Content warning: The following article contains stories about sexual harassment that might prove distressing for some readers.
Sexual harassment is defined as behavior characterized by the making of unwelcome and inappropriate sexual remarks or physical advances in a workplace or other professional or social situation.
Sexual harassment affects both men and women but women are sadly more often on the receiving end of unwelcome behavior and advances.
Should it surprise us then that so many have stories about really aggressive behavior they've experienced from men, from total strangers to people they actually know?
Women shared their stories with us after Redditor ExpressAware asked the online community,
"Women of Reddit, what is the grossest thing a man has said to you?"
"When I was 18..."
"When I was 18 I worked at a gas station mostly staffed by women. One of my coworkers was pregnant. We had a regular customer who came in a windowless van who would harass us constantly. He would hit on us and leer at us and sit in the parking lot in his creepy abductor van and catcall us if we were out sweeping the parking lot while he drank his coffee."
"The worst thing I heard him say was to my pregnant coworker. He asked her when she was going to have his baby."
"Our manager heard it and came down hard on him. She started screaming in his face (and to paint the picture he was a tall lanky guy and she was a short stout lesbian with a butch haircut) and she banned him from the store.
"He huffed that he'd take his business elsewhere and she scoffed at him that his two coffee refills a day weren't going to break us and that she would not stand for him harassing her girls. That manager was a rockstar, she always had our backs."
sai_gunslinger
Can we all just hug your manager? She sounds amazing.
"Not the grossest..."
"Not the grossest but one of my step brothers said that I was going to be a lesbian when I grew up. He said it all the damn time."
[deleted]
There's nothing wrong with being a lesbian but it sounds like your stepbrother had some kind of hang-up.
"I was writing..."
"I was writing up a menu on a blackboard at a cafe. A regular said, 'Great, that’s where you belong…on your knees.' I wish I had snapped back but I was too shocked to reply to his f**cked remark."
Alessa1992
It’s like they all learn the same words through some kind of collective telepathic misogynistic osmosis.
"I worked at an ice cream shop..."
"I worked at an ice cream shop/gas station, they were famous for their peach ice cream, only available in summer. Some old man asked for a peach cone, and he said, 'I'll take some of your peaches too.'"
quirkytorch
This is so crude. Why do they think this is okay?! It's maddening.
"Said to a younger me..."
"Said to a younger me, a skinny little tween in my junior school uniform standing awkwardly nearby at the bus top: ‘You know what you need? A good meal, and lots of sex."
Littlesbeetroot
And he sounds like he needs a lot of jail time.
"Toss that kid away..."
""Toss that kid away, I'll give you a new one," from a middle-aged man in a convertible when I was biking with my then one-year-old."
Lijn5
What exactly is the point of these comments? Is it a control thing? Do they get off on the shock it causes?
"I had been dating a guy..."
"I had been dating a guy for a few weeks and out of the blue he said that he wasn’t actually attracted to me so he didn’t want to date me anymore but that he wanted to keep having sex with me… oh but he wouldn’t be using condoms."
EmergencyCalm1279
The audacity of some men.
The sheer audacity.
"I do some freelance bartending in addition to working at a sports bar. I was bartending for a wedding & talking with guests as I normally would. An older gentleman was complimenting my outfit/makeup/jewelry, telling me how pretty I am, harmless compliments."
"Then he told me I looked like one of his granddaughters & started looking me up & down giving me flirtatious looks. It made me feel so disgusting that I actually washed my hands to try to make the feeling go away."
[deleted]
Lecherous old men sitting in bars are such a common sight. Why do they think this behavior is okay?! Why?!
"The priest..."
"The priest who married my (ex) husband and I told him that "it's just a hole.""
manonfetch
This is just nauseating... tells you everything about how this man feels about women.
Sexual harassment is against the law. Don't do it. Sadly, this should go without saying but that isn't the world we live in.
Listen to women. Believe them.
RAINN is the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization. RAINN created and operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline in partnership with more than 1,000 local sexual assault service providers across the country.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, help is available.
To speak with someone who is trained to help, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) or chat online at online.rainn.org.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below.
@lpeterp/Bluesky
@FPWellman/X
@bobsbeatgmail.com5/Threads