Getting Groped on Public Transportation – My Story, to Help You Protect Yourself

Using public transportation is a convenient, environmentally friendly, inexpensive, and reliable way to get around especially if you live in a big city. For the most part your city’s buses and trains can be a safe place to ride but if you’re a woman (or maybe even a man) there’s always the risk of getting groped by a random pervert (it’s happened to me and other women I know and and it’s so common in places like Japan that there are female-only carts during rush hour commutes). Here are four ways you can protect yourself and prevent it from happening to you.

Don’t ride empty train carts alone at night or during the early mornings. If you’re taking the subway and you know it’s during a time when they aren’t going to be a lot of passengers on board make sure you take a seat on the very first cart so that you’ll be as close as possible to the conductor.

Always be aware of your surroundings no matter what. Even if you’re taking transportation during rush hour when they’re tons of people on board don’t assume that a groper won’t reach out and touch you. Some men violate women when people are around since it’s very surprising and humiliating for the woman, and also because most women have let their guards down considerably.

I was groped in public on two separate occasions. The first time was when I riding a train and standing up because it was so jam-packed with people and there were no seats. I was literally surrounded by people who were none the wiser as I was groped. I was groped for the second time on a bus that had about 15 passengers.

So to avoid this awful situation try not to daydream and definitely don’t fall asleep on public transportation since your defenses will be completely down. And while most perverts look really normal since there’s no official uniform that they wear just try to be aware of the people around you, especially anyone who seems suspicious.

Follow your gut. When I was groped on the bus I was riding, I had a gut feeling that something was weird about the guy who sat next to me. When he’d first sat down the bus was crowded and didn’t have many empty seats so I didn’t pay him any attention when he sat next to me. But when half of the passengers on board got off of the bus a few stops later my feelings changed.

Usually when passengers leave the bus and lots of seats open up, people who are sitting next to strangers get up and move to an empty one, but this guy just kept sitting next to me as if nothing had changed.

I thought it strange and felt bothered that he hadn’t moved, and my intuition told me to get up and move to an empty seat myself. But I squelched the voice, because I didn’t want to seem rude by asking him to move out of my way. Ten minutes later when I realized the guy had been rubbing my thigh off and on for at least five minutes I wish I’d been rude.

Don’t mistake a pervert’s touch for something else. The reason why the pervert who groped me got away with touching my leg for so long was because I first thought his touch was the rocking of the bus, because I’d feel a movement for a few seconds and then it would stop. Then I assumed that the movements were my cell-phone since it was on vibrate and in a bag that was resting on top of my lap.

I didn’t want to fathom that I was being touched by a stranger. I’m not alone though. I was told by a woman who’d also been groped that she’d thought the hand that was touching her was the Ipod in her back pocket at first.

Make sure you see his hands. If a guy sits next to you and one minute you see his hands and the next minute you don’t, keep your guard up and move away from him if they don’t re-appear within a few seconds.

Also be aware of guys who’re reading a newspaper next to you. Because the paper is so large you it hides what his hands are doing underneath. Plus reading a paper seems like such an ordinary innocent thing to do that you won’t be suspicious. This is how the old pervert got away with touching me.

Say something if it happens to you. If you find yourself being groped on public transportation, please say or do something because the pervert is really expecting you not to. So many women feel ashamed and humiliated, and automatically blame themselves because they weren’t being aware.

One crazy creep got away with touching a total of four women on the same bus within minutes of the others because the first three were too afraid or embarrassed to say anything to prevent it from happening to the others. So he went from seat to seat casually groping one woman to the next as he pleased until the last finally made a scene and he ran off. The rest then admitted they’d been touched too.

Even if the guy gets away you can at the very least prevent him from touching someone else in your presence and maybe even get a description out to notify the drivers, conductors, and passengers.

So cause a scene, flip out, and alert the bus driver or train conductor, you’ll feel better that you did.