Every woman remembers her first assault. This was mine: I was 14 years old and skating at the local ice rink with my younger sisters during the school holidays.
I pulled over to the side and an unknown man, much older than me, skidded to a halt in front of me. He pinned me to the barricade, rammed his tongue — thick and cold and clumsy — into my mouth, probed roughly, pushed me away, laughed in my face and skated off with his friends who'd borne witness to the attack.
I had never kissed a boy before. I was shocked and humiliated, which, in hindsight, was the whole point. I felt queasy and uneasy but my 14-year-old self didn't have the vocabulary to describe what had happened, couldn't comprehend how this forceful, unsolicited act might be wrong, nor how I should respond to it.
And so I smiled foolishly at my sisters and they smiled foolishly back at me and we got on with skating.
It has happened again and again and again in the years since: in my student waitressing job, when a diner pushed a wad of money into my apron pocket, groped me repeatedly and told me the cash was payment for doing a good job. At the newsroom I was assigned to when I was barely 20 years old, where a serial (married) pest would stoop as he walked past my desk, run his hand up my leg and tell me what type of nipple he preferred.
At the bar — just last year, when I was 46 years old and enjoying a post-conference drink with friends — where a stranger sat opposite me, clamped his legs around mine and demanded I have sex with him.
These are the everyday obstacles women must dodge throughout their lives — from the moment they show any signs of sexual maturity, or even earlier, if they're unfortunate enough — thanks to the vast numbers of men out there who believe they are entitled to our bodies.
My own experiences are mild compared to some of those posted on Twitter following the exhortation by author Kelly Oxford for women to share their stories following the release of the video in which Donald Trump expresses the ease with which he is able to grope women without their consent.
"It takes a certain level of social enablement to produce men who treat women with such contempt — and