I don't know a single woman who hasn't experienced the panic of being fondled in public. By a relative, a subway passenger, a colleague at a Christmas party.
You walk away wondering, "Did that just happen? Maybe he didn't realize that was my breast. Maybe he didn't realize he was squeezing it. I shouldn't have let him hug me."
You walk away - I walk away - feeling small and dirty and alone.
This casual harassment, of faint boundaries tested and crossed, is what keeps society blind to the greater abuses at play. It is what gaslights women and the people around them into thinking that they imagined the offense.
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