Unfortunately atleast 75-80% have faced such kind of harassment , as you said this is just tip of iceberg. I often feel we should carry a butcher knife and when we see such things happening, we should just walk across and cut them off. Na rahega baas na bajegi basuri
Reading this was painful. Not surprising, but still painful. I’ve had my share as an Indian woman of being flashed, seeing men masturbate and it is just unfortunate how it is framed. As someone you have to avoid as women. As something you attract. As something you should be “careful” about.
Not as something you should be angry about having to deal with. Not as a public menace, a crime, a national shame. Not as something men and boys should be hugely embarrassed about, collectively in the society the occupy.
It was interesting to see decreasing order of age of the girls whose stories were shared here. Am curious to know if there were stories from women aged 25 and above. I am 50 and have been a witness to penises being flashed since the age of 10-11. But i have not been harassed this way after 25 or so. The reason i am asking this is to see if the perpetrators deliberately choose a certain age group to flash at. They know the girls would be too shocked or horrified or disgusted to react.
Even I noticed the pattern, which is why I framed it as ages towards the end. So there is definitely some targeting happening towards girls and young women who would be too shocked to react, and too embarrassed to call the police, bystanders, etc. But yes, there were definitely older women in the group too. As old as the oldest woman I interviewed.
A few months ago, I was in a lift filled with men (this wasnt even in India). I was terrified! And just yesterday I was sitting in the corner seat of a bus in the last row, the rest of the seats were filled by men. Again, I was terrified and all my senses were on high alert.. The way we all have silently had to suffer through this while growing up has made us feel that a space filled with men is something that triggers anxiety in a girl in India.
When a friend of mine told me that a man standing on the pavement next to a car she was sitting in began to mastrubate while looking at her, i couldn't believe it. To me it didn't make sense. But she isn't one to lie or make up stories, so I believed her with some reservation though.
Over the years, I've gotten wiser and learned that men are capable of the most bizarre things when it comes to women and sexuality. We seem to lose all sense of decency, self control, and humanity at the mere sight of skin.
I wonder whether instead of expensive weapons, we should just have women stand at the battlefield and flash their bare arms or legs at the opposing army (made up of men, of course). We could just pick them of with their pants down. Goes without saying, it holds true for our side too, so let's just have an army of women. Super cool.
I apologise to every woman who has had to undergo this gross experience to get a seat in this flight. It's not you, it's us.
Thank you Vinay. I have lived with and talked about this stuff for decades now, yet it makes me feel a little bit seen and a little bit healed every time I hear from a man like you in an ocean of people screaming #notallmen at women who dare to speak up ❤️
This is powerful and it got me back to writing something I've wanted to share for a long time. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to cross post inside my own post. I accidentally just emailed this out to ALL my subscribers - super not happy about that.
I've searched Substack's articles on how to cross post and still can't figure it out. If you know how to do it, would you please advise me? Thank you. And thank you for sharing these stories.
Thank you Jan. I have never tried cross-posting either, but I found several YouTube videos that explain it after seeing your comment. Here is one: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-LE4wdUqCIw
The way I link to other substack posts within my post is to simply paste the link in the body and that converts into a nice preview bubble too. Hope this helps?
I was 19 when flashing and masturbating happened in Delhi metro with me. I have a 2 year old daughter now and this just makes me more sad. What's the root cause for this shit show?
My mother is a housemaid and used to clean 5-6 homes. When I was 12 I decided to to help my mother for couple of homes which were near to us while she did other homes that were a bit far. One of the home I went to had a young boy of 14 year old. The home had both parents working and grandmother was only one at home. This boy would be in his bedroom and when I would get in to clean, he would stack couple of pillows at the edge of his bed, swing his leg over them and start humping them till he came. I was shocked the 1st time he did it and could not believe my eyes what he was doing. I ignored it and then it started happening more regularly and almost daily. It seemed he almost waited for me to get in his room and he would start humping. He wanted me to watch him as well and deliberately would order me to start / stop fan and lights (sometimes confusingly) so that i have to keep eye contact until I could understand his command. I never had any voice and could not complain but my heart raced to death every day when he did this in front of me. Few times he even stripped down to just his underwear, pulled his shorts up or wore tight ones that almost looked like underwear. I was super scared of him or seeing him eye to eye in embarassment. He used to even give a roll on his crotch when i dared to with a smirk. I had no clue what could i complain about to my mother as he was not naked or flashing or touching me. This continued for 12 long years until i got married as he kept studying until he was 26 years old in some course or other !
Oh my God. I am so sorry this happened to you Divya. This is heartbreaking to read. I wish I could tell his parents this comment was about him. Or his wife, if he has one now. So that they knew what an abusive criminal they were living with. Hugs, Divya 🫂
Thank you for response. I think he is married and settled in Dubai. My mother no longer works so dont know about him. Back then, initially i had no clue what or why he was doing. But little later I was getting scared so much that my heart would race faster to do his room. Even more than when I climbed the four storey of his building which did not have lift. He made sure his bulge was visible to me by pulling up his shorts or being in underwear. Later I tried to not see him do his thing but he would call me like "Sshhh" or "Aeyyy" asking to start fan or even sometimes using his leg and toe to point at some spot asking to clean it properly. Sometimes he would make noises of "tok tok" of horse riding just so that i would look at him and even moan to signal he was finishing. I am just so happy now knowing that the phase of my life is finally over.
Same incident happened with one of my friend in a local bus, a middle aged man was masturbating on a seat in another row. This is so horrible and traumatising.
Unfortunately atleast 75-80% have faced such kind of harassment , as you said this is just tip of iceberg. I often feel we should carry a butcher knife and when we see such things happening, we should just walk across and cut them off. Na rahega baas na bajegi basuri
Couldn't agree more.
Why even bother yourself with the gross visuals?
Better get an armed license & fire in the hole. Or create a hole.
Reading this was painful. Not surprising, but still painful. I’ve had my share as an Indian woman of being flashed, seeing men masturbate and it is just unfortunate how it is framed. As someone you have to avoid as women. As something you attract. As something you should be “careful” about.
Not as something you should be angry about having to deal with. Not as a public menace, a crime, a national shame. Not as something men and boys should be hugely embarrassed about, collectively in the society the occupy.
It was interesting to see decreasing order of age of the girls whose stories were shared here. Am curious to know if there were stories from women aged 25 and above. I am 50 and have been a witness to penises being flashed since the age of 10-11. But i have not been harassed this way after 25 or so. The reason i am asking this is to see if the perpetrators deliberately choose a certain age group to flash at. They know the girls would be too shocked or horrified or disgusted to react.
Even I noticed the pattern, which is why I framed it as ages towards the end. So there is definitely some targeting happening towards girls and young women who would be too shocked to react, and too embarrassed to call the police, bystanders, etc. But yes, there were definitely older women in the group too. As old as the oldest woman I interviewed.
A few months ago, I was in a lift filled with men (this wasnt even in India). I was terrified! And just yesterday I was sitting in the corner seat of a bus in the last row, the rest of the seats were filled by men. Again, I was terrified and all my senses were on high alert.. The way we all have silently had to suffer through this while growing up has made us feel that a space filled with men is something that triggers anxiety in a girl in India.
So true, so real!
When a friend of mine told me that a man standing on the pavement next to a car she was sitting in began to mastrubate while looking at her, i couldn't believe it. To me it didn't make sense. But she isn't one to lie or make up stories, so I believed her with some reservation though.
Over the years, I've gotten wiser and learned that men are capable of the most bizarre things when it comes to women and sexuality. We seem to lose all sense of decency, self control, and humanity at the mere sight of skin.
I wonder whether instead of expensive weapons, we should just have women stand at the battlefield and flash their bare arms or legs at the opposing army (made up of men, of course). We could just pick them of with their pants down. Goes without saying, it holds true for our side too, so let's just have an army of women. Super cool.
I apologise to every woman who has had to undergo this gross experience to get a seat in this flight. It's not you, it's us.
Thank you Vinay. I have lived with and talked about this stuff for decades now, yet it makes me feel a little bit seen and a little bit healed every time I hear from a man like you in an ocean of people screaming #notallmen at women who dare to speak up ❤️
This is powerful and it got me back to writing something I've wanted to share for a long time. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to cross post inside my own post. I accidentally just emailed this out to ALL my subscribers - super not happy about that.
I've searched Substack's articles on how to cross post and still can't figure it out. If you know how to do it, would you please advise me? Thank you. And thank you for sharing these stories.
Thank you Jan. I have never tried cross-posting either, but I found several YouTube videos that explain it after seeing your comment. Here is one: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-LE4wdUqCIw
The way I link to other substack posts within my post is to simply paste the link in the body and that converts into a nice preview bubble too. Hope this helps?
Shame on us, indeed. Thanks for writing this, it couldn’t have been easy.
Thank you Karthik, it really wasn't.
I was 19 when flashing and masturbating happened in Delhi metro with me. I have a 2 year old daughter now and this just makes me more sad. What's the root cause for this shit show?
Thank you for doing what you do. Thank you for writing this piece.
My mother is a housemaid and used to clean 5-6 homes. When I was 12 I decided to to help my mother for couple of homes which were near to us while she did other homes that were a bit far. One of the home I went to had a young boy of 14 year old. The home had both parents working and grandmother was only one at home. This boy would be in his bedroom and when I would get in to clean, he would stack couple of pillows at the edge of his bed, swing his leg over them and start humping them till he came. I was shocked the 1st time he did it and could not believe my eyes what he was doing. I ignored it and then it started happening more regularly and almost daily. It seemed he almost waited for me to get in his room and he would start humping. He wanted me to watch him as well and deliberately would order me to start / stop fan and lights (sometimes confusingly) so that i have to keep eye contact until I could understand his command. I never had any voice and could not complain but my heart raced to death every day when he did this in front of me. Few times he even stripped down to just his underwear, pulled his shorts up or wore tight ones that almost looked like underwear. I was super scared of him or seeing him eye to eye in embarassment. He used to even give a roll on his crotch when i dared to with a smirk. I had no clue what could i complain about to my mother as he was not naked or flashing or touching me. This continued for 12 long years until i got married as he kept studying until he was 26 years old in some course or other !
Oh my God. I am so sorry this happened to you Divya. This is heartbreaking to read. I wish I could tell his parents this comment was about him. Or his wife, if he has one now. So that they knew what an abusive criminal they were living with. Hugs, Divya 🫂
Thank you for response. I think he is married and settled in Dubai. My mother no longer works so dont know about him. Back then, initially i had no clue what or why he was doing. But little later I was getting scared so much that my heart would race faster to do his room. Even more than when I climbed the four storey of his building which did not have lift. He made sure his bulge was visible to me by pulling up his shorts or being in underwear. Later I tried to not see him do his thing but he would call me like "Sshhh" or "Aeyyy" asking to start fan or even sometimes using his leg and toe to point at some spot asking to clean it properly. Sometimes he would make noises of "tok tok" of horse riding just so that i would look at him and even moan to signal he was finishing. I am just so happy now knowing that the phase of my life is finally over.
Same incident happened with one of my friend in a local bus, a middle aged man was masturbating on a seat in another row. This is so horrible and traumatising.
😑😑