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I'm going to share a story that's loosely related to all the stuff going on at the moment. I'm no victim but I still feel like it's something I should talk about. Most of the people reading this will recognise some people, but I'll only use first initials. (1/?)
I was an awkward kid, hell I still am really, and I pretty much only had 3 close friends in school. I was bullied pretty much consistently. When I was 13/14 I was invited to a youth church by one of those friends but I never really felt included in his friend group (2/?)
Eventually another of my 3 friends started going and that friends group got tighter, but I still felt awkward as hell as much as I tried to fit in. I ended up sitting alone a lot of the time. Then this older guy started talking to me, who we'll call J (3/?)
Now J was the first person I'd ever been able to just sit and chat to for ages at this place. I really don't know why we clicked but we did. He quickly became one of my closest friends at the time, even though he was in this early 20s (I was still 14 at most) (4/?)
Because I was young and naïve I didn't really notice, or just flat out ignored a lot of the shit he told me. He was the first gay man I'd ever known so I learnt a lot about that. Then he told me he was a recovering paedophile with a crush on one of the kids my age there (5/?)
He told me that he was going to church to "pray away the thoughts" essentially. And I believed him, so I didn't say anything. He told me that the church leaders knew and they were trying to help him. So in my mind it was all ok. This man couldn't be that bad (6/?)
Two years go by and nothing really happens. I'm introduced to J's friend P (who will be important later) who's two years older than me. Around my 16th birthday I have my first gf which lasted 2 weeks. Her friend then invites me to hang out with her friends (7/?)
Very soon after another girl asks me out. I say yes because I didn't know what the fuck else to say, and then I didn't know how to break up with her. A week later I ask J to break up with her for me. After that is when things started to get weird between us (8/?)
He starts telling me he finds me attractive, and starts talking about sex a lot. At one point, I don't remember exactly when, he kissed me. He also kept asking me to let him see me naked. He was attempting to groom me but luckily it didn't work but I still said nothing (9/?)
Luckily I took up ex-gf's friend's offer to hang out. One person led to another and I ended up hanging out with the group we all called Goth Hill in the town centre. This was the first big group I felt safe in and I hung out every day after school and through the holidays (10/?)
This group was people between 13-18 with a few older outliers. And they were all horny as fuck. Looking back I'm ashamed to say I was a part of that group, because grooming was everywhere. And no one said anything, so naïve me just assumed those kinda ages gaps were ok (11/?)
I was still an awkward kid. I'd gotten pretty close to the guy P from earlier, who'd also ended up hanging out with this group. He ended up spending a lot of time with a 13yo girl but they both assured me that nothing was going on, so i told people it was only rumours (12/?)
It wasn't rumours at all. They were sleeping together and had been the whole time. That was when I started questioning whether it was ok because why would they hide it if it was? She seemed fine with it. So I didn't say anything, again, because I didn't want to lose people (13/?)
My point is that it's not always as simple as "they should have just spoken up against it". Sometimes people just get normalised to this shit and can't speak up for fear of being seen as a snake and losing the only friends they think they have (14/?)
I still didn't realise how bad the situation with that girl was until years later, I had a long conversation with her and she ended up telling me how she was manipulated. I feel terrible looking back thinking I should've done something but I know past me would never have (15/?)
It's not just one community that this shit happens in. It can happen anywhere, to people that just don't know better. If you see anything like this PLEASE be better than I was. Call out grooming wherever you see it. Don't let future generations see it as normal like I did (End)
