Sexual Assault Child Sexual Grooming

[Lady of Longbourn]

When I was about 13 or 14 years old is when I was first groomed. This continued for years, with countless men. This included: sexual chats, phone sex, photos of me naked or sexually suggestive, seeing the man private areas and me showing my private parts on videos. I mean...I was doing child pornography!

This ended around 17 years old. Which makes me feel like I wasn't a 'child' so I could have let this happen?

Some of these men declared they 'loved' me, would send gifts, chat with me all the time. And I would jump through hoops to please them by not doing homework, not sleeping, not leaving the house, not trying to have friends. Most of these relationships were controlling...I was expected to chat with them whenever possibly and the relationships were very clingy.

And I was clingy back to add to my confusion now. At the time I thought these men were great! They talked to me, asked about my day, got to know me.

Also, when I was about 6 or 7 years old, I was touched and touched back a female babysitter who was about 17. We didn't touch sexual parts of the body but I know now as an adult you don't touch a child that way. My therapist and I disagree about this; I think she didn't really know what she was doing and I pressured her and my therapist thinks that no 6 year old will pressure a 17 year old to do something like that. Obviously I am still conflicted and one of the reasons I am starting the thread. I think of this as my first sexual experience even though we didn't touch sexual parts but there was sexual feelings.

I felt a lot of shame about it, didn't want to talk about it for a few reasons:

1) I felt I was old enough to know better so it's my fault. However reading Wikipedia today: Sexual grooming of children over the internet is most prevalent (99% of cases) amongst the 13–17 age group, particularly the 13–14 years old children (48%). The majority of them are girls.

2) When there was so many men involved over a period of time that there must be something wrong with me.

3) Over the years a few people learned:

• A councilor at school, who questioned me and I denied it and she didn't ask me again. (much to my surprise now as an adult to be honest)
  
• My father becasue he put in cameras and software to watch me while he was at work. When he found out, he pushed me around, pinned me down and kept calling me a whore 'just like my mother'. I thought he would rape me.
• My mother, who questioned it and I denied it. There were times though that she seemed to fall for their gifts just as much as me. She even chatted with one of them by given the man career advice.
  
• A few friends at school.

I guess the lack of help, the fact that it was in so many adult faces, it just makes me feel like I am to blame, I am at fault. I must have deserved it or maybe no one cared enough.

I have been wanting to start this thread and I haven't. It's such a hard topic and I will have to come back to it.

 

[ghotiff]

@Ayesha I hear you.

My first T said something that I'm not sure how much I agree with, but I think it has merit and maybe sharing it will help you. She said that sexual abuse (grooming) only happened to children in dysfunctional families. I think what she was trying to say is that while my parents were not abusive, they had their problems and those problems left gaps in some of my needs being fulfilled....these gaps were able to be used and manipulated by my abusers. I was drawn to my abusers (such a horrible thing to admit to or write) because they met 'needs' that that were not being met elsewhere. The message I hear from this is that it wasn't my fault. I had un-met needs, my abusers knew how to manipulate them, I fell unknowingly into their carefully constructed trap....and once trapped, well you're trapped.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Thank you for your feedback @ghotiff. I wish I knew what to say in response. I wish I could just agree that it wasn't my fault, that I was vulnerable and I could move on.

It is all very disturbing and I can't get my head around.

 

[Suzetig]

I was 15 when I was groomed into a relationship with a much older, married man. I say groomed into a relationship because I was "with him" in a sexual relationship with the next 4 years. Logically I know I didn't understand the meaning of equal, respectful relationships - he didn't force me to have sex so I consider the relationship consensual, something I agreed to and therefore not abusive. That made me a "mistress", someone who was harmful and hurtful to someone else, not someone who was manipulated into an adult relationship she couldnt have understood. It was however abusive, he took advantage of me and I know still I carry the scars.

Just to say I know that "I was old enough to know better, to be able to protect myself" feeling and that deep feeling of shame. It is a hard topic, but I'm glad you've started this thread, thank you.

 

[Go Hungry]

It's really easy to get confused as to what is your idea and what is someone else's, because that's exactly how manipulation and grooming work. The process is designed to make you amenable to things that you wouldn't likely go for if somebody just attempted it on first contact. Things that would make you run.

It's how they work. Not your fault at all.

As for how the adults in your life acted. That was pure negligence on their part. They should have protected you, not screamed at you or, For God's Sake!, made friends with these bad guys... That could only have made it even more confusing. =(

It's totally not your fault at all. It's kinda like the frog in a pot allegory. First you are nice and comfortable, and they turn up the heat (or pressure) so gradually that you never even notice. Then all of a sudden one day you find yourself in the middle of some shit that you couldn't even have imagined. And they even make you think it's your idea. Suddenly.. oh holy shit I'm flashbacking..

Okay I gotta go...

 

[The Albatross]

Good frog in the pot analogy @Go Hungry, I concur with the above post but didn't hit the like button only because of the flashback (it just didn't feel appropriate though I really like that post.

 

[shimmerz]

@Ayesha, from a step parents perspective of a child who was heavily sexualized when she younger, I feel I must give feedback here. My stepdaughter was sexualized from the time she was born. She was taught to wear inappropriate things, allowed and encouraged to go to dances where her parents knew she was being touched by boys 5 years older than her when she was 8 years old, Everything that she was trained to be involved something of a sexual nature. As a parent who does not do that to children I have to tell you it was the most horrifying thing to watch EVER.

If I could say, that even as an adult who had power (and I fought this tooth and nail with both her mother (who despised me) and her father), I lost the battle in the end and it was part of what gave ME PTSD. These parents hold onto this type of behaviour - are so invested in it (not oblivious in my case as I screamed it from the rooftops over and over again) - but for whatever reason the parents were invested in exploiting their child. This child was 12 years old when I had to leave (and I got PTSD in part because I couldn't bear to leave her like that but had to in the end). She is now 20 years old (just turned May 31) and I often wonder what harm was done to her after I left.

So if you don't mind reconsidering your position at that age, if I may say, from the perspective of a 40 year old woman with vast childhood experience, the Children's Aid did nothing about it, the parents did nothing about it, I who was mamma bear protective could do nothing about it - regardless of how hard I fought.

I think what your T is trying to say is that regardless of how you feel you must have been able to do something 'better' you didn't have a hope in hell in changing the situation. You did not exploit yourself nor did you have a hand in that exploitation, you were, purely and simply a pawn. I am so sorry for that as I believe that I have seen how you grew up through my stepdaughter but without any form of an ally and it hurts me to think that you are taking responsibility for that.

Love and Light,
Shimmerz

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

@shimmerz Sometimes I believe I was a pawn. When I think about how one of my 'boyfriends' who was 26 (?) to my 16 and who 'loved' me and I 'loved' him at all point all he wanted was to just have cybersex and nothing else. All he wanted was for me to help him get off and that is what the relationship became I believe you.

And then I think about how I could have just turned off the computer.

Maybe I was too far gone. In too deep. They were all I had. I didn't have any friends so in that case it was worth trading my body and my self worth for someone to talk too.

 

[shimmerz]

@Ayesha I had an issue with my stepdaughter who I will call Lynn. Lynn was dropped off by her mother at 11 years old for a week while she went to Mexico to a girls place who was 17 (her 'friend') whose parents she didn't even know and I flipped out. Her father didn't want to deal with it. It was a huge red flag to me. To make a long story short, being in computer forensics, I got to her msn conversations as I was concerned. In her conversations were explicit manipulations of an 18 year old friend of her 'friend' that was repulsive. I printed the conversation off and her father was more concerned 'with her spelling' (verbatim). I taught Lynn the best way I knew how to protect herself on the internet - but you see her role was already set. Her parents expected and encouraged her to be sexual. As I fought for her Lynn would fluctuate and I will never forget the night she cried inconsolably because 'all I was trying to do was to help her and she was being so mean to me'. I held her and rocked her, soothed her. Seriously, I wanted to kill her parents for doing this to her.

It was not so simple as turning off the computer. It was a belief system that she had been trained into. It was up to her parents to protect her from this not to throw her under the bus. It wasn't just about the computer, it was a pervasive expectation on her parents part that she fill this role. It happened at school, it happened at home, it happened everywhere. She couldn't get away from the expectation placed upon her. In order to function in that family she was meant to live up to the pressure that was being placed upon her.

 

[shimmerz]

it was worth trading my body and my self worth for someone to talk too.

I am going to take issue with this statement @Ayesha. It was not 'worth it'. It was what you had been trained and encouraged to do and as children we do what is expected of us before we recognize that this is not something that should be expected of us.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

@shimmerz I am not sure I could have taken being lonely. I am not sure my heart could have handled that. It was heavy enough.

So basically...what would I have done without them?

 

[shimmerz]

@Ayesha, you would not have been put in that position in the first place. You were taught to rely on them. That is part of the trap. Take away all other supports and you learn to fly to it like a moth to light. Other children's parents saw the damage that Lynn's parents had done to her and discouraged their children from hanging out with her.

So let me ask you? Given the situation that you were placed into - what would you have done without them? You did exactly as you were meant to do. What any child would have done.

I felt a lot of shame about it,

So why is this happening?

Should you actually be the one feeling shame? I have to tell you, as an adult caregiver of a child in this situation I felt that the parents should have felt ashamed. Unfortunately Lynn paid the price by being called horrendous names, having children of her age alienate her, physically attack her, etc, etc etc. I never saw HER as being bad. I held her parents FULLY and completely accountable. And of course, I feel horribly for not being strong enough to have helped her and having left her.