An experience at a music festival changed my brothers outlook on sexual assault for good.
I (21F) life away from home, my twin brother and sister(both 15) live supposedly 50:50 with our separated parents, although I’d say bro lives predominantly with dad and sis lives predominantly with mum.
This summer I took them both to a music festival and on the drive over I had a little talk with them about staying safe. Mostly this was: don’t talk to strangers, don’t take drugs, don’t leave your drinks unattended, then the matter of potential sexual assault. As they are both young I just double checked they knew how to recognise/ leave a dangerous situation.
As my brother lives predominantly with our dad, he picks up on his bigoted and misogynistic views every now and then, so he scoffed at the idea of sexual assault claiming it wasn’t a real thing most of the time and that women just make it up. That made me pretty angry but I prefer not to get angry at them for developing ideas so I explained to him that it’s not a nice view to have and that he should be careful who he says it to so that he doesn’t upset anyone.
On the first night of the festival we were watching one of the headline acts and got separated, but since we had a meeting point for the end of the set it didn’t matter much. At the end of the set my brother and so waited for our sister at the meeting point, where she showed up with two girls, all three of them linking arms.
She explained that some ‘older’ guy had been grinding into her while she tried to enjoy the music, and asking that she grind into him. The two older girls beside her noticed this and pretended they were all friends, and stood either side of her until the set was finished.
My brothers face was completely somber after that. Once the two other girls had left he started apologising to sis for what he said about sexual assault in the car. He then asked her if she remembered the guy so that we could report him. Unfortunately she said that she doubted the security would do anything anyways, but we have it a try.
Turns out there is a charity group called Safe Gigs For Women, who attend gigs and festivals to look out for this kind of thing, so the security staff agreed to let another member of their staff behind the security fence to watch the crowd from a different angle.
Bro gave £5 to the charity’s collection point, which I think is a lot for a 15 year old, and also bought a guitar pick with the groups name on.
Afterwards he told me that he was sorry he was an asshole about it and promised to be more sensitive in future.
I know that the experience of a family member isn’t the best reason to support sexual assault victims but it’s a start. I think that for a 15 year old boy he showed a lot of courage admitting he was wrong and apologising for a poor attitude.
Edit: Typo on the age. They have had their birthday since the summer so are now both 16, but at the time were 15.
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