Your UnSlut Project

Submitted by Anonymous

My first experience with sexual harassment was in year 7; I was 13. The boys in my class started to make crude comments about my body. Two of the boys even started to grope my butt, as I apparently had a large and 'nice' one. Occasionally the other boys would attempt to cop a feel as well. Despite my protests, they laughed it off, saying it was just a joke and continued to slap, pinch and full on grab my butt or even sometimes my boob. One day, the particularly bad offender grabbed my butt exceptionally hard, and I had had enough and whirled around, slapping him full across the face.

I got in trouble. Apparently it was okay for boys to sexually harass me, groping my body. Teachers saw it happening and laughed it off, some even shushing me or threatening with me detention if I protested against it in class. I tried to report it, getting the typical response: boys will be boys. I was 13, and already I was being punished for standing up for myself and the boys were already learning that it was okay to sexually harass girls.

Then one day a boy tried to slip his hand into my pants and another tried to unclip my bra. I went full off at the offenders. I threatened them, and they laughed, so I launched myself at them. I managed to give one boy a black eye before I was pulled off of him by a male teacher. The same teacher that had laughed at it once, who I had even caught giving one of the boys the thumbs up after that boy had groped me. I got a week's worth of detention from him, and when I complained to the principal he told me that violence is not tolerated in our school. He didn't he acknowledge my reports about the harassment. After that, though, the boys stopped touching me, though some kept up with the vulgar comments.

Last year a boy attempted to pull moves on me, asking for nudes and erotic photos. I refused. The next week I put some selfies of myself and my little cousins up on my story. I was in my bathers, and yes, my cleavage was in it. He screenshotted them and when I confronted him, he laughed it off. I threatened to tell his mother unless he deleted them and stopped making advances on me. She would have ripped his head off for it. He quickly apologised and deleted the photos.

I'm constantly bombarded by older men on social media sites, who say vulgar things, ask for erotic photos, even threatening me when I don't answer or when I do respond saying a simple 'no.' I have changed my settings, but a 16 year old girl should not be messaged in these ways by men older than 20. It is not okay. It will never be okay.

At 13 I should have never have been sexually harassed. Nor should it have been brushed off, or should I have been punished for it. At 15 I should not have a supposed friend harassing me, or screenshoting photos without consent. At 16 men should not be sending explicit photos to me or asking for them. And yet, these are just my experiences.

My friend woke up to find a boy touching her after a party. Another friend was passed out after drinking too much, when her ex climbed on top of her, starting to kiss her and grope her unconscious body, a girl even videoing it, before he was stopped.

A 14 year old girl had a boy take photos up her skirt.

A new girl moved to our school and within the first term we discovered why. People from her old town had created a hate page about her titled, '(name) is the biggest slut of (town).' Students from our school joined in and she had moved schools again by term 2.

Those stories barely even touch the surface of everything that happened last year. Yes, just last year.

This is ridiculous. Why is this being made out to be okay? Why are guys being congratulated for harassment? Why are people still encouraging it? It is absolute bullshit, and we need to stop this. Now. If your mate harasses a girl, stand up. Tell him no, this is not cool. It stops with you. It's stops with us all.