Aishley, Aged 37, 20/06/2025
It’s taken me a while to get to telling this story- and I think thats’s probably because I find it a bit staggering myself and have not really processed it. All of the incidences I will explain happened within a 24 hour period. It was mid June this year (2025) and a very very hot few days in summer. I know I had a lot of running around to do so I chose to wear loose pants and a body – like a cami top. It had a bit of lace on it, but in all honesty I wear these kind of tops so much – usually under a shirt or a jacket – I just didn’t think anything of it.
Firstly I ran into the corner shop to grab a few bits and while I was paying there was a group of local (Blackpool accent) teenage boys behind me, aged probably 14-21, I dropped something on the floor and when I bent down to pick it up one of them shouted ‘stay down there that’s bang tidy’ at me. The rest laughed and the male shop keeper was also smiling.
I left the shop and was walking home, when I reached the promenade there was a group of three men walking towards me, maybe they were in their 30s. As they got close, one of the men stopped right by me, reached his arm around me, grabbed/groped me and said ‘get a photo with me baby’ and took a selfie, he tried to take more photos of me as I was clearly asking him a) to get his hands off me and b) to stop taking photos of me. These men were not local – they were holiday makers. The other two men were laughing at the scenario.
Later on, I drove to the petrol station on central drive to use their ‘inpost’ lockers. I parked the car and as I approached the lockers I noticed two older men (probably 60s-70s) sat on the wall by the lockers having a conversation. When I reached the lockers the two men stopped talking and silently and intensely stared at me the whole time I was using the locker, and then continued to stare at me as I walked away.
That same evening I was walking down near the steps of the beach and a group of guys was again walking towards me, I think there was 6 or 7 of them. I was looking down at my phone and I heard one of them shouting ‘oi, come here… blonde girl come here’ so I started to walk up the steps to go onto the main prom and the group sped up to catch me up, then they made a circle round me as I was walking away asking me why I was ‘being rude’ by not talking to them. They eventually left me alone when I pointed to my house and said ‘That’s my house and if you are still following me by the time I get there I’m going to lose my shit with you’. Thankfully there were lots of people around, I am terrified to think how different they might have behaved if it was a quieter area. I was so triggered by the entire day and felt absolutely exhausted by it.
Later on that day I was talking to another female and I explained what had happened in the day and how I felt, I can’t quote verbatim, but she responded by telling me it was probably because of how I was dressed and that she thought I looked ‘fit’. This really upset me further. I was wearing baggy trousers and yes, the top I had on was revealing a lot of skin, and there was also lace, but it was over 20 degrees, I was absolutely heartbroken when she said it, and then had to go through that conversation with her about why that was problematic and also misogynistic on her part.
The next day, I was at a wedding and was sat next to a person I had never met before. We got to talking and I explained that I was there with my wife. He very quickly became obsessed with the topic of me having a wife and was trying to manipulate me into saying it was about the person and not that I was a lesbian. Before I became uncomfortable with him, he had asked me if I had ever had a boyfriend and I had said yes – he was insisting that we ‘can’t put ourselves into boxes’ and that because I had been with men before I couldn’t not say I was gay. He made it really difficult for me to move on, and I started to become agitated, but as it was at the wedding meal I didn’t want to create any issues so I just tried to close off to him. I tried to divert the conversation several times but he was extremely dominant. I calmly explained that I had felt overwhelmed with misogyny and briefly explained that the previous day several men had tried to assert dominance or intimidation over me and I highlighted that he was doing the same. He actually responded by saying, ‘Don’t get upset with me now, but do you not think in some way there’s a part of you that likes it really? Otherwise, why would you look the way you look and dress the way you dress’. I got up and left immediately.
I was shaking and so overwhelmed with emotion I didn’t really know what to do. A few other people from our table approached me and asked if I was ok, and had said that the way he was had made them really uncomfortable. I understood that nobody wanted to create drama at a wedding – and I am also a big girl and can handle myself, but I was also surprised that nobody felt compelled to say anything at the time as they noticed he was being too much. I think the whole thing was just so eye opening in so many ways. I am only just starting to think about it and process it because at the time I just felt absolutely disgusted. As I have experienced harassment a lot in my life, it’s not usually something that I can’t talk about straight away, but I think it was just the relentlessness of it in such a short time period, and then the responses to it that have left me feeling totally detached from the situation.
I knew I would report it here, I just needed a little bit of time to think about all of the different elements of it before being ready to share it further.