feel.

I hope that makes sense.

Maybe LA's just not as friendly a place for hanging out in public as NY is, but this has never happened to me (to my knowledge). This is disgusting and should be a crime. Does it count as exposure if the dick is still in the pants? 'Cause that's what it sounds like: indecent exposure.

SarahConnor- he sounds like a huge creep and you had and have every right to feel as you did about the incident. I cannot believe a person who has worked with abused women and known the story of rape victims would say that you should have LET someone physically violate you, even as a joke. And making you feel GUILTY about having been violated is unforgivable! Ack!

I recall many incidents of being rubbed up against at concerts as a teen, I think that happens a lot. But my most memorable incident was being 18 and in a large building with several businesses in it, getting on the elevator with a friend, and there was an older (40-50ish) man already on it, he was dressed in nice slacks and a collared shirt- didn't look dangerous at all- until he moved the jacket he was holding and I saw the shape of his erection and the stain on the front of his pants. Then he started rubbing himself through his pants with one hand, staring at us the whole time. I was freaked out and hit the button for the next floor so we could get off- but my friend never even noticed.

Also, I wanted to comment on that Dr. Phil guy- I can relate to being so shocked at seeing someone's penis sticking out at you, that it takes a few seconds of staring to realize what you're seeing. And when that happened to me, I was walking by a park and the guy was leaning against a nearby tree, kind of shadowed, I could see his bare penis better than his face, but when I finally got past that and and looked up to his face- I could see his teeth, he was GRINNING hugely at me! AHHHHH! I'm sure he thought I was enjoying the show because it took me so long to respond.

My response as a teen to the "frottage" was to tell my male friends and have them intimidate the guy away, or at least surround me for a while so I felt safer. I did nothing in after the elevator incident but tell my friend. With the grinner, I gave him the most horrified look, yelled "f*ing PERV!" and then fled in the opposite direction. Should have called the cops.

yes!! yes!! i've had this happen to me too!

when i was 4 months pregnant with my daughter, i worked 2nd shift & did my grocery shopping after work. i always try to stay very aware of my surroundings, and use common sense, so i parked right in front of the store directly under a street light.

when i got out of the store, i put my groceries in the passenger side of my car & saw someone had parked directly next to me. Thinking that it was probably another women who thought the same way i did, i didn't really think much about it.

i returned the cart to the corral & when i turned around to go back to my car, there was this guy leaning against my drivers side door, totally naked jerking off. i walked around to the front of the car & told him to get the eff out of my way. he shook his head 'no' & kept doing his thing. so i said 'eff u i'm calling the police!' i didn't have a cell phone at the time, so i ran my little preggers self back into the store screaming at the top of my lungs 'THERES A NAKED MAN JERKING OFF ON MY CAR & WON'T GO WAY! CALL THE F-ING COPS!!'. well, the cops showed up & by then he was gone. there were 2 male cops who thought the whole thing was just hysterical. they giggled like high school boys. so i screamed at them that i was pregnant and alone & could've been hurt. they shut up but were still useless. the one female cop that came was awesome. she was PISSED OFF & was very comforting. i was really glad she was there.

they didn't ask for a sketch or anything even though i offered to come to the station etc. they didn't want to hear it from me.

fast forward about a year later. a sketch was in the local paper of a guy who had grabbed a 16 year old girl on her way home from school & tried to force her into his truck. thankfully she kicked him & got away. but y'know what? it was the same guy.

i tell you, i felt more insulted by the cops than the guy that did it. the guy who did it obviously has a problem. the cops should damn well know better.

Here's a news report about a guy who ejaculated on a woman in a Target store. Listen all the way to the end where they report on another man caught exposing himself. The cops are "checking to see if these two incidents are related". Hmmm . . . guess they don't realize how often these assaults happen. http://www.nwcn.com/video/?z=y&nvid=226142

To Ninapendamaishi, Waxghost and Amie i just want to say a really big THANK YOU! for your responses. you have no idea how much your responses mean to me. i never spoke to anyone about what happened because i was afraid of the type of reaction i would get akin to my brother in law's. i just feel really sad that women are expected to put up with this s*!^. also somthing i noticed-i know many men who want to feed africa and save the children YET still hold incredibilly mysoginistic views. they dont see the confliction-because its like you said-society doesnt have a problem with portraying women as less than human. anyways-thank you again for your replies :)

There actually IS a website here in NYC where women post cellphone pics of men who harass them on the streets.

It's called hollaback: http://www.hollabacknyc.blogspot.com/ and it's a hell of a site.

There were also two incidents here were men got arrested because the women they were masturbating in front of on the subway took cellphone pics of them.

One guy was harassing Catholic school students on the R train - one girl took a pic, showed it to the cops, and they got him at the same station the next day (he had made a habit of this).

The other guy, a fairly prominent vegitarian restaurant owner, had his picture taken when he masturbated in front of a woman on the 7 train.

He got his pic (with his private parts digitized out) in the Daily News - and he got arrested, tried and convicted (although, unfortunately, he didn't get any jail time).

Beyond that, I would have to applaud the women who called out these guys - and in particular the woman who's sister decked a guy in the eye after he rubbed himself against her.

If these guys knew there were swift and severe consequences for their public lewdity, they would learn to control themselves with a quickness!

Perhaps a bit of pepper spray to the face - followed up by a swift knee between the legs as he reaches to cover his burning eyes.

And as for my fellow men - if we see another guy getting perverted in public, we need to do something about it (a nice public beatdown would be a good start)!