all information taken is from the NSPCC site.

“Nearly half (45%) of teenage girls in an NSPCC/Sugar magazine survey have had their bottom or breasts groped against their wishes. Fifty-six per cent* of unwanted early sexual experiences occurred for the first time when girls were aged under 14. The survey results were published in Sugar magazine on 23 May 06.

According to the survey, conducted for the NSPCC’s Don’t hide it initiative against child sex abuse in association with Sugar’s Be S.A.F.E.** Before Sex campaign, 51%*** of unwanted sexual experiences happened more than once and left the girls feeling dirty (47%), ashamed/guilty (39%), worried/insecure (36%), angry (34%) powerless (30%) and frightened (27%).

The 674 Sugar website visitors who took part in the online survey revealed an abusive undercurrent to much of their early sexual experimentation.

Chris Cloke, NSPCC head of child protection awareness said: “Sugar readers are revealing early sexual experiences that disregard the need for consent, with young girls threatened or bribed into submitting before they are emotionally or physically ready.”

..

Of those girls who had been pushed into doing something they didn’t want:

nearly half (44%) had been made to feel guilty for initially saying ‘no’

over a quarter (29%) cited simply being told by the person pushing them that it was the right thing to do

1 in eight were given drink or drugs

1 in nine were concerned that rumours would be spread about them

1 in ten were threatened physically

1 in ten were actually hurt physically

1 in ten were bribed with presents or money

In all, 43% of girls questioned said the person responsible for the unwanted experience was a boy they knew or were friends with; one in three cited a boyfriend around their age. Fourteen per cent held a family member or family friend responsible, 13% ‘a group of lads’, 10% a boyfriend more than five years older than them, and 4% a teacher

A large majority (91%) of the NSPCC/Sugar survey respondents judged it ‘never acceptable’ for someone to push a girl into a sexual experience against her wishes. Over half (55%+) still believed that their own unwanted early sexual experiences had been at least partly their fault.

..

A total of 38%+++ did not speak to anyone about their experience because they wanted to forget about it (30%), because they were either scared or ashamed (10%), or because they simply didn’t know who to tell (11%). Of the 60% who did tell, over half preferred to confide in a friend, 4% told a brother/sister, 6% told a parent/carer, and 3% told a teacher.

Girls’ perception of what is sexual abuse varied depending on the age of the perpetrator. Nine out of ten (88%) girls labelled being pushed into a sexual experience against their wishes by an adult over 18 as ’sexual abuse’. Fifty-three per cent described the same experience at the hands of someone their own age as ‘pressure sex’.

The NSPCC and Sugar have joined forces to encourage young people to speak out about any concerns they have about sex. Readers can get help and support from the July issue of the magazine and by visiting a new NSPCC website www.donthideit.com which provides a confidential and anonymous space to learn what sex abuse is and how to stop it. They can also call the NSPCC’s freephone 24/7 ChildLine service on 0800 1111.

..

* 56% comprised of 30% stating the incident happened for the first time when they were 12 or under plus 26% stating they were aged 13.
** Sure of the facts, Aged 16 or over - or its illegal, Free from pressure, Emotionally sorted
*** 51% comprised of 45% who reported unwanted sexual experiences occurring ‘a few times’ plus 6% occurring ‘loads of times’
+ 55% comprised of 47% who said it was ‘partly my fault’ plus 8% who said it was ‘all my fault’
++ 7% remains when subtracting from 100 the 91% who said ‘yes’ and 2% who gave no answer
+++ The figure 38% represents all respondents who selected at least one of the ‘no I did not talk to anyone’ options. 60% selected at least one of the ‘yes I told’ options while 2% declined to give an answer.”

i’ve been thinking a lot about stalking, the politics of stalking, and my own experiences of it, and im trying to gather my thoughts together to write about all this. i have had several stalkers so far in my life, and i can’t believe for one second that i am unusual in this. i have also exhibited stalker behaviour myself. when i was much younger i was obsessive about one particular boyfriend i had, i told him if he ever left me i would kill myself and him. years later he said the same thing to me and it totally freaked me out. it wasnt until that point that i realised how scary and fucked up i had been - for some reason i had just felt that i was being ‘romantic’. i thought that was what was expected of me, that he needed to hear how ‘devoted’ i was to him. i guess i got that idea from various sources, from my parents who had an obsessive and violent relationship, from fiction, where the line between romance and stalker is thin and often crossed, and from friends.

we had an on/off relationship for several years, and i never actually attempted to hurt him, although i was suicidal at points because of things beyond and including him. i didnt ever harass him, no phone calls or texts or letters, no hanging around his house or anything like that. i think my stalker-type behaviours were much worse when we were together. i would sometimes check his pager messages, believing that he was two timing me. he was, as a matter of fact, but there is no excuse for the snooping i did. he was wrong to cheat on a relationship he had promised was monogamous, but i was also wrong in invading his privacy, and i knew it.

i just want to be honest here, that i am guilty of this. i believe that in our culture stalking is encouraged and promoted as romantic, as evidence of real interest, even love. i am not immune to the messages on this and i have been guilty of this behaviour.

i guess my definition of stalker behaviour would be extraordinary behaviour performed out of an obsessive need to be with or hurt another person. thats probably not a great definition but i think it will serve for now. i just added the “or hurt” because i acknowledge that sometimes people stalk out of hate or revenge rather than out of a warped idea of love.

so, on to men who have stalked me, in no particular order, and i’ll start with Lloyds guy.

i used to have a bank account with Lloyds. i was in my local branch for some reason, maybe five minutes walk from my house. i got served by a tall welsh guy with big curly hair. i must’ve been about 19, he was probably in his early thirties. i thought nothing of it at all. later at home i got a phone call. it was bank guy. he told me hed got my number from bank records and that he just wanted to know me better. i was freaked rather than flattered but didnt know what to do. he talked about himself a bit, and he asked me questions, and i didnt say much and just let him talk. he wanted to meet me and i said no, i made some lame excuse about having other plans. he said when could i meet him then and i was stuck, i said i didnt know, i didnt say i wouldnt ever meet him because the whole thing was freaking me out and i just didnt know how to react. he kept hassling me and i said ok id call into the bank and say hi.

so obviously i didnt do that, and he called again. he guilted me over not coming to see him, why hadnt i, he had waited for me, he had missed me. its like in his head we were already close, we already had some sort of friendship. he talked about his day, and again he wanted to meet me, and again i said no, again he said “when?”. i felt trapped so i arranged to meet him in a nearby pub, just to get off the phone.

so i didnt go to that either. i avoided walking past the bank. i didnt answer my phone. two phone calls and i was so freaked out i had changed my usual route to my friends house and i was not answering my own home phone, more than that i was deliberately not hanging round my own bedsit in case he phoned, i was too freaked to even deal with the phone ringing. (i know how dumb this sounds but you’re reading this incident out of context of the rest of my life and i had every good reason to be totally afraid.)

so anyway, he wrote me a note, and actually posted it through the front door himself. so i knew he’d been to where i lived. he wanted to see me and he said he’d keep trying until i told him what was wrong. why wasnt i answering the phone, why did i stand him up? i didnt think he’ld leave me alone so i answered his next phone call. i still wasnt able to tell him to just fuck off, i just was totally intimidated by him. he talked about himself for a bit and then he asked again to meet me and i said i couldnt. he started to get upset, not angry but desperate upset. then he started to talk about how he was married, hadnt been for very long, but it was all messed up, his wife didnt want him anymore and he just needed somoeone to talk to. he was really upset and i just wanted to get him completely out of my life so i agreed to meet him in a local pub where i knew some of the people.

so i went to meet him, and he talked about himself, and about his wife. and after a drink i said i had to go, and he asked to see me again, and i said i thought he should really be talking to his wife and not me. and i left, and he didnt contact me again.

so all this probably sounds bizarre but no reason to worry, right? but i was completely terrified for days over this. my life completely changed, i couldnt hang round my own house or get my own phone, i couldnt walk my usual way. i never went in to my local bank ever again, thats how ridiculous it was. and i didnt even tell my friends because the whole thing was so surreal.

i cant even remember his name.

so why didnt i just say no, fuck off, in the first place? why didnt i tell my friends and ask for their help? why didnt i report him for stealing my details from work?

the thing is i’ve rarely said no to men, i’ve always felt too scared to be able to. and not just scared but guilty, like im out of order rejecting them. i’ve actually let guys have sex with me because i felt bad telling them no, i just didnt feel i had any right to say no. and when ive been harassed or assaulted i have rarely told a soul. certainly not straight away, and in most cases not for years, if ever at all. ive kept almost everything that’s happened completely secret. why? i guess i thought noone would care. that noone would care and that theyd laugh at me or tell me i deserved it.

so thats one of my stalker examples. i want to share more, not because theyre hugely different in essence to this one but because i think its important to think about how much of this is going on, and how each time is like a domino effect where the next guy has to just that little bit less to terrify a woman. this guy above telephoned me twice, no spoken threats or anything like that, he was friendly and talkative as if we had known each other for ages, as if we already had a connection. but those two calls totally compromised my freedom. thats how little it took.

and i just want to add that maybe this seems like therapy rather than politics. well maybe it is partly therapy, because ive not dealt with these things and not told about these things before. but i dont think that my politics should be divorced from my own experiences and my own perception of the world. the fact is, i dont think my experiences here are that unusual, i think many women are intimidated and followed and harassed and stalked. so these cant just be dismissed as isolated cases, and i need to understand for myself how men use fear to control women. thats what i believe is going on here on several levels and i need to explore that for myself through my own experience and that of the women who are able to and want to participate - consciousness raising. thats what im blogging for. because im exploring and im learning and im trying to understand the way this system works.

so thats why im blogging - for consciousness raising. for exploration. i dont think that can be dismissed as therapy. maybe it isnt going to change the world overnight, maybe im not saving anyone except myself. but this is how it starts, right? we develop our politics, our ideas, our lives. we evolve.

im looking for that article i read a month or two ago about women online being harassed and/or insulted, i mentioned it to some friends and theyd like to see it. haven’t found it yet, must keep looking.

what i do keep finding are help groups for women in that position, saying the same shit we hear all the time about how we should protect ourselves, because obviously getting women to voluntarily give up our own freedom is a much better tactic than getting abusive men to calmthefuckdown.

so we all know how in real life women are told not to dress a certain way, or not to walk home alone, or not to go out at night, or the other hundred “rules” women have to obey in order to be ’safe’. and remember, if we break any of these rules then its “partly our own fault” when we get attacked/raped/murdered.

so online, these “rules” still exist, same advice, all the emphasis is on women doing everything in their power to stay safe rather than on dealing with the men who harass women.

so, the “rules”, online, include: (and ive seen all this advice in various forms in the past couple of hours on several different sites, so this is all paraphrased rather than directly quoted - if you want to google for advice on cyber stalkers you’ll find it all yourself)

- dont use a female name or anything that alludes to you being female, ever. and dont tell people you are female, even if youve known them for a while.
- never use your real name, age, location, email address, or photo.
- never use your real name in your email address.
- if you get into an argument online and it becomes heated, walk away, because you dont know how seriously the other person might take it and what they might do.
- if a man harasses or is abusive to you in an online community, leave the community (!!)
- sometimes a man will become obsessive, this could be from lust, or because they think they are in love with you, or because they want revenge on you. a clever computer savvy person can find all your personal details with ease, and women have already been trackled down and raped and murdered by cyber stalkers. so always be on your guard, trust no-one, and don’t lead any man to believe that you might be interested in him.
- and from the opposite perspective, try not to anger men online by arguing with them (and in particular avoid *winning* arguments against men because dented pride could lead to revenge stalking).

so basically - women should be scared, all the time. even online. and if one of us isnt scared, even for just a minute, for one conversation, then she only has herself to blame when some fucked up stalker guy chooses to harass her for the next year or so, maybe even turn up at her front door.

i am so fed up of all this non sense. not all men are fucked up stalkers/rapists/murderers/misogynists. why arent the rest of them more angry about this crap? why is it the women who are being told to be scared *all the time* *of all men* *just in case*. if its only a minority of shithead men doing all this crap, why arent the rest saying, fuck that, i dont want you representing me and my sex, shithead.

when certain men complain “not all men are rapists”, why is it always the feminists they are moaning about, rather than the actual rapists? ive seen this so many times now, feminist talks about rape, man comes in “hey not all men are rapists you know, you man hating feminazi”. yet when women are being read their “rules” to stay safe from men, i never see these same guys, step in and say, fuck that, you dont need no safety rules, you can go where you want, when you want, wear what you like.
no, these same guys are there saying “well if you dress like THAT you’re asking for trouble” and the rest of the bullshit woman blaming these guys indulge in- yet not all men are rapists.

so what exactly are we supposed to be scared of? if its just a minority of men then why are all women supposed to be scared all the time? why is it the women who get blamed for being attacked rather than this supposed minority of men being blamed for attacking women?

this is womens world too - if the men are so fucking dangerous and brutal why arent they the ones under curfew?

and yes i know these questions have been asked before, and i know the answer is very simple - that all men ultimately gain from women being kept powerless and afraid. yet i keep seeing men insist that they don’t, personally, gain from this. that they wish women were safe.

but what are they actually doing to keep women safe? besides lecturing us on conservative dressing i mean.

are they out there lecturing other men on respectful ways to treat women? are they boycotting outrageously sexist men’s magazines and refusing to shop where they are sold? are they calling out other men on sexist behaviour?

are they fuck. i can count on one hand the guys i see online doing this stuff, i can count way less than that of the men i know offline. i would mention them but i dont want to do that “praise this man for not being a misogynist piece of crap” thing that i see done fairly often in feminist spaces.

conversation between me and a friend, just a few nights ago. her partner has been acting like a real useless arsehole. she’s having a moan to me about it, this i dont mind, its just a typical relationship up/down, nothing particularly heinous. then she says “but i shouldnt complain, because he’s a good husband, he doesn’t beat me up or anything”.

and the worse part is that i’ve heard this before, countless times. i’ve even said it myself. the standards for male behaviour are so fucking low that if your male partner doesnt beat the shit out of you he’s a good guy. and deserves praise for it, maybe even send him little thank you cards, bless.

if the “bad guys” are the minority we keep being told they are, why do we feel the need to single out and praise the “good” ones just for not beating/raping/murdering us?

eta: i also found this related post written by bitch phd last tuesday, but it’s my post of the day anyway- fuck fear

today it’s ginmar. she’s the first blog i visited today and before i even read anything else i just know that this is it.

“can’t we all just get along?”

on todays bbc site,this:

“A man who raped and bit off parts of a woman’s face after being released early from prison for a previous violent attack, has been jailed for life.

..
He pleaded guilty to charges of false imprisonment, rape, sexual assault and grievous bodily harm on Thursday.

Wild, of Bury, will not be considered for parole for at least 12 years.

..
He said the woman described her attacker as a wild dog and a vampire, who laughed as he bit off parts of her ear and nose.

..
Wild, of Walmersley Road in Bury, carried out the attack two months after being released from jail.

He had served less than half of a five-year jail term for repeatedly stabbing another woman.”

and this

“The murder of a Teesside prostitute by a former mental patient could not have been prevented, an inquiry has found.

George Leigers, 48, was convicted of killing Sarah Jane Coghlan in August 2003, six months after being released from a secure mental health unit.

Leigers of Middlesbrough was sent there after killing his wife in 1986.

But a report commissioned by County Durham and Tees Valley Strategic Health Authority concluded he was not mentally ill at the time of the second killing.

He was convicted in April 2004 of stabbing the teenager to death with a bayonet at his home in Montrose Street, Middlesbrough.

But the independent panel, chaired by Anne Galbraith, a former senior lecturer in law, could not find a motive for the murder and concluded there was nothing to indicate that the crime was imminent. “

and this

“A man jailed for life for murdering 16-year-old Charlotte Pinkney in a north Devon resort has lost his appeal against conviction.

Scaffolder Nicholas Rose was jailed for at least 20 years last year, for murdering Charlotte in Ilfracombe. Her body has not been found. “

and this

“An estate agent was attacked at a Wiltshire house she had arranged to show a prospective buyer round.

The woman was assaulted from behind as she walked into the property in The Muddle, Market Lavington, on Monday.

It is thought she had gone to the empty home after a man calling himself Mr Herring made an appointment to see it.

Police say there is no reason to link it with estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, who went missing in 1986 after going to meet a client called “Mr Kipper”.

Miss Lamplugh - who disappeared in London - is believed to have been murdered, although her body has never been found. She was officially declared dead in 1993.

Wiltshire Police are warning female estate agents not to make appointments to meet people on their own in the wake of Monday afternoon’s incident.

They said the 48-year-old woman was pushed over, falling into a wall, before being attacked with a sharp object, leaving her with minor injuries to her arms.

Her assailant ran off, and officers are keen to speak to anyone who was in the area at the time who may have seen him. “

and this

“Friends and family have paid their last respects to Terry Edmonds, whose body was found in a suitcase in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in April.

A post-mortem examination revealed the 17-year-old had been sexually assaulted and strangled. “

and this

“Friends and family have gathered for the funeral of a teenager thought to have shot dead his ex-girlfriend before turning the gun on himself.”

and this

“A 53-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after he turned up at a police station and gave detectives the location of two bodies.

The man told officers at Luton police station that he had a woman’s remains in a van parked outside. “

and this

“The jury in the trial of an ex-England footballer accused of attacking a woman in a taxi rank has been discharged after failing to reach a verdict.

But Gary Charles, 36, was jailed until a retrial next month after he earlier turned up at Derby Crown Court drunk.

He had been charged with attacking Elizabeth Wedge, 43, in the booking office of A2B Taxis, in Clay Cross, Derbyshire, on 9 September 2005. “

this was all taken from just the “england” page of bbc news, i don’t have the energy to look on any other pages, neither do you probably.

this feels like terrorism to me. you know that saying “driving while black”? i feel like women are murdered every day simply for “living while female”.

it’s exhausting. there is no way anyone could track each and every woman that is raped, attacked, tortured, kidnapped, murdered, just for being female in a society that hates women.

i think this line is particularly chilling.:

“could not find a motive for the murder and concluded there was nothing to indicate that the crime was imminent.”

there is an example above of a man killing his girlfriend because she had left him, i presume he was doing that ownership thing, “if i cant have you noone else will”, but apart from that one, none of the other examples have (as far as the articles explain) any real motive or “indications the crime was imminent”.

the torture of women, specifically of women, is the only motive i can see. the only indication we have of intent is that the torturers are male.

it’s like we’re supposed to be scared of every man all the time, to live in permanent terror, because some day some man may want to torture and kill us just because we exist. and every day there are all these examples of it happening. and if it does happen to us we are told we are “at least partly to blame” because we wore a skirt or went out at night or left our boyfriend or flirted with a guy or turned a guy down etc etc.

and right in the middle of this terrorism any woman who stands up and says “no more” is called a man hater and a troublemaker and called insane.

the situation is insane.

not us.