Time for a Men-in-need organisation?

Adam teasing: Males at the receiving end

by Rikaza Hassan

If you were asked to imagine a pervert, what do you see? An old man in a sarong flashing innocent school girls passing by? A middle-aged, 'respectable' looking man in a bus, slipping his hand under the skirt of the young woman standing next to him? A young man tentatively touching the breasts of the old woman asleep next to him on the bus? While it is generally known and accepted that perverts originate from various strata of society and come in all ages and sizes, it should come as no surprise in these days of equal opportunity that they also come in both sexes.

"It was a crowded bus, so ,obviously I ignored the woman pressed against me from behind. Besides, right until that moment it had never even occurred to me that I had any reason to dread a woman in that sense," says Navin, of the apocalyptic bus ride he took recently.

"She kept moving from side to side, but I discounted that as being due to all the people moving back and forth. But, when I felt a hand slowly moving on my chest and looked down and saw the pudgy fingers trying to tweak my nipples, I froze. I must have been in shock for just a few seconds, but my brain just could not immediately compute what was happening to me.

Different reactions

Of course, once I regained my senses I let the woman know what I thought of her very colourfully." With a shaky laugh he adds, "It was like a horror movie where this huge, ugly woman has you tied up and slowly proceeds to kill you."

Nevertheless, the single, unattached Navin declares that his reaction would have been different if such special treatment had been bestowed by a pretty faced young woman with an "okay body."

Echoing his thoughts when told of female perverts, a less picky colleague wanted to know which particular bus he had to take in order to be on the receiving end of such female attentions.

Encounters

Kanishka had his encounter with a pervert a few years ago as a teenage student. "I was maybe fifteen, and took the bus home after school. My friends lived in completely different areas and I usually travelled alone.

The bus would pass a girls' school on the way and there used to be a school girl, older than me who would take the same bus as well. She used to rub her entire body on me, put her hand under my shirt and stuff. I never touched her though. I was fifteen, this older, not pretty but not ugly girl was doing very interesting things to me, and I was only too happy to let her. After O/Ls I joined another school and never saw her again."

"Not all men are looking for a free feel," says Rushdie. Forced to make avail of the services of the public transport system for his daily journey to and from work, he finds his buttocks the centre of attention of female perverts, drawing them to him as a moth to flame. "They place their butt on yours and rub it, the short ones rub their breasts on your butt, they rub their crotch on your butt, and they touch your butt and pinch it."

Speaking of a recent incident, he relates, "This woman pinched my butt and I was so angry, I couldn't tell her off that I hit her square on the wrist with the file I was carrying. She moved away after that."

On the other hand, Kasun finds that he gets "'boobed' a lot" as he puts it. "These women rub their breasts where ever they can: on my arm, spine, ribs, anywhere they can squash a breast in is fine for them. But at least, they go away when you frown at them. I hear it doesn't work the same way for females in such positions."

And what does he think of this rise in new crime? "Armageddon is coming," he winks. Men however do not wish to speak of being molested by a woman. While most women have told someone of their encounter with a pervert, most men have told no one.

And while for now, it looks to be almost a non-occurrence in comparison to the numbers of females subjugated to harassment of such nature, one shall never know if indeed the time has come for a 'Men-In-Need' organisation until men start treating such incidents as offences and begin speaking of them.

All names have been changed