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23 Women Confess Their Scariest Encounters With Street Harassment

6.

It was winter, and I was sitting in a coffee shop with a seat facing the window. I was just trying to warm up while I was waiting for my bus to show up across the street. And older man comes by the window, waves and smiles. Not wanting to be impolite I wave back. Next thing I know, he’s bending over mimicking cunnilingus at me. I immediately got up and moved away from the table.

7.

I had just gotten off the bus and was walking home from work. I didn’t feel comfortable around the 2 guys who also got off on my stop because they had been talking about me on the bus. I was crossing a bridge to get home and was really didn’t want to be on the bridge by myself with them and was walking as fast as I could. I thought I had managed to get away from when halfway across the bridge they started taunting me and telling me things like ” Why are you walking so fast?” and “Why won’t you talk to us?”. One of them followed me almost all of the way home, by the time I got home I could barely walk and my hands were shaking so much I had trouble opening the door because I was so scared.

8.

I was on a class trip to Barcelona the summer after my senior year in high school, I was walking with a group of girls from my school down one of the main drags in the city, on our way to a night flamenco show, and this trio of older (Spanish?) dudes going the opposite way suddenly start walking backwards, facing us directly. They’re speaking Spanish and I could tell what they were saying wasn’t nice, and the guy in the middle literally whips out his dick, right on the street, shaking it at us. Our art teacher, who had been trailing behind talking to his wife, suddenly stomps up and makes them leave us alone.

9.

I was on a cruise with my family and our ship docked for a day in Jamaica. Went to the beach with my best friend who came along with us. My dad is with us, but fell asleep on the beach as we waded in the water. A group of Jamaican guys come over–I mean, like, 8 or 9 guys, ages ranging from 10-40, and literally surround us. Ask us to come to their house, they will teach us to dance, we are cute, etc etc. One guy reaches his hand out and says “Can I touch your stomach?” My friend and I were so weirded out but we were still in high school so we just laughed awkwardly and said, “Uhh, no.”

10.

A few years ago I was traveling around Eastern Europe on my own. I was in Bucharest train station at 10 pm waiting for an over-night train to Chisinau in Moldova. I was stood around the big screen with my backpack on waiting for my train to be announced when these two men approached me. The other one came closer to me and started leering at me and making kissing noises. I ignored him. He kept going away and then coming back really invading my personal space doing the same over and over again. I started to feel really intimidated, but there was nothing I could do except ignore him and wait for my train.

Written by Laura McNairy

Laura is a freelance writer for TFLN. She likes to write about what she knows best — dating, sex, and being awkward, but usually in the opposite order. She is the Assistant Editor and videographer for Peach Fuzz, a sex-positive nudie magazine in ATX.