The very first time I was objectified by a grown man in public I was somewhere around ten years old. I was walking home from school, dressed the way any little kid is dressed in shorts and a t-shirt when two grown men who were walking behind me on the sidewalk deiced to have a very loud conversation about my ass.

They didn't say anything directly to me, but since I was the only other person present, I knew they meant me, and it was both mortifying and terrifying to have an adult speak like about me. Up to that point, all of the adults in my life, including my many uncles (I had six), had always treated me with the respect one gives to children.