Childhood Pedophiles (and Hebephiles And Ephebophiles)

[Kintsugi]

I've been thinking a lot lately about a pedophile I knew very closely as a kid. I was thinking of titling this thread "The Pedophile Who Never Hurt Me." But it becomes greater than that the more I think about it.

I probably saw this guy a couple times a week at least between the ages of six seven and about nine or ten. He often stayed at our house for a few days a week. He was my brother's best friend. My brother was my primary abuser (and whichever boys he took along, I only remember one of them, but apparently there were about a dozen). He was six years my senior, and his friend, R, was a year older. I think my abuse stopped before I really knew R.

As it turned out, R was a pedophile. I mean, in your early/mid teens, I guess it starts to become apparent. And he was obsessed with me. And on some crazy ass level, I knew that. I never suspected he was a pedophile. I don't know. It's confusing. He disappeared from my life when he tried to kill himself because he felt he was in love with me and knew that was wrong. He was found and basically lived in a facility for a couple of years to basically work on the fact that he's a pedophile.

And then he contacted my parents on my fifteenth birthday, wanting to talk to me. And they told me everything. About him being in love with me, about the attempted suicide, about the facility. So then I knew.

But anyway, this post is really just about how that affected me. This feels like a big deal in my life. And I'm wondering about others here who have interacted with people who were absolutely pedophiles. My situation is pretty much benign, but I am curious about others' stories regardless.

Since then I have known at least one other pedophile as well as a hebephile (12-14 being the sweet spot). The one with hebephilia was also a bit young at the time to start judging that sort of thing. He pursued me when I was between those ages and he was about 16-18, but then years later he dated a girl who was impossibly young for him who was also between those ages.

I've often wondered about my brother. He never seemed to stop spending his time with kids who were much too young, first between the ages of 11 and 14 when he was about 17, then say 15-17 when he was 21-23, then I guess he was around 18-year-olds and up when he was about 25.

Anyway, there are some weird things with me and such people. I'm like flypaper, I feel like, to people who are attracted to people who are inappropriately young for them. I kept waiting for it to stop when I neared college age, but even R, who was exclusively attracted to pre-pubescent or pubescent girls (although it's hard to describe, he's sort of asexual, he was really messed up by incest, so it's not as dangerous really as it sounds), very super creepily told me that he still found me attractive as a teenager, that I was still childlike even though I grew up (I agreed to meet him when I was about sixteen).

I'm really struggling with all of this right now. I don't quite know what is up with me. I keep remembering random crap from when I knew R, and about other stuff. Like this 23-year-old I knew when I was twelve. In retrospect--what the ever loving hell? What was I thinking? And I'm dealing with all of these feelings of responsibility. Like I didn't know R was a pedophile as a kid, obviously, but I did know something was up. I knew somehow, somewhere, with no vocabulary for it whatsoever, that he was attracted to me on a level that was deeper than what was right.

And then other people knew, too. Lots of people. My parents knew. And this kid used to babysit me. I'm lucky he was so benign. I feel so bad for him, really, which doesn't help with my feelings that overall, throughout my life, the bad situations, and the weird talent for attracting predators of all kinds, is sort of my fault. Like. I fraternize with the enemy or something and have since I was a small child. And that sounds kind of stupid. But it's truly how I feel.

I've written a lot. Sorry about that.

 

[Rumors]

You and R never had a relationship? Just wondering if your parents ever told you what they were thinking? Did a red flag ever go up?
I don't know if it is fraternizing with the enemy as much as it is sticking with what is familiar out of fear. I am sure I don't have any answers except to say hang in there. I think you are on to something and hopefully you can figure out some things so that you feel better about the experience.

 

[Justmehere]

I was just thinking recently about how I feel like I attract predators. It's a weird thing. If I am in a room, and there is one creepy person around, invariably, that creepy person and I will end up interacting. It's not a conscious choice, and everyone says I hold good boundaries - but I am still somehow a magnet. It's tough and strange.

 

[Karen12]

It's not that we attract predators, it's that the predators are exceedingly good at sniffing out victims, especially once you've already been victimized. They're the ones with the sickness, not us.

 

[Kintsugi]

@Rumors we had a relationship in the sense that I used to call him my brother (f*cked up on a whole 'nother level considering my relationship with my real brother was totally messed up at that point, and I never stopped looking for new replacement brothers in my life).

My parents never said anything to me as a kid. The only thing they said was when R disappeared from my life, they told me he was very sick in the hospital and it wasn't my fault. I had gotten into a fight with him (with all the spirit a 10-ish-year-old can muster in an emotional fight), and then I never saw him again. Weeks, then months went by before anyone said anything. Then I thought, well, he's dealthy ill if he's been in a hospital for so long. Then I assumed he died and no one had the heart to tell me.

When I was twelve, my brother had a big eighteenth birthday party. No one f*cking said anything to me. R came. Out of nowhere. I was in complete shock. I was sure he had died. I don't know why I was so sure. I just accepted that no one wanted to tell me that he was dead. Anyway, it was a crazy experience. He kept trying to talk to me and I blocked him out completely. I was terrified. And all this crap started coming back to me. We emailed for a couple months after that (well THERE'S a red flag--19/20-ish-year-old emailing with a 12-year-old--y'know? Like, wtf? Wtf were my parents thinking? Why didn't they say a goddamn thing to me? Ever?).

But when I was little. When I used to see him all the time. Well. I could tell. I could tell he worshipped me. Others could tell too. R had all kinds of issues, and I knew that too. He didn't say, "Simon, my mother raped me." He didn't say, "My mother blamed me for being deathly ill." He didn't say any of the terrible things that had happened to him. But I have this memory. I was like maybe 8. We were in my room. The door was at least open. I was sitting cross-legged on a rug, and his head was in my lap, and I was running my hands through his hair, and he was telling me that his mother threatened to send him to school (we were all home schooled), and he began to cry. And my heart just broke for him.

But then again, what the f*cking hell?! I mean. That's a red flag, right? A, say, 15-year-old boy with his head in an 8-year-old's lap, crying?

I'm sorry I'm ranting on and on here but I never ever talk about this ever. When my parents sent me to therapy at the tender age of 12 because of all of the symptoms I was developing, they knew something happened. They greatly suspected sexual abuse. By the time I was 13, I knew it was my brother. Everything had come back, snapped into focus that year. I didn't disclose for another year, but my mother interrogated me to no end. Was it this person, that person? We were at a gas station one day, and she said, "Was it R?" I flew into a fit of rage. I was so mad I shook. Because R never ever hurt me ever.

When I found out he was a pedophile, it made complete sense. But still, he was the Humbert Humbert who never touched me. He talked to me. He would share everything with me from his college philosophy class. I always thought he was the one who made me so astute at such a young age. I credited him with treating me like an adult when I was a child, and because of that, I felt he had opened my eyes to abstract thought years before I was supposedly capable of it.

He's still out there. He writes to me, apologizing. He apologizes about my abuse. He tells me he would have never left me in that home with my brother if he had known what had happened to me. Like somehow if he didn't try to kill himself and become hospitalized, his teen self could have saved me from something that was already done. My Humbert Humbert. The pedophile gentleman.

And it just twists my world that I know for a fact he has spent countless, countless hours in therapy talking about me. I know he stays up until 11:19 every night to say a prayer to me, because that is my birthday. Like, how the f*ck was I supposed to cope with this on top of everything else when I was 15 and learned all of this from him?

God. I go on and on. I can't stop. Now that I've started it is all flowing out.

There was a single person in my life who ever stepped in and told a pedophile to get away from me. Everything else was the empty-actioned worries of my parents. I don't know how this all happened. I just know that somehow I have stayed in a mode that attracts people who are far too old for me. And I know I have all of these spontaneous memories coming back. I don't know what all of this means for my psyche. It just confuses the hell out of me.

I'm sorry. I'm going to take the rest of my thoughts to my diary. I feel terrible having such big posts about this. It's like I can't stop getting out the memories now that I've written down the one about him crying in my room.

Postscript: the fight I got into with R before he disappeared was basically some kind of weird reaction I suddenly had to the attention he gave me. I just flipped out, I don't remember why. He expressed some kind of feeling to me in words, don't remember what, and I freaked out. I just remember running away from him and saying something like, "You're my brother's best friend, not mine." He felt so bad about how upset I got, he bought me a pair of earrings that week. Then he realized he bought a pair of earrings for a child, and he went into his garage and tried to kill himself, because he was scared he would hurt me.

 

[Rumors]

I am glad you flowed! I hope my asking wtf your parents were thinking didn't upset you. They used poor judgement in allowing someone with such huge problems access to their very young son.
Is it possible that R abused your brother and that is where he learned that behavior? I am assuming your brother was abused by someone? Of not, where did he learn abusive behavior? You know that you haven't done anything wrong and that there isn't any way in hell you would allow your child to be around someone of questionable nature. It isn't safe and your judgement would speak to that.
Don't feel bad for flowing. It made me think that you had to get that off of your chest in order to feel better. I hope you feel better... Hang in there.

 

[Kintsugi]

Thank you for your support and for reading such a lengthy post, @Rumors . I am female (formerly MissAntiSunshine). My brother was abused by a foster brother. That came out like two years ago or so.

R is a pedophile but has never actually abused anyone. Odd situation. :( My brother abused me before he got there.

 

[Rumors]

Well, he may have not touched anyone physically, but his method of grooming you was abuse. Sorry, it just was. I am sorry about your brother. That sucks. Your parents did NOT have good judgement or loved under a rock. Either way, they probably should have paid more attention to their own kids... I am sorry to sound like I am bashing them and if it makes you feel better, my parents were fairly self absorbed and missed the boat on quite a few major things. It just means that I won't make that mistake with my kid.
Have you reconciled with your brother? I don't think I could, but I am not good with forgiveness.

 

[Kintsugi]

No, I have not. I tried. I gave years of opportunity. He never once expressed remorse to me. Once, when I was fourteen I guess, his T told him his assignment was to basically talk to me and apologize, and he said to me something like, "My stupid therapist says I need to talk to you about what happened. But it was all so long ago. It doesn't matter anymore, right?"

Right right...

 

[Rumors]

Ugh... I think I would have to write him a letter or something letting him know it does matter and how what he did effected my life and then let him know what a douche bag thing it was to say that it didn't matter. I am really sorry that would be tough.

 

[Kintsugi]

I have been through everything one could go through, I think, in relation to my brother. I honestly don't care anymore. If I could kill him and know for certain I'd get away with it, I probably would. He is worthless, and I believe he is still a predator in some sense.

In any case, this thread's focus is more upon the pedophiles et al in my life. I am essentially convinced that my early abuse, which supposedly included many boys I do not remember, vetted me to be the object of several men's desires who were inappropriately older than I. I did not mind. It was a fact of life for me. I was never surprised.

And on some level, I reallly think I did know what was going on. I really think I knew that R was obsessed with me. And this trend just trucked on through my life and continues today. And I still know it.

I have a weird conflict I've had ever since I turned eighteen, though. My college friend and I had both dealth with pedophiles or hebephiles. We would hit the town together and joke about the fact that we were any Humbert Humbert's dream pair. We were always on the lookout for an incoming predator, because we attracted them like moths to a light. But we were also aware and conflicted by our age. We were no longer minors, so did it count? What had we become? We were lolitas who grew up and still felt like lolitas.

And yes, I really do think I knew what was going on from a young age. Or at least, it never surprised me at all. It was all very normal to me. When I was about eleven, maybe twelve, a young man who was 23 approached me. I was in the gym of a temple I used to go to to play with the other kids. The other kids were all running around the gym, playing games. The young man, Orin, said, "You are very lonely." No I'm not, I said. These are all my friends. He said, "You are lonely because they are here."

He had me hooked. He was a philosophy major, a senior in college. I thought I was special because he was talking to me about philosophy, the way R used to. I thought it made me very clever. In retrospect, no matter how clever a child is, at 23, you see them as children. You do not seek them out. You do not speak to them in rushed whispers. You do not ask to see them when everyone else has gone home for the night and the temple stands barren. You do not shuffle around nervously, watching the streets, as you address the child.

But some part of me knew it was wrong, knew what was happening, knew that this young man did not simply think I was clever.

What would have happened to me, if my brother and his friend (my true brother in life), hadn't spotted me, stopped the car? What would have happened over the next hour if my brother's friend had not gotten out, an overgrown teen, and shouted, "Simon! Who the hell is that? Get in the car right now."

Orin disappeared, and I bounced into my brother's backseat, his friend in the front fuming over the man. But I felt special. Chosen. And so clever.

When we got home, my parents told me they heard what happened, and they didn't want me seeing Orin again. But every once in awhile, I would keep an eye out for him. I don't know what I was looking for. I think I was deeply attached to feeling chosen.

I don't feel this way about it anymore. I don't feel specially chosen. I'm a young woman, fully developed, and if a much older man wants to seduce me, it's all much more sensical. Why wouldn't a single 40 or 50-something want my attention? But they do give me some feeling from my past. They make me feel like a minor again. It's not a terrible feeling. It feels familiar, like home.

I find it all very confusing and somewhat shameful. I am no longer in touch with my friend from college or else I would consult her.

 

[RussH]

Simon,
I don't think you should be ashamed of the feelings you have; I think they are a learned response to your abuse, and as you said they are familiar like home.
Should you find a way to deal with them? Perhaps, but don't assume guilt for them, because, as stated, right now it is a learned response to the attention of older men.