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Many of us consider Singapore to be a relatively safe place. We don’t hear many stories about people getting sexually harassed, and rarely do we hear them told from the victims themselves.

Yesterday, a question posted to Reddit Singapore asking “Women of /r/singapore, have you ever experienced sexual harassment?” sparked a flurry of responses from women detailing their experiences with sexual harassment, revealing that this may be more common in Singapore than we realize.

1. Many times. The one incident that happened on public transport when I was 16. Gotten on the MRT and noticed this guy who kept staring at me. I walked to the other side of the train and he followed. When the seat beside me cleared up, he sat down. He wasn’t local, probably around late 20s – early 30s. After a few stops, he turns to me and asked in mandarin, “You want to come to my house and watch porn?”. I noticed he was holding his phone and it was a naked girl on his display. Replied him loud enough for everyone to hear that if he asks me to watch porn with him again, I will report him for sexual harassment. He noped out of the MRT pretty quick. – saltides

2. Yes, plenty of times, but one particular incident stands out to me. A few years ago I was riding on a bus and some old hamsup ticko sat next to me. He struck up a conversation by asking me for the time and we continued making small talk about general things. The longer we talked, the more personal his questions got. He eventually started asking me where I lived, what school I went to, why I was going home this late at night (it was only 10pm, wtf). I deflected most of his questions by giving fake or really vague answers. I was getting super SKETCHED OUT and was planning to switch seats until he dropped this bomb on me:

[Appraises me up and down] “For a small girl like you, you have really big boobs”

I noped the fuck out of there at the next stop. – wandxrlust

3. (1) Not me, but my friends. Sec 1, they were just walking around those neighborhood shops when they notice a man following them around. They run into a toilet and hide in cubicle hoping to evade him. Several minutes pass and they don’t hear anything so they go out. As they stood in front of the mirror and do as all 13 year old girls do (i.e selfies with Motorola razr), a cubicle door opens. Lo and behold, it’s the creep. He approaches them while they stare into the reflection in the mirror. They were too scared to scream or run. He holds out his hand asking for some soap. One of myblonde friends (not making fun of blonde angmoh girls but my friend was like the stereotypical blonde air headed bimbo type) told him “You can press the soap machine and take yourself.” He smiles at her and asks her to pass him some. Her, being dumb af, pumped some soap into her palm and pours it into his hands. That’s when she notices that he has his dick in his other hand and was wanking off. They all notices it at the same time, scream and takes off running into a nearby LAN shop where a few ah bengs decide to help them out and hunt for the guy. Never found him.

(2) I worked in a kitchen as part of my internship and had some ungodly hours to clock. One night, I took the last 857 bus home. If you know 857, you’d know the passengers. They’re mostly Bangladeshi construction workers. It was a Sunday night and the entire bus was packed with construction workers. Not to be mean or anything, I am pretty tight with some construction workers around my housing area and regularly talk to them. Most of them are hardworking and nice, but then there’s the 5% that just ruins everything. Pretty sure all 5% of the bad apples were in that bus that night. I had no seat and was squashed up in a corner. I felt a hand grazing my butt every time the bus jerked. Decided to give the guy the benefit of the doubt; maybe it was an accident. But when the bus hit a stop light and I found a hand on my ass… Oh boy. That ain’t no accident. I turned around and glared into his eyes. Pretty sure I shot lasers that night. He got the message and left me alone. But I had another thing to survive – getting out of the bus. My stop was coming up next after a hellish hour on that bus. I was really far from the exit and had to squeeze through everyone. I was like… the only girl on that bus. And I could not count how many hands were on my body as I tried to exit. It was the scariest and most disgusting thing I’ve ever felt in my life. I went home to scrub myself after that. None of them were accidents. I looked into their faces as I exited and as I said “excuse me” and they were LAUGHING and smiling at me as they groped me. #FYOU – lunaelly

4. When I was in Sec 4, this senior of mine asked me to come down to his house so that I could collect some guidebooks from him. Slightly sketchy but his dog was super cute and I trusted him to not be a dick. Never was I so wrong. He threatened to rape me. I put on a false bravado and basically told him that I would fuck him over if he tried. Scarred for life afterwards, and still have a slight fear of all men to this day. – kat-xuan

5. (1) Man on the train kept brushing against my butt in a rocking motion while we were standing, it was morning rush but it wasn’t that bad. Other people could stand behind each other with a good amount of space. I walked off whenever I could, but this has happened more than once. Men also like to use the crowded train as an excuse to brush against my boobs.

(2) I was resting my arms on the armrests in a hair salon and the guy hairdresser who was meant to be a family friend kept pressing/moving his crotch against my arm and would stand necessarily close to cut my hair. I was about 16 or 17 at the time. I moved my arms, didn’t say anything and waited for the nightmare to be over. Never let him cut my hair ever again.

(3) I worked as a beer promoter when I was about 15-16? Can’t name the brand, but it’s a fairly popular brand here. Old men would constantly ask ‘Little girl, come serve us ah’ when I was only meant to promote it at a store. Constant wolf whistling. I was scared and soft spoken back then, so I didn’t say anything.

(4) Surrounded by guys who think it’s okay to make rape jokes. One dude said to me, when we were alone, “I wish the purge would happen in Singapore. Then rape can be legal.” I was horrified and I told him off but I’m pretty sure he still wants it to happen.

(5) I was walking and this old man was walking in my direction. As he got nearer, he (looked to be about 60-70+ years old by the way) and and said “WOW!” really loud while ogling my tits while I speed walked. I was already about five steps before my brain processed what he had done. I was wearing a normal, fitted star wars shirt and this happened yesterday outside a MRT station. – moleskines

6. Friend says he needs to pee after drinking at Clarke quay. On his way home on the cab. Calls and asks if I can let him go up and pee cuz it’s urgent and the cab ride is far away. I say ok. Comes up. Pees. Leaves bathroom. Starts getting touchy. Drag me to my bedroom. Mouth covered. Dunno why parents don’t wake up. Starts forcibly kissing. I say no. But he was so drunk like, I think he wasn’t responding. Drunk people are actually really strong. Vagina bleeds for the next few days. Dropped all the friends from that circle immediately. – hieveemonster

7. Working in F&B for a while now. My male colleagues kinda see me as a bro and they joke about sexual stuff. But sometimes they get a little too… Eh… Idk the exact words for what I am describing but these are what my male coworkers have said to me: “How big are your boobs?” “Do you like big dicks?” “You must be damn tight.” “Wanna go out to drink? Let’s get drunk and have a one night stand. I promise to make you scream.” I usually shut them up with some sarcastic reply but it only works for a while. – lunaelly

8. Dude stalked me on the way home. When I got into the lift, he stopped the doors from closing and started to jerk off. I vividly remember that he has a very small member…

I was 19 then, and a late bloomer, I panicked and screamed. He booked it. Then I threw my bag at him but missed. Some people came around because of the commotion and told me to go to the police. They weren’t really kind, they made some sarcastic remarks too. Then I went to the police station nearby and waited for my mum and sis to come pick me up. – PrimAndProper69

9. My best friend once had a guy sit next to her on the bus, and just started to jerk off right next to her.

Fuck, just last week some guy pretended to be a buyer on Carousell and kept sending her dick pics. – samleecx

10. Yes a couple of times. The scariest would have to be when I was 12. I was on the way home from school in my PE uniform (tee and shorts) and had fallen asleep on the bus. I was sitting on the inner seat closest to the window. I woke up to an old uncle stroking my thighs. I was too scared to make a big fuss, so after I tried getting him to stop once, I just got off a stop earlier. – strangerrocks

11. Fell asleep once on the bus, woke up to find the guy behind me had slid his hand between the seat and the bus wall and was stroking my waist. Another time on the MRT, this guy started easing his hand under the schoolbag on my lap and started stroking my thigh. – halfbakery

12. (1) A guy once stuck a piece of paper with his phone number in my bra when I bent over to pick something up.
(2) When making a police report, the IO asked about the color of my bra/asked if I want to see ‘his gun’/told me to feel free to send him ‘photos’. – elmachosierra

13. When I was working, I had a particularly cheeko co-worker framing his lewd requests as jokes and asking me to let him “touch (my) boobs, just once” (should I mention, while pointing a knife at me, we work in a kitchen) or openly checking me out and intentionally making it known to me. – saydoubleokay

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