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23 Women Confess Their Scariest Encounters With Street Harassment

20.

I was walking down the street leaving work and I noticed a man following me. As he got closer, he started making very sexual comments about my hair, my clothes, my body, and began screaming them so everyone around could hear. He followed me like this for about three blocks until I could get away from him. I thought of the first place with security guards and luckily ducked into an H&M. The scarier part is that when I left from another entrance an hour later, he was still there.

21.

Mine happened after a bachelorette party in the French Quarters. I was walking back to the hotel and all of a sudden this guy just started following me. He’s saying things like, “love your cunt, baby,” and just walking real close behind me. When he touched my shoulder I shoved him away and ended up ducking into a restaurant that was closing. I snatched up a menu and sat down at a table. A waiter came over and told me they were closing so I told him I just needed to stay there until that guy left. Sure enough, after five minutes the creepy guy left.

22.

I didn’t grasp just how dangerous it was at the time, but when I was 14 my friend and I were hanging out at a bus stop near her house around midnight, just laughing and having fun. Cue a white panel van pulling up beside us, and the driver calling at us in a creepy raspy voice “Hey, you girls ever get your assholes licked by a guy in a trench coat?” We both stared at him and said no, and then proceeded to walk towards her house. He sped off, splashing us with a puddle, and we kept walking. Nearing home we noticed he had circled around the block and was leering at us through his open window, slowing down near us. We booked if for the house and ran inside, then continued our night as if nothing had happened.

23.

This didn’t happen to me but to a friend when she was 14. She told me about it at school the next day. She was waiting at a bus stop at an intersection that had a set of traffic lights in broad daylight. Was wearing her school uniform. A 40+ guy pulled up at the lights next to the bus stop. Rolled down his window and leant out to yell “Hey baby, are you a virgin?” at her. She was frightened and embarrassed. Didn’t respond/tried to pretend she hadn’t heard him. Surrounded by adults on their own morning commute. No one said anything to her/the guy, who leered out the window at her til the lights changed.

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.