Writing this will probably make me incredibly unpopular but I feel that it needs to be said. Whatever else one can say, it’s all true. I will say that this may be considered Not Safe For Work, not for any reasons of entertainment, but because I intend for it to be completely accurate and honest, and that might make it somewhat graphic.
From 1976 through 1978, I walked daily to the Annex of Apple Tree Daycare Center in the middle of Southland Vista Apartments, a walk of about a mile from Briar Vista Elementary School in Atlanta, Georgia.
Now, 99.99999% of the time, this was a completely safe exercise, and no one ever worried about kids walking there. However, there was one occasion that might make some people kind of nervous about allowing their children any freedom. In fact, I think this particular case should make parents feel empowered, especially if they've taught their children any kind of ability to think and reason.
On this particular day, I was walking to daycare with a friend of mine (whose name I remember, but whom I will not name because there is always a chance that someone reading this might remember her, and I feel that it would be an unfair invasion of her privacy). I seem to recall that the weather was warm and pleasant, though it was about 35 years ago, and I think I can be forgiven if the details of weather are not fresh in my mind.
We had walked past the pony farm, crossed Briarcliff Road and continued to the left, turned up Southland Drive, and then turned left into the apartment complex, as we did every day. In fact, I could retrace those steps now if the terrain had not been forcibly changed so drastically—Southland Apartments, later Tempo Vista Apartments, have not existed in several years, and the apartment complex that resides in that location now is, in fact, at a noticeably higher elevation.
About halfway between the entrance to the apartments and the Annex, we encountered a young man, probably in his early 20s (at the time, I was certain he was about 24, but I was eight years old, so I’m not sure how accurate my judgment was in such things). I remember that he was adult height (which meant somewhere between my mother’s 5’ 7” and my father’s 6’ 2”) with light blond hair and large, wire-framed glasses. Well, after all, it was the late 1970s.
He approached us, and asked us to come with him. We were trusting, and he seemed nice, so we followed him. He took us into one of the copious clumps of juniper bushes that dotted the complex. We frequently went into these clumps of stinky, prickly bushes because they grouped into nearly perfect little forts we could hide in and play. This was apparently what he had in mind.
Once we had all crawled into the clump of junipers, he sat on the ground cross-legged and bade us do the same. Then he proceeded to unzip his pants and pull out his penis.
He started out in lecture mode, explaining to us what this part was, and what it was for, while he, in 3rd-grader parlance, played with himself. Of course, I already knew what he was telling us—I was precocious, and I had a same-age male cousin with whom I’d grown up practically as a sibling, so I’d seen all the parts, and I had asked lots of questions about where babies came from, so I had a general idea of how that worked.
Of course, after a couple of minutes he ejaculated. The two of us, at 7 and 8, giggled a bit and said it looked kind of like a volcano.
And then he did the thing that made me think about it for a few hours: he told us not to tell anybody about it.
Now, I will be the first to admit that I was a headstrong but relatively obedient child. I also had to be given a good reason to be obedient—I didn't just automatically do what any adult told me. Well, this adult had just told me to do something, but he was a complete stranger, so I had no reason whatever to do what I had been told. However, I did not tell the “teachers” or other “authorities” at the daycare center (because I did not trust them, and later events were to bear out my lack of trust in them, as earlier events already had), and I did not tell my parents that day—I told them the next. I’m fairly certain he never even told us his name. If he had, I would have told my parents. Instead, I told them that he looked a bit like John Denver.
Well, to me, then, he really did. But I was eight years old, and it was 1977.
My friend moved after that. I don’t know why; perhaps it was because of this event, though that never occurred to me until today. You see, I rarely gave this much thought over the years, except as an interesting chapter, another anecdote that I rarely share with anyone, and have shared with very few people over the years.
It really never bothered me, except briefly, when I was 17. That mostly seemed to be because I thought it was supposed to. After all, that’s what they always say when a child has been exposed to sexual experiences, that they’re “scarred for life.”
Except that I wasn't.
I started hearing about child molestation in the news probably not too long after that. I generally understood what it was, and vaguely associated it with what my friend and I had experienced. I failed to be devastated by it even so.
The thing is, if you teach your children about sex, and that they have power over their bodies, then they can know what they’re experiencing enough to know to avoid it. Don’t just tell them to avoid strangers—I have met, at every age, the most amazing strangers, and had I not, I would not have made them as friends. Tell them what kinds of behaviors to look for. Teach them that they have the power not to obey an adult they do not know. Teach them to think for themselves, and to reason rather than rationalize.
If I had been ignorant of sex, if I had not thought through the process of whom to obey and whom to ignore, if I had just randomly trusted any adult with truth, I might be a messed up, sexually confused or repressed or obsessed person. Now, I may not be the best adjusted person in the world—I was already, before that happened, painfully shy—but I've never had issues with sex (other than those involved in being painfully shy, but that’s part of being shy).
Two years after this happened, I learned that a couple of kids I knew had been experimenting with sex. It was common knowledge (though it is possible that it was not true—I have tended to assume that all people were truthful, though I eventually learned better), and no one really thought much of it other than, “Wow! They’re brave!” for having engaged in an adult activity that none of us considered doing. We figured, and I still figure, that if an activity is truly consensual—that is, not only do both or all parties involved agree to engage in the activity, but they also know the full ramifications of the agreement—then there should not be a problem for anyone.
If anyone ever wonders why I don’t get as loud about the sixth grader who had an affair with a teacher as other people do, this is why. Heck, a twelve year old male already has pretty strong sexual urges from what I know of boys, and they need a non-violent outlet. Testosterone poisoning is an ugly thing. Masturbating and having sex are good ways to prevent it. Just….try to avoid demanding an audience of strange elementary school girls. Their parents probably aren't as smart as mine were.
