Just venting so please don’t come at me but it finally happened to me last night and I wanted to get my thoughts about it out. I was drinking with my partner and we were heading home on a pretty packed last train. Someone was pressed up against me from behind for a few stations and I did notice it, but for some reason I assumed it was a woman so it didn’t bother me.
Then it happened – I felt someone run their hand up my butt. I don’t know how to describe it, they sort of pressed a few fingers horizontally into my butt cheek and moved them upwards. I sort of froze for a moment while I was processing what happened, then tried to express to my partner what just happened without making a scene. We both turned to look at the guy who did it, who noticed us noticing him, and my partner was angry and asked if I wanted him to say something, but I said no. The guy dashed out of the train right away.
The way he did it and the timing (right before arriving at a stop) felt extremely intentional – if we was accused he could have said it was an accident, and he had an escape plan.
I was surprised by my reaction – I froze, and even with my partner beside me I didn’t want to make a scene, which I regret. I doubted myself, if that really just happened or if I was over exaggerating. I think I would have been a lot more freaked out if I were by myself.
Anyway, I just wanted to share because I’m sure there’s a lot of people in this sub who’ve had similar experiences. Hope this mf gets caught before he does it to someone else.
9 comments
I’m sorry this happened to you 🙁
So gross! I’m really sorry that happened to you. From other people with similar stories it sounds like freezing up is a very common reaction. So please don’t feel guilty about it.
I think your reaction is perfectly natural, albeit later very frustrating when you’ve processed everything and realise that creepy fucker needs to die.
I’m sorry this happened to you. Some people are just assholes disguised as human. Sometimes in suburbia I see big signs on the street warning ”チカン注意” (“beware of gropers”) and they boggle my mind, because there must have been something that prompted these signs. I’ve never heard of such signs in other countries. Then again, in other countries I’ve not seen porno in the 7-11 right next to the milk….
I’m sorry this happened to you.
A few years ago, I asked my lawyer husband what to do and he said always report it to the train staff because that line may have a record of chikan incidents and/or video surveillance. Even if you can’t make an ID, he said always report it.
I’m really sorry this happened to you…..
It is common not to tell anything. That filling “maybe I’m wrong?’ is always there. But I prefer to memorize one thing: yell on your native language asap. If I’ll be wrong – no one gonna understand that
It’s fairly common, especially on crowded trains at night when people are drunk. I hope you weren’t too traumatized by the encounter. When I experienced unsolicited touching back when I was commuting by train I would either just push them away or enjoy the moment, depending on my mood.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. When something like this happens, I think deep down we *hope* it’s a misunderstanding, so we don’t react straight away. Then only after we’ve had time to properly assess the situation and put everything together, we realise that, yes, indeed, we had just been harassed in some way. Creeps purposefully monopolize on this tendency and, like you said yourself, try to do it subtly so that they have plausible deniability if you confront them. Whenever I’ve been in a similar situation, I reacted very similarly, and while I do regret it I also acknowledge that suddenly and unexpectedly having to accuse someone of sexual harassment on the spot isn’t the super simple badass main character moment that people sometimes present it as. In reality, it’s a really volatile situation where you’re not instantly aware of what the best course of action is or what the person is going to do once you confront them.