Majority of Canadian women experienced 'unwanted sexual pleasure': Survey

The poll, conducted by Abacus, found around 53% of adult women who were surveyed had experienced "unwanted sexual pleasure".

One of the questions which was asked by the surveyor was "Lately there have been stories in the news media about sexual harassment of women in Hollywood. Have you ever personally experienced unwanted sexual pressure?", to which five percent of the surveyed women had "very often" and seven percent of experienced "unwanted sexual pleasure" "often".

Among the rest of the surveyed women, 41% said they had to bear such experience "occasionally".

Twelve percent of the respondents, including men and women, said the sexual harassment is "really quite common" in workplaces while 44% of the surveyed people said such activities are "infrequent but does happen".

Less than 44% of the respondents said such incidents do not occur in the workplaces.

However most of the surveyed people, 63% of men and 77% of women, said the harassers didn't face any consequences for their activities.

Chair of Abacus Data, Bruce Anderson said the numbers which were found in the research are striking.

The survey was conducted between Oct. 20 and Oct. 23, keeping the Weinstein issue in mind.

Anderson said the timing of the survey was intentional because "the Weinstein news was perhaps a bit of a tipping point in the debate about this kind of behaviour in society and in the workplace".

Joining the list of actresses who had alleged Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein to sexually assaulting them, Italian-American actress Annabella Sciorra made a fresh accusation against the producer of raping her in 1990s, media reports said.

In an interview to a media, Sciorra said Weinstein had "shoved" her onto bed and the two had sexual intercourse which was non-consensual.

"He shoved me onto the bed, and he got on top of me,” Sciorra alleged in an interview with the New Yorker. “I kicked and I yelled," she told the reporter.

However, the actress kept the entire the whole incident a "secret" because of he fear that her career would be affected.

Montreal actress Erika Rosenbaum too went public about her alleged sexual harassment complaints against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, saying the latter had harassed her years ago.

The Montreal actress, who was so far mum about the sexual harassment, going back to mid 2000, reached out to the original reporter, Jodi Kantor, to share her own experience.

Rosenbaum said she was shaken to hear the experiences of other actresses, including one Canadian, which were similar to her own experience. 

Revealing her experience to the media, the Montreal actress said that Weinstein approached her aggressively thrice when she was in her early 20s, at a time she was pursuing her career in Los Angeles.

During the third occasion, Rosenbaum alleged the producer held lher by the back of her neck and masturbated while standing behind the actress.

Weinstein, however, denied any such allegations.

After the reports have surfaced, #MeToo had flooding the social media for some days as tens and thousands of women have bared their hearts to reveal their own ugly experiences.

American actress Alyssa Milano, on October 15, wrote a post on Twitter and asked her followers to retweet it with a reply 'me too' if they were sexually harassed or assaulted , to imply the "magnitude of the problem".

Milano tweeted to say: "If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet."

The urge to retweet by the actress has sparked the hashtag as several women started to write on social networking sites #MeToo and some of them even shared their own experiences.

(Reporting by Suman Das)