As she walked the aisles, MR said in an interview, she sensed a man standing close behind her. She turned to confront him and noticed that he was a good six inches taller than her. He was talking in graphic detail about sexual things he wanted to do to her. “You’re so disgusting, get away from me,” she told him, and hurried off to find her friend.

Still, he stayed close, and for a few tense minutes the two of them locked eyes while she waited in line to pay. When at last he left, she thought that was the end of it – until, back outside in the chill of the winter morning, she felt something cold against the back of her leggings.

The man had ejaculated on her.

“I didn’t know how to react. I wanted to kill this man,” said MR, who was 47 at the time, recalling the horror and helplessness she felt as her friend wiped her off with towels. (The Guardian has verified MR’s identity but is not publishing her full name to protect her privacy.)

Hours later, on the advice of a sister who worked in law enforcement, she fished her soiled leggings out of the garbage and took them back to the store to report what had happened. A clerk listened to her account and, not seeming to realize that MR understood Spanish, shouted to a colleague in a backroom: “Tenemos otra.”

“We’ve got another one.”

  • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    No, I didn’t. But please continue to misinterpret me to push your agenda.

    I’m glad this story in shocking and horrible for you, but in my life experience it’s just par for the course. Guardian just loves to frame stuff like this as shocking and new, when online spaces full of nutcases are have been around for 20 years. Including spaces for celebrating sexual assault, self harm, and other horrible things.

    • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      5 hours ago

      It’s not an agenda when we’re talking about a specific article here.

      These men aren’t homeless and mentally ill folks just busting a nut in public, this is coordinated and shared and encouraged in these “gooning” communities of men.