General Chat

The story now is Aled has been taken off BBC due to an accusation of aText message to a colleague .; 25 people in all are being investigated at the BBC I myself am fed up of all the sickening things happening .wonder were these stories come from .suppose it sells Newspapers .he is not working until his name cleared .

I saw that report on Welsh News.

I have been discussing all these accusations with friends.

Serious cases of abuse MUST be investigated and prosecuted however, what is deemed to be inappropriate in 2017 was probably not 30 plus years ago.

Hand on back/knee? I would have told the man to push off! Yes I know that not every girl/woman has the confidence to do the same but in my view a hand on the knee is a far cry from sexual abuse.

I know I am leaving myself open to being cyber shouted at but this is my opinion.

The police should be spending their valuable time investigating past and present serious incidents and not those from decades earlier which were, then, generally considered, actions by men who were idiots!

I worked in an office where 2 of the salesmen thought they were God's gift to women and tried it on. I was only 17 at the time but soon told them in no uncertain terms where to go :-|

One thing I worked in a supermarket bakery .& before 24hrs shops .we closed at eight reduced some products one man was in most nights & asked if I wanted a lift home he was older than me I had a car so left & would you believe he was in my street .so went to my friends house instead of mine .it was frightening never saw him again thank goodness .that was in the 70s still remember though creepy

I remember bending over a glue tub in a factory and feeling the foreman's thumb slide momentarily up my bum as he walked past.

Eighteen, it was the foreman, he would deny it, it was very swift.

Don't suppose I was the first, or the last, but there was not a lot that anybody could do.

I am glad things have changed.

When you say "up my bum" Sharron, ..... no perhaps not.

Further than I would have liked by about two rooms!

I'm with you on this Supercrutch. I bet most women could recount incidents from then. Some men would force you to squeeze past them in doorways, would invade your space that bit too long to try and see down your top. In the cinema a chap sat next to me and my friend and stuck his hand on my friend's knee and was sliding her skirt up. She soon sent him packing by standing up and hitting him in the face hard by swinging her handbag at him. We had a caretaker at work who would stand next to the stairs with glass panelled sides so he could see up your skirt. Some would be too touchy, but most would take the hint if you pushed them away or told them to get lost. It shouldn't have happened, but how many of these women are reporting the men they knew from then, work colleagues etc? I knew far more of them than famous people.

We should never have been put in a position to have to tell them to push off.

Again, I am with Supercrutch here.

Hand on knee would have been regarded as a chancer many years ago and a quick slap would have sorted it. This, from someone who hates to see a couple sitting with one controlling hand on the other's leg! Gawd, if my OH started to demonstrate that aspect of ownership, I'd have his guts for garters!

Hand on back????? Unless it's fiddling with my bra strap it wouldn't bother me at all. It takes a whole lot of imagination to think that every hand on back is a sexual attack on the person.

well said Joy....

I agree that a lot went on in the 60's and 70's that we just accepted and didn't think of as "abuse" - not that that excuses the behaviour.

However I think that if an adult hasn't reported sexual abuse within, say, 5 years then they should not be coming out 30 years later and complaining.

Children however is a different matter, although I still think that once they are adults and have time to think about things as an adult they should not leave it 30 or 40 years before accusing people.

Kath. x

Sometimes overfamiliarity can cause psychological trauma that never leaves.

What might have been an illicitly enjoyable but very forgettable tweak to the perpetrator may have cause thirty years of stress and maybe even fear.

Exactly. He got away with it and you were traumatized.

I agree with Supercrutch.

I will be shouted at also, but when it's an adult it is very different to child abuse, and this thread was not about child abuse which should always be treated with the full weight of the law. It is about an adult who made an 'inappropriate' advance or message ( one can't be sure until it's investigated surely?)

Adults have a voice, they can use it. If lunged at by someone you don't want to lunge at you, you can scream blue bloody murder, you can slap away the hand, or simply remove yourself from the situation... texts? get a new phone!

How many have kept silent to get or keep a job. I refer here to those actresses who 'put up' with sleazy behaviour and have not used their considerable clout to draw attention to it before and save other women from the same.

A clumsy advance from one adult to another is NOT the same as abuse. It should be dealt with yes, at the time by the adult involved...I've always found the threat "try it & I'll knee you in the ***** " works well. ( Except for the occasion when the person pursuing was also female, but a firm 'I'm not interested' worked fine).

I stress again, I am not talking about serious cases of abuse, and in no way am I suggesting child abuse is EVER inconsequential.

Victim is the word. They would not pick on somebody they did not think was at some sort of disadvantage to them.

Nyx, I have deleted my post after your comment. But it did help me to get it down on paper for the first time

Barb, there is NO doubt that the trauma children suffer is probably the worst kind imaginable.

xx

No need to delete BarbinSGlos, I'm glad it helped saying it 'out loud' as it were, and you are very brave to have to done so. I'm very sorry that you experienced that, no child should ever have to.

I just wanted to make sure it was understood in my reply that there is a difference between the abuse of children as in your case which is NEVER acceptable, and the topic of the thread, which was directly relating to adults and where the line is drawn before an action can be thought of as ' sexual abuse'.

Pondering this - all of us who experienced the 60s and 70s knew men with 'wandering hands'. Their names were passed on in offices and social centres. Does that happen nowadays?

Having suffered maybe 6 commutes on a crowded tube and having the proverbial groin pusher behind me I had no reservations re telling him he was a pervert in a very loud voice. Pretty much all the women and the majority of men within hearing distance would add their disapproval. The pervert usually got off at the next available stop.

Fellow passengers were always very supportive, is it the norm today? or has society become so uncaring?

Working and socialising in London and going home on late night buses and trains the inevitable flasher appeared at least weekly. We were advised to humiliate them by declaring we had seen bigger on a rabbit (or whatever) and laugh - no matter how difficult. The more times they received that reaction, rather than a fit of the vapours, would prove to be more of a deterrent and gave you time to mentally gather a description to report to police.

TBH I found flashers more disturbing than the wandering hand brigade.