I Need Equality Because...
I'm tired of both me, my mother & my little brother having to yell I'm 17 at grown men, men old enough to be my father, so they stop staring at my body. From the age of 9, I starting developing my assets and by the time I was 15, I was a DDD and ever since then boys and men have felt it was alright to stare at my breasts instead of my face when I talk to them (even in the winter when I'm wearing one of my oversized sweaters). There was one incident when a bunch of friends and I were at the beach after our summer exams, there was one guy (fcuklourry you know who and what I'm talking about) who started hitting on my girlfriends and I. I had blatantly told him to piss off earlier on and he seemed to get the message until we swam over to the dock and started diving off it. I was coming up the side ladder of the dock so I could jump right back in and the guy from earlier was sitting right next to the ladder and reach down and undid the ties of my top. He smirked as I dropped right back in and tried to paddle over to my friends with one hand and hold my top in place with the other (I was starting to tear up in embarrassment and I'm not a very good swimmer to begin with so this combo was quite difficult) but two girls from my school, who hadn't come down with us but showed up a little bit before this, jumped in the water, where one tied it back up for and the other held my hands so I wouldn't go under. Right when I got out I wrapped my towel around me and didn't go back in. My older cousin was there with his friends and he kept making it clear that he was there when this guy was being a creep because he'd come over and talk to me yet the guy still did what he did. I felt violated because I was 15 and this guy was somewhere in his 20s. Since then I've felt like I have to cover up when I swam or even just all the time because of men. But I pulled my head out of my ass and realised that not every man I see at the beach or in general is a creep. Just because one asshole thought it was cool of himself to hit on a bunch of 15 year olds then try to “get some” per se with one of them doesn't the rest of the men there are like that. I also realised that some men and LGBT individuals are harassed by men/women/LGBT in the same way and just as much as we are and it's time that equality was given to each and every one of us because we are all humans and all deserve the same respect.