Anyone who’s been pregnant has had their belly touched by someone when they didn’t want it touched. Plain and simple. It’s some kind of touch magnet.
Think Before You Touch
But just don’t.
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It’s Such a Special Time
One woman who was very pregnant got her baby belly touched, unsolicited, and she was in no mood to be all nice and accommodating. First of all, she was 36 weeks pregnant. It’s not a fun time. You’re often tired because it’s hard to sleep at night, given you have a volleyball attached to you. Constant heartburn or swollen feet might be other complaints. Stress about bringing another life into the world could set anyone on edge.
“A F–king Nightmare”
This soon-to-be-mom is not having an easy go of the last few weeks of pregnancy. She says she’s been throwing up almost every day and there’s a ton of food she just can’t eat right now. “I never thought it would be possible to be in this kind of pain and discomfort nonstop for this long, but here I am,” she wrote on Reddit.
Let Me Go To CVS For Crying Out Loud
The future mom thought she’d treat herself a bit, and go to the store to do some normal things while feeling like junk. She may have also been thinking that once the baby comes, she’ll have even less time to get out. Maybe this was her last chance at a regular life for quite some time.
Just Not Her Day
But along comes this random woman, who apparently decides to make a beeline for the mom’s belly. Bad move. As we said before, the mom was already all done. So when she touched her belly, she decided to touch the stranger’s boob. “Her hand was positioned like right where my shirt meets my pants so I could actually feel part of her hand on my bare skin.” That’s gross. She goes on to say: “This f cking lady in her ’50s actually reached out and touched my belly out of f cking nowhere and was like ‘Awww is it a boy or a girl?’ “
Count This As a Win
Okay, so she grabbed her boob. The stranger was, unsurprisingly, taken aback — probably the desired reaction the mom was looking for. “Now when I say ‘grab’ I mean more that I placed my hand on the top of her boob until she pulled away pretty much instantly. And she just looked at me with this absolutely aghast face and I was just like ‘not great huh??’ and walked away.”
Post Pulled
The moderators at Reddit decided to pull the post, but screenshots exist for exactly this purpose.
Budweiser or Coors?
Before the post was pulled, one commenter shared this hilarious story of how her friend dealt with a stranger touching her belly.
Just Ask
Another commenter said a better way to deal with this would be to have just asked the woman not to touch her.
An Incubator
One woman commented about how you become something less-than-human when you’re pregnant:
“Women lose all agency when pregnant. You get everyone from your family to complete f*cking strangers lecturing you on what you are and are not allowed to do in case it hurts the baaaaby. You get told you can’t drive, can’t have sex, can’t stay out late, can’t work, can’t do anything but prepare for the baaaaby. You are not a person; you’re an incubator.”
Should She Not Have Touched Back?
CafeMom writes that according to the moderator: “I agree that it’s outrageous that pregnant women are expected to tolerate friends and strangers feeling their belly at will without invitation,” and that “I agree that the OP’s retaliation was surprising and funny. But that does not make it right.”
No Touching, Everyone
People are calling it what it is: sexual assault. At the same time, the woman touching her belly can also be accused of some level of assault, or at least invasion of personal space.
Unsettling Feeling
Maybe it’s because women who were pregnant loved the experience so much that they just want to get a little taste of that time again. But honestly, you could get one of those fake baby bumps and go from there. Anything’s better than just shooting your hand out and laying it on someone.
