Sometimes the filth in London is just too much for me to handle...

So the other evening I am coming home on the Tube after a night out with some friends. Ok - well that isn't that interesting... but at a certain point, my journey home took a turn for the worse as I was standing at the train doors in anticipation of my approaching stop: someone comes up behind me and starts to pant heavily in my ear, telling me how beautiful I am, as he proceeds to grind himself up against me.

I was wearing leggings.

And I could feel everything.

I was stunned, frozen, and couldn't react - it was a very out-of-body experience because all women will tell you that if they are being harassed (and most of the time, by the other sex), they will vehemently react in the most aggressive and violent way; because, after all, this is a violation of your physicality, and some would argue, the very essence of yourself as a woman. Yet when it's actually happening to you, it's very difficult to instantaneously pull yourself together in the span of the 30 seconds that it actually takes place, and freak right the fuck out.

Well, as soon as the train doors opened, and fortunately my train pulled into the station seconds after this non-member of the human race commenced acting out his most personal and vile fantasies on me, I booked it out of the train and cried the entire way home.

I know I'm not the only one that this has happened to, and in certain cultures, everyday commutes are fraught with this kind of unacceptable misbehaviour: Japan immediately pops into my mind where they have apparently created women-only cars to deal with the issue, but I find myself wondering why these actions are perpetuated here in a Western setting, and why no one on the Tube ever seems to notice and if they do, are too fearful to speak up, or just utterly and completely jaded by the state of affairs in the Big Smoke.

Which leaves us with very few and rather unrealistic options: a rather militant, feministic approach when it comes to dealing with dudes like my new best pervert, or the typical English stiff-upper lip reaction where one must cope, no matter what the circumstances. Neither really appeal to me.

Do me a favour though - next time you see me scared shitless on the Tube because some creep has decided my ass is going to be his shiny, brand-new tool of masturbatory choice, help a sister out.

Thoughts, anyone? Or more like food for thought...