Girls don’t get childhood. They get girlhood.

Because I don’t want to see any comments after this reblog on how it’s perfectly normal for boys to start noticing girls when they’re all going through puberty – this graph is based on women’s responses to an /r/AskReddit thread that specifically mention grown, adult men. 

I remember doing a shift at my work experience placement in a bookstore and some grown man (he was starting to grey around the beard) came up to me while I was stocking the shelves. He was asking if I always worked in the History section and I said no, I stock all over the store (duh?) and suddenly went from zero to a hundred by asking “What time do you get off work? Can I take you for coffee?” 

The feeling was instantaneous - hot and cold at the same time. Your stomach curdles and chills while your skin heats and feels like it’s melting away. My whole face turned red and all I wanted to do was vomit.  “I am fourteen years old.”

He looked embarrassed as hell.

… And yet …

“What? No, you can’t be.”

“… BUT I AM. I AM FOURTEEN YEARS OLD.”

“Bullshit, where’s your ID?”

“SIR, the only ID she has is from her JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL.”  My (male) manager had walked up behind me (he later said he heard me say my age the first time around and came running over). “She’s a minor. She doesn’t have to show you anything. Can I help you with something? Do you need help with a purchase?”

The word ‘minor’ set this guy off and he started ranting about how I was leading him on. Another customer (probably in his 20s) overheard it all, looked at me and back at the guy, obviously determined that I was not in my twenties, sneered and went “Gross, dude” - which, yeah, but that set this creep off even more. My manager and another male employee ended up walking him out.

I will fucking love that manager until the end of days for stepping in like that - but unfortunately nothing will take away that cold, gut wrenching feeling a young girl gets hit on by a man twice her age.

I was fourteen, in the Bahamas on vacation, and a full-grown man tried to lure me away from the table where I was waiting for my mother who was in the washroom.  I was timid and shy and had absolutely no idea what his motives were, but in retrospect, best case scenario, he wanted me to have sex with him.  Don’t want to think about the worst case scenario.  I looked mature for my age, but he ASKED ME MY AGE AND I TOLD HIM AND HE CONTINUED TO PURSUE IT.

Thank the fucking lord my mother returned a minute later and had a fucking meltdown when she saw what was going on.  

If men want to complain about how they’re always seen as predators, this  graph is  a good fucking example of why most women do.  I guarantee you that most women have one or two stories like this.

I went to a teens-and-twenties church youth group in high school. (Can I just say? This is the STUPIDEST AGE RANGE EVER to have a mixed group in) I was asked out by 1. 28 year old. 2. 34 year old. 

When I was 14. Yeah I was a “developed” girl, with a “womanly figure” but godDAMMIT look at my FACE I was a baby for christs’ sake. 

But before that, I got wolf-whistled at by a grown man on a motorcycle as I was walking to my friend’s house for a sleepover in my shorts, tube top and a button down shirt when I was NINE YEARS OLD. 

So…yeah. Stories like that. 

Back during my second anime convention a friend of mine and I went to Wendy’s because we were hungry. We were both rather curvaceous, and were dressed in what some may call revealing (even though it was only a skirt and shirt) and makeup. We even had wigs on- and we were 15. We are walking back into the hotel, and this guy stops me as he is walking out- he was apparently the DJ for the rave the previous night.

“You are really beautiful.”
“Thanks!”
“No, I mean, REALLY beautiful.”
“Ha.. Thanks.”
“Seriously- did you go to the con? Why didn’t I see you?”
At this point I no longer want this conversation- I never did- and I’m trying to walk away.
“Haha, I don’t know!”
“Uh, hey, do you want to like, get some drinks tonight or something?”

And I’m just stuck there. What the hell am I supposed to do? I was a chubby little 15 year old. I’m sitting there blubbering, and LUCKILY my friend has a better sense of how to help and speaks up.

“She’s 15, so she can’t.” She is pulling me away while I’m about to cry.
“What? Really? No, you’re lying.”
“Nope, we are both 15 and we are leaving now.”
He called after us but I don’t know what he said because I was too freaked out. As soon as we got to the hotel room I sat on the floor and just cried. This man had to be in his mid-30s, and the only reason I got out of that situation was because of another 15 year old.

Don’t do this to girls of any age- it is really creepy in general.