Do u believe that Donald J Trump really groped all of those women ?

Tweet me your first assaults,” wrote Kelly Oxford after the Trump tape leaked. “I’ll go first: Old man on city bus grabs my ‘pussy’ and smiles at me, I’m 12.” By Sunday the trickle of responses had become a stream, a river, the sea. Soon there were millions of women telling stories, often stories they’d never told anyone before, often involving walking home from school, or dancing at music festivals, or the kinds of men you were meant to call “Uncle”. Oxford said she was receiving two replies a second. “Anyone denying rape culture,” she wrote, “please look at my timeline now.”
Men are oblivious to the Jaws theme each woman hears when travelling alone
There is the woman who was 10 when a man with a coat over his arm groped her at a museum. The woman who was 14 when an optician dropped a contact lens down her blouse and stroked her breast. The woman who remembers a man cupping her arse when she was in the queue for ice cream at Disneyland. The effect of reading all of these tiny stories one by one is cumulative. You stand up, eventually. You get off the bus with eyes glassy and an ache behind your ribs and you walk through a group of commuters carrying your phone in one hand and in the other despair. And then you order coffee, tell the guy your name, and smile, without teeth.
While Oxford’s feed isn’t shocking to a single woman, it is clearly different for men, some of whom seem to have been oblivious to the Jaws theme each woman hears when travelling alone. Most came open-armed, including the Republicans denouncing Trump because they have daughters, granddaughters. Which, with respect, misses the point slightly. While feminist awakenings (Jeb Bush may not have identified his as such) must be welcomed, doesn’t a sentiment like that expose the lack of empathy they must have had before; their inability to recognise a woman unless in relation to a man? A meme circulated a couple of years ago, shortening “She’s someone’s daughter” to “She’s someone”. It seems crucial that in order for anything to change, these fathers and grandfathers need to realise that earlier.
As so often happens when I read women’s personal stories of abuse, I’m shocked at how unshocked I am. There is nothing new here. We’ve smelled this gas for years, but every so often somebody like Oxford strikes a match, and fires start. You realise something, if you carry on reading, ignoring the feeling of having cycled into a bin lorry and then having rubbish dumped on your scuffed and moaning body. You realise how many stories you have told yourself throughout your life to pretend everything is OK. How much you have been expected to ignore, and how much you have glossed over, or laughed at, or pretended was totally, completely fine. “My fifth assault,” continued Oxford, some time later, “Age 15, at hospital for anxiety & heart palpitations. shirt is off for ekg, 2 Drs, not my Drs, stop & stare. 1 winks at me.”
Things in the cold light of adulthood reveal themselves as, if not technically assault, then certainly a cousin. But they’ve been refiled as sassy anecdotes, or stories about the oddness of men. I had and have a beautiful life, and yet, like all women to different degrees, it’s been lived to a muted soundtrack of powerlessness. Reading Oxford’s feed, I remembered the ice-cream van outside school, the man who would give us broken lollies if we climbed inside and sat on his knee. I remembered walking home through the woods, and my friend shouting “RUN” when she saw a man with his coat open standing beside a tree. When we were called out of our French lesson to talk to the police, we told the other girls about it with pride – the story had been spun in our heads so there was something affirming about the fact that a hooded man had chosen us. Us! It wasn’t fear we learned, it was something worse – we learned to laugh at the men who snuck their fingers up your top on a busy train, or shouted comments about your school uniform from cars. As adults, an accumulation of expectations of what a woman is for led to many anecdotes between friends about “bad dates”, “bad sex”, being playfully strangled, ejaculated on, left behind.Women walk into relationships now with virtual keys clenched in their fists, as if forever walking home on a dark night.

@EJTOOO: Can you actually read or do you just want to spew hate?

@Faerylight: that was an article. and true. it's not hate it's terrifying.Are you a man?

@Faerylight: very enlightening review of the media claims. Thank you for sharing your thoughts ... Thank you for thinking this through ... Thank you for organizing it in a manner that I could appreciate your viewpoint. Well presented!

@EJTOOO: What you are doing is cutting and pasting various experiences women have had and making someone who has been accused (have you ever heard of innocent until proven guilty) and you are trying to smear him by association. I don't care if you're hysterical. There is no excuse to slander someone. You're blind with ideology and hatred. Maybe you've been triggered.

@EJTOOO: EJ ... compliments on your involvement in the political process ... never be shy offering your thoughts ... always keep decorum and civility in mind

@Faerylight: He was in a video talking about how he grabbed pussy and could do what he liked.this was HIM. TRUMP. now a bunch of women have come forward coz he denied everything and you don't believe all these women but believe a proven liar like trump.

@questionWeaver: Thanks QuestionWeaver

@EJTOOO: I agree the comments were vile. He was joking and mucking around.

I heard a lot worse last night from a 'friend' talking extremely disrespectfully about a woman he'd met online and slept with

Doesn't mean he forces himself on women

You know why Trump may have believed he could do what he liked? Because as a rich and famous man you have many women throwing themselves on you. CONSENSUALLY

The thing is these allegations may be true

Neither you nor I know whether they are or not

@EJTOOO: EJ ... it is a tough world ... figuring out truth is always a difficult mission.

We all agree the scenarios are being used to undermine Mr Trump.

We all agree, the offences suggested, are violations of respect and civility not criminal.

We all agree there are no commonly agree written rules to respect and civility.

It is for us men and ladies to grade these political correctness infractions ... which is what these are .... many will come to different conclusions.

Your conclusion is not wrong.

Faerylights solid rational and conclusion is not wrong.

Remember ... there is no test or criteria to be president ... any such criteria being asserted is only in our heads ...

@Faerylight: well explained ... wish I could write as well!

@questionWeaver: *blush*

@questionWeaver: Groping women is NOT political incorrectness.It's sexual assault

@Faerylight: lol ... you are providing a women's point of view ... a view I am interested in ... your basis and rational are strong ... makes sense.

Outside an election, my hunch is your thoughts would comfort many.

Respect is a valid consideration ... yet, I live in a world where the little respect I witness, is false respect ... which makes me uncomfortable making more out of the respect issue than people really do in real life.

You injected valid examples of real life ... realism ... and tied it together nicely.

Wish others could see your logic.

@EJTOOO: Yes, sexual assault is against the law and beyond PC. Often in perception there is a fine line however.

My ex asked me once "may I please kiss you?"

It was sooooo charming but 99.9% percent of the time it happens without explicit consent

A couple of times I've done the dodge

A couple of times I've ended up with a short kiss I disliked

Most of the time it was welcome

Once I tried to kiss a girl but she dodged. Id misread it.

The postscript is my ex went on to grab my pussy. And by that stage it was very welcome. He didn't ask first.

@questionWeaver: Thanks QW I often think today's conversations are more like a blood sport. Perhaps hunters hunting down a fox. I'm very happy and flattered you see the peace I try to get to. There is so much emotion on some issues -and as you are aware you get accused of different things -in this case that I'm a man -one can second guess oneself and end up very defensive :))

@EJTOOO: EJ ... very good point ... yes, sexual assualt is a criminal manner ... a very serious society issue.

I hope you are never placed in a situation of sexual assault.

If you are, reach out to solid trusted peers around you. Do go to the police. Do assert that a crime has occurred.

These ladies in the media did not do any of that.

The ladies popped their claims into a political campaign ... asserting ... at the very best, they have reason to feel agrieved ... I think they may be agrieved.

But, they asserted no legal crime ... they chose a path of asserting that there is some kind of political correctness rule ... a sort of law nobody voted on, that Mr Trump violated.