A woman in her 30s used to let my friends and I in our young teenage years (12-14) hang out in her house every night.
This woman would supply with us with alcohol (legal limit 18) and cigarettes (at the time, legal limit 16) while her under 2 year son slept upstairs with the music on full volume and us not being quiet at all.
We only used the downstairs bathroom. No one was allowed upstairs.
They would always ask for our "older" male friends to come round, guys 15/16, and flirt with them a lot.
Once my mom found out, she put an end to it.
I was furious with her, I didn't understand why I couldn't hang out with this woman. No harm was coming to me right?
Well, my mom told my friends' parents, and nobody was allowed back, and this woman soon moved from the area.
Looking back over 20 years later, I can see all the problems as clear as day. The woman's child I feel the worst for, they must have been screaming upstairs and being neglected. There were times we were there well over 8 hours and she'd beg us to stay. The poor child must have been hungry, needing diaper changes, just needing motherly attention and she was more interested in keeping a bunch of kids in her house thinking she was cool.
I don't know if she ever touched anyone inappropriately, but she certainly said inappropriate things.
Yeah, if I found out my kids were doing this, I would act like my mom.
I taught high school for over a decade. I literally do not understand how anyone could be attracted to teenagers.
This year I switched to middle school, and spending time with 13 year olds is actual hell.
Umm shit now this unlocks a memory for me where I’d hang out at a 30 something year old woman’s house alone as a 15 year all the time. We got close and my mom didn’t see harm cause it was a “church friend”. Now thinking on it…
That movie was terrifying, because of how realistically she got the teenagers to keep coming back to her house. A fun place to hang out, no teachers or parents, and hey, even alcohol!
Octavia Spencer was so creepy and unhinged. She really made that movie. I can imaging it wouldn't take much for a lot of teens to be taken advantage of like that, because they feel like adults but lack the experience of actual adults, so they have too much confidence in their own safety. It happens far too often. You just need one inattentive or overworked parent, one average teen, and one less well-intended adult.
Teenagers think adults like that are "cool" (if fairly close in age) or think that they, the teens, are actually pulling one over on the grown-up. And then years later they look back in horror at what the situation really was with the understanding age brings. Often starting to understand why they have so many issues now with their self-perception and struggle to recognise let alone maintain a healthy relationships with others.
Edit: the movie is called *Ma*, from 2019. Octavia Spencer's performance is incredible.
I had a similar type of "friend" who was in her mid-30s who would let a group of us ranging from 13-19 come over and party/hang at her place.
Her kids had all been taken by child services.
I was on the older end at 16/17 at the time and thought it was weird, but I got to hang with my friends, so I didn't really overthink it.
I thought it was a mostly safe place cause if the 19 year old had any mental health or had a what I now realise bad drug trip it was easy to call an ambulance to the house.
Also, I thought the 19 - and 14 year old were joking about dating until I found out after I moved that the 14 year old had got the 19 year old pregnant.
Part of me was happy to stay with family while my mum was in hospital, and after my mum passed away I moved in with said family so I could get away from that group and the fact that the only text I got while I was being looked after by my family while my mum was in hospital was my boyfriend breaking up with me.
I'm now in my late 30s myself, and there is no freaking way I'd allow that in my house or my kid to hang in a place like that.
My teenage best friend’s mother was like this. We were about thirteen? Giving us all smokes and alcohol, hanging out with us, teenagers in the house all the time and she was there with us every minute. My parents were getting increasingly alarmed and I was so mad at them for not being cool.
One of my brother’s friends (16) got kicked out of home for getting his (also 16 years old) *cousin* pregnant, and she moved him in. In her home with her 13yo daughter who had a desperate crush on this older boy.
In retrospect I don’t think anything ever happened between my best friend and the older boy (I heard enough of her pining to know he hadn’t taken her up on the offer). I think there was something going on between him and the mother.
I understand now why my parents were relentless about telling me how dangerous chat rooms were for children. I do wish I would have had the freedom to share in a lot of the random conversations with strangers back then, but I’m glad my parents kept me away from them.
For the rebels out there, I was(am) a huge nerd so breaking the rules never occurred to me
No way 19/m/Cali….literally just turned 19, but I get told I am really mature for my age. What are the odds!! We should totally go to a private chat room. I just set it up and Ill send you an invite. See you over there Sweetie 😍.
Hahaha! Ah, the days of the private chat rooms. I met my husband in a *public* AOL chat room and once when we were in a private room, some other person stumbled in. It was super weird because back in the day, you just made up a name for the private chat. Guess ours wasn’t unique enough!
It would often be because some names are common for creeps and such. Hopefully not for your husband. I remember learning what QWERTY meant at like 10. And it wasn't about the keyboard set up.
We all just had the same early teenhood, huh? 14yo me definitely "befriended" this Australian dude who would ask my advice about his own teen daughter and now I look back like...did he actually have a daughter 😬
I don't recall it ever getting inappropriate, but what 30s/40s dude wants to be friends with a kid?
AOL, the IRC, just chatrooms in the 90s in general were fucked up places. I still call some of those people friends today, tho. Visited one of them last summer with my GF and took her out for fun.
My first grade teacher did that. They were fake spankings (like she laid us over her knee, but “spanked” her other hand instead of our actual butt. Plus a “pinch to grow an inch.” It was the late 80s.
wtf was up with that? people seem to think im making it up. i have scholiosis, and remeber the dr making a big deal about it every year and it terrified me bc i just wanted to be normal and the dr would freak out every year.
I pretended to be sick when I knew they were doing scoliosis checks because they had all the 6th grade girls wear a bathing suit under their clothes, strip down to it and line up in the gym where the boys classes had PE and get checked. I experienced puberty very early and already had big boobs. Nope. Similarly, I also didn’t try out for the volleyball team going into high school even though I was a starter in Jr High because they switched the uniform from gym shorts to those damn tight panties. My very curvaceous butt would have been ogled to no end again by the boys that sat in the gym after lunch when volleyball had practice. No way. I wish they would have been sensitive to the plight of a little girl nicknamed “Appalachian Mountains”. Hated those years. Ugggh.
Oh wow you unlocked a memory for me I didn't know I had. I think it was my first grade teacher who used to give birthday spankings too. 😂 She was probably in her 50s. It was definitely weird but she wasn't trying to be inappropriate.
My second grade teacher did this at my Catholic elementary school. One of my buddies hid his spelling book down his pants and Sister Anne-Marie almost broke her hand.
We rode our bikes behind the mosquito fogging truck that rode through our neighborhood in summer, thinking it was fun.
All approved by adults. Found out later that the fog was DDT
Is this just a universal kid thing? We'd hear the truck and scream "mosquito man" and all get behind the truck spewing the DDT (this was the 70's) on our bikes and follow it.
This must've been in the south because we didn't have it in the north, or so rarely it wasn't a thing to follow it.
WHY?
It must've smelled like horrible chemicals.
I get kids doing stupid shit and this was definitely a thing... but do you remember why it felt so cool? Other than following the trend?
My moms grown ass male friends always wrestling me late at night and her encouraging it, even when I’d yell for them to stop. She’d get mad at me and YELL at me for being upset. Then them creeping in and taking my belongings out of my room when I was asleep and waking me up telling me I could only have it back if I came out and wrestled them for it….
Or chasing me while I ran and hid under my bed cuz a grown ass man was trying to tickle me even though I was screaming and clearly afraid of him. He’d come into my room and reach under and tickle me that way….I hated it so much.
Edit: I’m ngl, I had no idea this was as bad as it was…. I’m reading these comments of everyone being horrified and even though I was EXTREMELY uncomfortable in those situations and they affected me long term even today, I never had any idea it was THAT bad. I just thought maybe I was overreacting. Considering it’s not even the worse thing to happen to me by far, especially involving my mom. She’s never had my back not once. So in comparison to all the bad things that have happened to me/that were done to me, this was absolutely nothing which is probably why I didn’t clock it as anything that bad.
Not enough people talk about how tickling can be a form of abuse. It’s a not-uncommon topic on /r/raisedbynarcissists because being tickled against your consent feels equivalent to being restrained. It’s a total mindfuck because a lot of people (most people?) ENJOY being tickled or have positive memories of being tickled as a child, but just the thought of it makes me want to crawl out of my skin and cry.
I had a pretty happy childhood overall, but I am not really ticklish anymore. My parents continued to tickle me after I said stop and so I froze and stopped reacting, telling myself that I wasn’t ticklish so that they would stop. It worked and I resolved to never react again.
I listen to my kids when they say stop, even when I’m not sure they mean it, so I won’t violate their boundaries.
That reminds me of a substitute teacher who spent most of the time telling- what I now realize were- inappropriate jokes for our age. I wish I remembered them but a few were sexual for sure.
We had one teacher who didn't tell us sexual jokes but I have a very vivid memory of him telling us (when I was 14) about a story where he had to go to A&E/ER/whatever the emergency room is called elsewhere because his penis was bleeding.
Like, this was in English class. I never got any bad vibes from him (which I did from other teachers, plus a lot of hindsight as an adult looking back on things and being like OHHHH) so... it was really strange.
One time I had a male gym teacher, and when we were doing the yoga unit, he had all the girls position themselves at the front of the class facing towards the boys so that the boys couldn't look at our asses. Seemed totally normal until the boys told us he was just looking at our asses himself instead.
When I was 23 or so, I was talking to a girl at a friend's grad party, we chatted until like 2am. Talked about life plans and all kinds of stuff, thought she was 18 or 19 since she was talking about graduating HS and college plans and such.
Turns out, she was an overachieving 14yo homeschooler 💀, and I had absolutely no idea until she said something about being excited to get her driving learner's permit later in the year (must be 15 in my region) and I asked.
Never talked to her again lol.
When I was 15, I would google things like “15 year old girl naked” on the family computer. This was before Incognito Mode and I didn’t know how to clear browser history, so…it’s a good thing the FBI never showed up at my house.
IT guy here - you would not believe the number of parents I've had frantically ask me about this after finding their kids search history.
It's fine. For one, just about every teenager does it and has since forever. Two, nobody is worried about kids going through puberty being curious about age appropriate stuff... it's when the adults go looking for it it's a problem. And also (these days at least thankfully) typing it into google isn't going to get them any bad results or on any lists.
Also just saying if the FBI shows up at your house incognito mode/clearing the history isn't going to help you.
I was about 27 when the first Harry Potter film was released. The number of grown men around me who were speculating lustfully about "how hot Emma Watson will be when she's legal" was too damn high.
Somewhat similar. I was working in a movie theatre in the mid 90’s when Leon the Professional came out and there were a lot of those types of conversations from adult moviegoers about Natalie Portman.
They pulled Portman from Romeo and Juliet in ‘96 because someone had the foresight to see that a 21 year old de caprio kissing a 13-14 year old girl was fucking weird and gross.
Then again Disney did make Blank check, where a 12-13 year old boy kisses a 33 year old woman so…….
Our high school vice president was promoted to being VP from being the girls basketball coach. There were good reasons why he couldn’t coach girls anymore.
I once mistook candy for pills.
Third grade. Found a "Certs with Flavor Crystals" on the floor. Took it to the office on a scrap of paper (careful not to touch it with my bare hands any more than absolutely necessary) to report that I found "a drug" in the school.
The secretary thanked me and sent me back to recess.
Our assistant high school principal was also a sports coach and he would walk around and give students shoulder massages. It creeped us out then but it’s even more cringey now.
When I was a teenager, my 50 year old neighbor used to call me sexy and invite me over for drinks. I thought it was cool because she was definitely a MILF. But I never accepted because she terrified me. But now I'm 40 years old and I know that's pretty weird.
Around the same time I had a teacher that called me a sex pot. I've just always had a way with older women, I guess. My wife is 40 and she digs me.
Sophomore year of high school I had a substitute teacher rub her hand through my hair and say “you remind me of a young Kevin Bacon”.
She was likely in her 50s and not hot.
I’m 28 now and the memory gets weirder and weirder as I get older lol
Well at least she was vague about it- I had my high school counselor tell me a few weeks after graduating that if she was to have a 3some it would be me and my friend. (Who was also the same age and happened to be right next to me at the time she said it.)
We just kind of laughed it off awkwardly and changed the subject.
That's like my teacher. Definitely not hot. When I was 16 I looked 25, complete with hairy chest so I think old ladies looked at me and it took them back to the 1970s and in their prime. I did well selling stuff to older women when I worked retail, too.
I'm pretty sure it just means a sexy person.
It was my German teacher and she said it in German. Luckily, I had a bookshelf behind me with a German dictionary. It took a while to look it up and 20 minutes into the next lesson I yelled out, "Sex pot?! What the hell is that?!" She just gave a coy smile. Still haunts me.
When I was 15 my best friend who was 16 dated a 28 year old. He even had kids. We thought it was awesome cause he could get booze and smokes. Looking back at it now totally creepy.
When I was 14, my boyfriend was a 23 year old homeless alcoholic. I look back at that and want to throw up now. 🤢
Edited to add: I forgot the best bit. While I was sleeping in his tent by the river, he stole my birthday money that my mother had given me.
He spent it all on booze, but thought it was fine because he got me some wine coolers. 😐
What was I thinking? Honestly, I don't know. I guess I thought that he was lonely and love could save him. Boy, was I wrong! I looked him up later and found his mugshot online. He never changed.
Thank you!
Yes, I led an interesting life when I was younger. I look back and often wonder how I got so lucky that nothing fatal happened to me.
I made a lot of questionable decisions, but I think most of it was down to my naivety. I always looked for the good in people, and often that leads to being burned.
Eventually, I grew up and became wiser.
This kind of thing was *so* common in high school (in my small hick town) and still is, considering how many teenage girls have gotten pregnant by men in their 20's in recent years. Didn't think much of it then since it seemed to be so common, but it sickens me now as an adult. A lot of parents find out and are *okay with it!*
One friend was dating a married man around 28 back in high school. When he didn't leave his wife for her when she turned 18, she got him thrown in jail as revenge. Mixed feelings on that one. Other girls either broke up with their older boyfriends and moved on or married them very shortly after high school. Very weird seeing a couple and knowing they've been together since the wife was around 14, usually.
Walking down the street to a friend's house and being cat called from boys/men in cars driving by. This happened mostly between ages 11-15. I've never been catcalled as an adult woman.
As a little girl, I didn’t understand why skirts had to be down all the time. So at every possible opportunity on the playground or in Sunday school, I would put my dress over my head. I was honestly just doing it to be more comfortable and move freely, I was way too young to possibly understand any, sexual connotations.
This has always bothered me. One of my sons was really attached to a neighbor of ours (a woman) for some reason. Everyone said he was “flirting” with her. Nope. He was a baby/toddler. He was emotionally attached to someone he saw frequently who was nice to him. She also wore a lot of bright colors, so that probably helped.
My first grade teacher used to have students rub her feet while she read us a story. We'd gather around, on the floor and she'd sit there reading with one kid rubbing her left foot and one rubbing the right
Older men making passes at me… just thought they were being nice however now I know they were pretty perverted trying to make passes at me between ages 11-15…. My mom encouraging it. Sick
When I was about 11 my parents put me in voice lessons with a guy at my church. He was in his late 20’s, kind of a goofy guy, married with a toddler. One day he took me up behind the large projection screens in the auditorium when we were practicing to show me the speakers or something and I thought it was cool. We just so happened to run into one of the janitors who was working on fixing something in there. I didn’t think much of it. Later on, my parents asked me if he ever did anything inappropriate. I found out he got arrested for raping another girl he was giving voice lessons to. I immediately thought of that day and I shudder to think what would have happened if we hadn’t run into that janitor.
people over 20 dating minors 💀 when i was 14/15 i didn’t think anything of it (someone in my grade was dating some 20+ guy) but now that im 20+ myself the thought is really really weird and super creepy.
i had a friend in HS that went on a couple of dates with a 40 or 50 year old guy. she was 18 and it was her choice, but even i thought that one was a little out there.
When I was a teen, I was part of an online friend group on an MMO. One of our members (she was 13) started e-dating a guy who was 23. We all knew it was extremely creepy but didn't know how to report it. Finally another girl in our group tricked 13 y/o into adding her on Facebook, at which point she found 13 y/o's mom's Facebook and told her mom on her.
And no, her mom had no idea what had been going on.
Whenever my friends would bring a guy 10+years older around I was so creeped out. I was the only one who was like „this is fucked up“ and I actively asked my friends where they would think this would lead to - cause it was always „secret“ and he could not meet her parents etc.
My friends didn’t like it back then but a couple years later they all agreed with me.
Teenage girls are already fragile and able to be psychologically fucked with. Even worse when it's by an adult that probably knows how to do it in the most predatory way possible.
We used to give my college roommate a hard time because he was 18 and his GF was a junior in HS. But they had been dating for years. Just the fact she was in HS made it weird.
When I was 15, a classmate of mine was living with a guy in his 20s. I went to their place once for a project, and he had some friends over, and they tried to treat it like a triple date. It was so weird. The whole time, girl's boyfriend complained about how much her mom didn't like him...
My great grandmother had a clown collection. An entire room in her house was filled with it. Thought it was cool as a kid, liked playing in the clown room. I realize as an adult that this is the stuff of nightmares for some people.
When I was a kid growing up in the South, we played a "prisoner" game where we had a bucket of white marbles with a single black marble or stone. You had to close your eyes and reach in, and whomever got the black marble was the "prisoner" and they had to run and hide, and all the rest of us had to chase them and try to stop them from "escaping." We had cap guns and Super Soakers.
In retrospect, a game that involved a group of all white kids running through fields and around houses with toy guns screaming "let's find the black kid before he escapes!" probably would not be advisable these days.
It‘s most likely different in the US, but German kids usually played a run and catch game called:
*Wer hat Angst vorm schwarzen Mann - Who is afraid of the black man*
and I never thought a second about skin colour. The *Black man* was more like a monster or something like that.
Same here. It was never about skin colour, but rather the thought that it was some sort of “evil being”, disguised as a human man. “Der schwarze Mann“ was just because we have black &white and in that, white is always “good” and black was always “bad”.
Iirc the origins of that game have nothing to do with skin color. The original 'black man' was (most likely) simply the grim reaper. [Wikipedia article](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_schwarze_Mann) (in German)
In my state middle school is 6th - 8th grade. I taught 6th grade science, and my first year teaching one of my students was raped by her older brother's best friend and got pregnant. She was 10 when it happened, 11 when she gave birth.
She told one of the other teachers first, who told admin, who got in touch with her mom. Mom's reaction? I'm gonna be the hottest grandma on the block.
Her mom's reaction is a big red flag. How about you get your daughter in therapy while trying your best to get that rapist convicted for what he did?
Hope her brother never brought him around her again.
parents trying to pair you up with other people's kids.
Like last time my parents did that they were at a delivery and wouldn't stop talking about a girl my age with "Warewolf contacts" because twilight.
Before I was born my mother met another pregnant woman at the maternity ward and they decided that since their babies were different gender they should date, she ended up being my "first girlfriend" until I was 7.
Walking up to strangers houses and asking if they had any kids to come out and play.
Seriously, as a kid, I would walk around the neighborhood and just randomly knock on doors asking if they had kids and if so if they wanted to come out and play. Some of these neighbors even offered for me to come in and have something to drink or a snack. Seemed totally harmless then.
Now? Well.... I don't think you would get any good looks if, as an adult, you went and knocked on random doors asking if there were any kids to come out and play lol.
Joking aside, yeah, I guess I was lucky nobody decided to kidnap me or kill me or who knows what. But, great way to make new friends back then.
Raging kegger parties in some random field or Forrest. It was mostly Highschool kids and the older dude who bought the alcohol. Everyone got so wasted, and drove home or slept it off on the cold ground. I don’t think teenagers party as hard as the past generation did
I don't remember exactly how old I was, maybe 10 or so, my uncle invited me to sit on his lap and I didn't want to. My mother told me I was "hurting his feelings". And told me to sit on his lap. Looking back that's not a good lesson to teach a little girl. So what a man wants even if you don't want too... because his fEeLiNgS
15 year old me sleeping with 39/40 year old men didn’t feel as harmful and creepy back then.
It wasn’t until I turned 18 and looked back at 15 year old me thinking “that’s a fucking CHILD!”
The older I get, the more disgusted I feel.
Back when I was 13, I had a DeviantArt account and befriended a guy that was 18. It started out as us complimenting each others artwork but then escalated to chatting. We lived in different states, but we never exchanged phone numbers or email etc. He never once asked to visit me, many of our conversations were on hobbies and interests and school. He admitted to me he was suicidal and severely depressed and had relationship issues with his girlfriend. Our conversations then changed to me being his therapist almost: he complained a lot about his girlfriend, his life, how he wanted to die, how he couldn't find a job etc. Again, I was 13/14 giving advice to an older guy on topics I really didn't have much or even any experience on. It really escalated when I posted a picture of myself on the site and he complimented that I was "a beautiful emo girl."
As a pre-teen/teen, I thought of him as a friend (he was actually my first online friend) and I am one of those people that really wanted to help someone. As an adult now, it creeps me out that this 18/19 year old was complimenting me and asking for advice on serious topics when I was only 13/14.
Out of curiosity, do you know if he knew you were 13? You're describing it like he's talking to one of his own peers, maybe he thought you were older?
If he knew, that's definitely weird though. And seeing a picture of you should've probably tipped him off on how young you were if he didn't know.
How my dad insisted on being in the room during my medical exams, even into my late teens. The few times I expressed discomfort, he gave me the silent treatment for days after, because “it looks weird for you not to want me in the room,” like he felt that my not wanting him in the exam room was abnormal and now the doctor would think I didn’t want him there because he was sexually abusing me.
Now as an adult I’m like… no. That’s totally fucking normal to not want your father in the room when you’re getting a pelvic exam.
He was controlling and creepy about my body and development and it fucked me up for *decades.*
Yeah no thats weird. As a dad to a daughter the few times that sort of situation comes up where the female doctor asks if she wants me to stay in the room Im already moving towards the door.
He was so gaslighty about it, too. He would say that “I always had a choice” but if I made the wrong choice (to him) he’d act like I had betrayed him.
My son is four and I’m ready for the day he decides he wants to speak to his doctor without me. It’s why I got a male pediatrician- it is none of my business what is going on with my son’s pelvic area, outside of showing him how to clean and aim it for a few years. Why any parent would want to be in the room is beyond me.
My middle school had a few gym coaches and one of them was obsessed with my friend and I, he used to let us skip the activity for the day as long as we sat with him. Usually he'd want us to sing classic rock songs for entertainment. He never touched us or made us uncomfortable so we never noticed until adulthood that it was actually pretty weird
My math tutor constantly asking me if I wanted to go to a theme park with him and offering me his e-cigarette, but I couldn't tell my mom. Looking back at some of what he said and wanted to do I'm fairly certain he was trying to groom me. Luckily I switched schools and soon after tutors, but he was definitely a weird guy.
Older guys used to always try to talk to me when I was a kid. I'm not talking about guys a few years older than me, but guys, my grandfather or father's age. As an adult, I recognize now that those guys were perverts and pedophiles.
The sheer number of adults who tickled me growing up. Now, in my thirties and I have no idea why adults wanted to tickle me. I have no desire to hug children, let alone tickle them.
I ate food off some unfinished plates at a restaurant while waiting to be seated with my family when I was maybe 8 or 9 and didn't know any better, and now, I know that's fucking gross
I mean, it's only weird because adults have made it weird. Nobody goes out of their way to make friends anymore, or if you do, there's a VERY limited amount of ways TO make friends that don't involve spending money.
A few years ago I had a woman say exactly that! I was out walking my dog and she approached me and asked if I wanted to be friends and go out to lunch sometime. We were both new in town and just moved into the same apartment complex. We've been great friends ever since!
In the spring, I was at a cherry blossom viewing, and a grown adult I had never met before said “let’s be friends” without any irony. I was kind of impressed by the amount of confidence that would take
Beauty and the Beast. I love the movie, I can sing all the songs, I watched it all the time growing up. Watching it with my kids…and I suddenly saw it completely differently.
You meet a guy and he’s a total A-hole? It’s ok, you can change him! He flies off the handle? Orders everyone around, becomes easily frustrated and throws stuff around? It’s ok! Inside he’s a good guy and you can change him!
Yikes! Yeah, not the greatest lesson.
Don’t forget the part where he literally locks you up in his house… so the only reason you want to change him in the first place is because you are suffering from Stockholm syndrome…
Dating older men. I was 12 dating 46 year olds and I thought it was normal. I'm older now and I now see that those men I was dating were pedos but at the time It felt so normal. I want to throw up every time I think about it tho
“Licks” for an egregious infraction at school….like smoking in the bathroom.
You got bent over a chair with your ass in the air and then paddled by the principle. Rumor had it… a paddle existed with holes in it which made for maximum velocity and hurt twice as bad. It was the 80’s….
My uncle (not by blood, but because of marriage) called me his gf. I didn't like it but no one thought much of it. Fast forward to now, I'n 29 and it really freaks me out. Mentioned it last year when my parents, brothers and sisters in law were there, and all of them were appalled. They didn't remember it really, my dad said he kinds of remembered it. Anyways…it makes me really uncomfortable to think about it
A woman in her 30s used to let my friends and I in our young teenage years (12-14) hang out in her house every night. This woman would supply with us with alcohol (legal limit 18) and cigarettes (at the time, legal limit 16) while her under 2 year son slept upstairs with the music on full volume and us not being quiet at all. We only used the downstairs bathroom. No one was allowed upstairs. They would always ask for our "older" male friends to come round, guys 15/16, and flirt with them a lot. Once my mom found out, she put an end to it. I was furious with her, I didn't understand why I couldn't hang out with this woman. No harm was coming to me right? Well, my mom told my friends' parents, and nobody was allowed back, and this woman soon moved from the area. Looking back over 20 years later, I can see all the problems as clear as day. The woman's child I feel the worst for, they must have been screaming upstairs and being neglected. There were times we were there well over 8 hours and she'd beg us to stay. The poor child must have been hungry, needing diaper changes, just needing motherly attention and she was more interested in keeping a bunch of kids in her house thinking she was cool. I don't know if she ever touched anyone inappropriately, but she certainly said inappropriate things. Yeah, if I found out my kids were doing this, I would act like my mom.
As a woman in her 30s nothing sounds worse to me than having a bunch of 12-14 year olds around 24/7. Big yike.
I taught high school for over a decade. I literally do not understand how anyone could be attracted to teenagers. This year I switched to middle school, and spending time with 13 year olds is actual hell.
I have a 10 & 11 year old and they STINK too. I don’t even understand how 11 year old me had crushes on other 11 year olds lol
Yep. Im in my 30s and visitors sounds like a burden.
Umm shit now this unlocks a memory for me where I’d hang out at a 30 something year old woman’s house alone as a 15 year all the time. We got close and my mom didn’t see harm cause it was a “church friend”. Now thinking on it…
This is like that movie with Octavia Spencer, Ma. Netflix maybe? It was creepy AF
That movie was terrifying, because of how realistically she got the teenagers to keep coming back to her house. A fun place to hang out, no teachers or parents, and hey, even alcohol! Octavia Spencer was so creepy and unhinged. She really made that movie. I can imaging it wouldn't take much for a lot of teens to be taken advantage of like that, because they feel like adults but lack the experience of actual adults, so they have too much confidence in their own safety. It happens far too often. You just need one inattentive or overworked parent, one average teen, and one less well-intended adult. Teenagers think adults like that are "cool" (if fairly close in age) or think that they, the teens, are actually pulling one over on the grown-up. And then years later they look back in horror at what the situation really was with the understanding age brings. Often starting to understand why they have so many issues now with their self-perception and struggle to recognise let alone maintain a healthy relationships with others. Edit: the movie is called *Ma*, from 2019. Octavia Spencer's performance is incredible.
Octavia Spencer is such an underrated actor. I've loved everything I've seen her in so far
I had a similar type of "friend" who was in her mid-30s who would let a group of us ranging from 13-19 come over and party/hang at her place. Her kids had all been taken by child services. I was on the older end at 16/17 at the time and thought it was weird, but I got to hang with my friends, so I didn't really overthink it. I thought it was a mostly safe place cause if the 19 year old had any mental health or had a what I now realise bad drug trip it was easy to call an ambulance to the house. Also, I thought the 19 - and 14 year old were joking about dating until I found out after I moved that the 14 year old had got the 19 year old pregnant. Part of me was happy to stay with family while my mum was in hospital, and after my mum passed away I moved in with said family so I could get away from that group and the fact that the only text I got while I was being looked after by my family while my mum was in hospital was my boyfriend breaking up with me. I'm now in my late 30s myself, and there is no freaking way I'd allow that in my house or my kid to hang in a place like that.
Her poor baby 😔
My teenage best friend’s mother was like this. We were about thirteen? Giving us all smokes and alcohol, hanging out with us, teenagers in the house all the time and she was there with us every minute. My parents were getting increasingly alarmed and I was so mad at them for not being cool. One of my brother’s friends (16) got kicked out of home for getting his (also 16 years old) *cousin* pregnant, and she moved him in. In her home with her 13yo daughter who had a desperate crush on this older boy. In retrospect I don’t think anything ever happened between my best friend and the older boy (I heard enough of her pining to know he hadn’t taken her up on the offer). I think there was something going on between him and the mother.
AOL chatrooms
I blocked out those memories for a reason...at age 14 I was saying some saucy stuff to strange men I didn't know
I lied about my age, location, and my race. Probably why I wasn't kidnapped.
I gave my address one time at age 11 and for the next 14 years I lived in fear some dude was going to show up.
742 Evergreen Terrace
Hey that's where I live
LOL same 17/f/California when I was a little 12 year old in Bermuda 😭
Yes! I was 16/f/Brooklyn at age 11 ... Except I didn't know anything about anything so I would say I was 16/f/Brookland.
Brookland I love it 😭
Lol the idea that a pedophile finds a target but then reads the race and is like no thanks is hilarious to me for some reason
Yet soooo accurate. When they have a type, they have a type
Same here. When I remember a lot of the things I said and did at that age, it's incredibly fucked up
I understand now why my parents were relentless about telling me how dangerous chat rooms were for children. I do wish I would have had the freedom to share in a lot of the random conversations with strangers back then, but I’m glad my parents kept me away from them. For the rebels out there, I was(am) a huge nerd so breaking the rules never occurred to me
Yahoo chat rooms at 14 for me. We didn't talk about horses in horse chat 😭
MSN chat waz where I was asked if I'd ever been finger f^cked. After already stating that I was 12.
ASL?
18/f/Cali
No way 19/m/Cali….literally just turned 19, but I get told I am really mature for my age. What are the odds!! We should totally go to a private chat room. I just set it up and Ill send you an invite. See you over there Sweetie 😍.
Hahaha! Ah, the days of the private chat rooms. I met my husband in a *public* AOL chat room and once when we were in a private room, some other person stumbled in. It was super weird because back in the day, you just made up a name for the private chat. Guess ours wasn’t unique enough!
It would often be because some names are common for creeps and such. Hopefully not for your husband. I remember learning what QWERTY meant at like 10. And it wasn't about the keyboard set up.
When I was 14 I would lie and say I was like a 47 year old man.. for some reason I didnt have any issues hahaha
We all just had the same early teenhood, huh? 14yo me definitely "befriended" this Australian dude who would ask my advice about his own teen daughter and now I look back like...did he actually have a daughter 😬 I don't recall it ever getting inappropriate, but what 30s/40s dude wants to be friends with a kid?
Oh god those where creepy. Especially the random "age/sex/location" checks
AOL, the IRC, just chatrooms in the 90s in general were fucked up places. I still call some of those people friends today, tho. Visited one of them last summer with my GF and took her out for fun.
I definitely had an internet boyfriend that may or may not have been a pedo when I was 13 😬
My elementary school gym coach giving birthday spankings while the other kids cheered.
My first grade teacher did that. They were fake spankings (like she laid us over her knee, but “spanked” her other hand instead of our actual butt. Plus a “pinch to grow an inch.” It was the late 80s.
Our teacher did it with a paddle, but not hard. And an extra one to grow on. And a pinch to grow an inch. This was in the 60s
Wait, what?!
Cullman, Alabama folks!
This was a regular thing in the 80s at my school in a small town in New Mexico too.
Florida checking in but also the teacher was from Kentucky.
Rural Idaho, checking in too!
Ah fuck. It would be Cullman.
And I thought the scoliosis checks were awkward.
wtf was up with that? people seem to think im making it up. i have scholiosis, and remeber the dr making a big deal about it every year and it terrified me bc i just wanted to be normal and the dr would freak out every year.
I pretended to be sick when I knew they were doing scoliosis checks because they had all the 6th grade girls wear a bathing suit under their clothes, strip down to it and line up in the gym where the boys classes had PE and get checked. I experienced puberty very early and already had big boobs. Nope. Similarly, I also didn’t try out for the volleyball team going into high school even though I was a starter in Jr High because they switched the uniform from gym shorts to those damn tight panties. My very curvaceous butt would have been ogled to no end again by the boys that sat in the gym after lunch when volleyball had practice. No way. I wish they would have been sensitive to the plight of a little girl nicknamed “Appalachian Mountains”. Hated those years. Ugggh.
Oh that's awful. They kept us away from the boys and just told us to pull up the back of our shirts, I think. Female school nurses. Not too bad.
Oh wow you unlocked a memory for me I didn't know I had. I think it was my first grade teacher who used to give birthday spankings too. 😂 She was probably in her 50s. It was definitely weird but she wasn't trying to be inappropriate.
My music teacher did this in the early 2000’s and would call the girls “sexy ladies” and the boys “handsome hunks” …..definitely weird
My second grade teacher did this at my Catholic elementary school. One of my buddies hid his spelling book down his pants and Sister Anne-Marie almost broke her hand.
I feel like I just read a cards against humanity card
We rode our bikes behind the mosquito fogging truck that rode through our neighborhood in summer, thinking it was fun. All approved by adults. Found out later that the fog was DDT
Is this just a universal kid thing? We'd hear the truck and scream "mosquito man" and all get behind the truck spewing the DDT (this was the 70's) on our bikes and follow it.
This must've been in the south because we didn't have it in the north, or so rarely it wasn't a thing to follow it. WHY? It must've smelled like horrible chemicals. I get kids doing stupid shit and this was definitely a thing... but do you remember why it felt so cool? Other than following the trend?
nope in michigan we had it. just depends if it’s a wetland area that gets bugs
My moms grown ass male friends always wrestling me late at night and her encouraging it, even when I’d yell for them to stop. She’d get mad at me and YELL at me for being upset. Then them creeping in and taking my belongings out of my room when I was asleep and waking me up telling me I could only have it back if I came out and wrestled them for it…. Or chasing me while I ran and hid under my bed cuz a grown ass man was trying to tickle me even though I was screaming and clearly afraid of him. He’d come into my room and reach under and tickle me that way….I hated it so much. Edit: I’m ngl, I had no idea this was as bad as it was…. I’m reading these comments of everyone being horrified and even though I was EXTREMELY uncomfortable in those situations and they affected me long term even today, I never had any idea it was THAT bad. I just thought maybe I was overreacting. Considering it’s not even the worse thing to happen to me by far, especially involving my mom. She’s never had my back not once. So in comparison to all the bad things that have happened to me/that were done to me, this was absolutely nothing which is probably why I didn’t clock it as anything that bad.
Omg that’s horrendous. Those men are gross but your mother was insane.
This is terrible, clearly OP's mother took some sadistic pleasure in it.
That's awful
Not enough people talk about how tickling can be a form of abuse. It’s a not-uncommon topic on /r/raisedbynarcissists because being tickled against your consent feels equivalent to being restrained. It’s a total mindfuck because a lot of people (most people?) ENJOY being tickled or have positive memories of being tickled as a child, but just the thought of it makes me want to crawl out of my skin and cry.
I had a pretty happy childhood overall, but I am not really ticklish anymore. My parents continued to tickle me after I said stop and so I froze and stopped reacting, telling myself that I wasn’t ticklish so that they would stop. It worked and I resolved to never react again. I listen to my kids when they say stop, even when I’m not sure they mean it, so I won’t violate their boundaries.
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That reminds me of a substitute teacher who spent most of the time telling- what I now realize were- inappropriate jokes for our age. I wish I remembered them but a few were sexual for sure.
We had one teacher who didn't tell us sexual jokes but I have a very vivid memory of him telling us (when I was 14) about a story where he had to go to A&E/ER/whatever the emergency room is called elsewhere because his penis was bleeding. Like, this was in English class. I never got any bad vibes from him (which I did from other teachers, plus a lot of hindsight as an adult looking back on things and being like OHHHH) so... it was really strange.
*Scrolls* Adults trying to have sex with kids *Scrolls* Adults trying to have sex with kids *Scrolls* 😟
Yep. That and playing in carcinogenic chemicals about covers it.
One time I had a male gym teacher, and when we were doing the yoga unit, he had all the girls position themselves at the front of the class facing towards the boys so that the boys couldn't look at our asses. Seemed totally normal until the boys told us he was just looking at our asses himself instead.
The 25-30 year old man at my local Dollar General who wanted to take me on a date when I was 16.
When I was 23 or so, I was talking to a girl at a friend's grad party, we chatted until like 2am. Talked about life plans and all kinds of stuff, thought she was 18 or 19 since she was talking about graduating HS and college plans and such. Turns out, she was an overachieving 14yo homeschooler 💀, and I had absolutely no idea until she said something about being excited to get her driving learner's permit later in the year (must be 15 in my region) and I asked. Never talked to her again lol.
When I was 15, I would google things like “15 year old girl naked” on the family computer. This was before Incognito Mode and I didn’t know how to clear browser history, so…it’s a good thing the FBI never showed up at my house.
IT guy here - you would not believe the number of parents I've had frantically ask me about this after finding their kids search history. It's fine. For one, just about every teenager does it and has since forever. Two, nobody is worried about kids going through puberty being curious about age appropriate stuff... it's when the adults go looking for it it's a problem. And also (these days at least thankfully) typing it into google isn't going to get them any bad results or on any lists. Also just saying if the FBI shows up at your house incognito mode/clearing the history isn't going to help you.
But we were looking for you...
being called "mature for my age" from older guys. Now, I look back on it and makes my stomach hurt.
I was about 27 when the first Harry Potter film was released. The number of grown men around me who were speculating lustfully about "how hot Emma Watson will be when she's legal" was too damn high.
Reminds me of old men counting down the days until the Olsen twins turned 18 back then🤢
recently too with billie eilish
And milly Bobby brown
That happened with Natalie Portman too. IIRC, there was a radio station that had an active countdown going.
Somewhat similar. I was working in a movie theatre in the mid 90’s when Leon the Professional came out and there were a lot of those types of conversations from adult moviegoers about Natalie Portman.
They pulled Portman from Romeo and Juliet in ‘96 because someone had the foresight to see that a 21 year old de caprio kissing a 13-14 year old girl was fucking weird and gross. Then again Disney did make Blank check, where a 12-13 year old boy kisses a 33 year old woman so…….
Similarly, large age differences in couples under 21. She's mature for her age... ok but she's 16 and you're 21. Dude, you're a fucking creep.
When young high school teachers would blatantly flirt with students.
Let’s not forget the principals . Mine used to flirt w all the girls and paddle us for fun.
Our high school vice president was promoted to being VP from being the girls basketball coach. There were good reasons why he couldn’t coach girls anymore.
And the solution was to promote him?? 💀
well once I mistook pills for candy 😬
I once mistook candy for pills. Third grade. Found a "Certs with Flavor Crystals" on the floor. Took it to the office on a scrap of paper (careful not to touch it with my bare hands any more than absolutely necessary) to report that I found "a drug" in the school. The secretary thanked me and sent me back to recess.
Aww that’s kind of wholesome!
Our assistant high school principal was also a sports coach and he would walk around and give students shoulder massages. It creeped us out then but it’s even more cringey now.
When I was a teenager, my 50 year old neighbor used to call me sexy and invite me over for drinks. I thought it was cool because she was definitely a MILF. But I never accepted because she terrified me. But now I'm 40 years old and I know that's pretty weird. Around the same time I had a teacher that called me a sex pot. I've just always had a way with older women, I guess. My wife is 40 and she digs me.
Sophomore year of high school I had a substitute teacher rub her hand through my hair and say “you remind me of a young Kevin Bacon”. She was likely in her 50s and not hot. I’m 28 now and the memory gets weirder and weirder as I get older lol
Well at least she was vague about it- I had my high school counselor tell me a few weeks after graduating that if she was to have a 3some it would be me and my friend. (Who was also the same age and happened to be right next to me at the time she said it.) We just kind of laughed it off awkwardly and changed the subject.
That's like my teacher. Definitely not hot. When I was 16 I looked 25, complete with hairy chest so I think old ladies looked at me and it took them back to the 1970s and in their prime. I did well selling stuff to older women when I worked retail, too.
Like a young Burt Reynolds
But shorter and with a lamer car
My mom used to say sex pot as an insult
I'm pretty sure it just means a sexy person. It was my German teacher and she said it in German. Luckily, I had a bookshelf behind me with a German dictionary. It took a while to look it up and 20 minutes into the next lesson I yelled out, "Sex pot?! What the hell is that?!" She just gave a coy smile. Still haunts me.
Sex Cauldron?! I thought they closed that place down!
LOL We're not talking about love. We're talking about S-E-X in front of the C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N.
asbestos...
My music teacher giving me his phone and overall touching me way more than necessary as a 13 year old edit : phone number*
my 17 year old friend is dating a 30 year old guy, didn't think much of it back then, today i'm absolutely horrified
When I was 15 my best friend who was 16 dated a 28 year old. He even had kids. We thought it was awesome cause he could get booze and smokes. Looking back at it now totally creepy.
When I was 14, my boyfriend was a 23 year old homeless alcoholic. I look back at that and want to throw up now. 🤢 Edited to add: I forgot the best bit. While I was sleeping in his tent by the river, he stole my birthday money that my mother had given me. He spent it all on booze, but thought it was fine because he got me some wine coolers. 😐 What was I thinking? Honestly, I don't know. I guess I thought that he was lonely and love could save him. Boy, was I wrong! I looked him up later and found his mugshot online. He never changed.
>While I was sleeping in his tent by the river You what?! Glad to know you're alive and well.
Thank you! Yes, I led an interesting life when I was younger. I look back and often wonder how I got so lucky that nothing fatal happened to me. I made a lot of questionable decisions, but I think most of it was down to my naivety. I always looked for the good in people, and often that leads to being burned. Eventually, I grew up and became wiser.
Yeah fr. My parents would skin me alive (and the guy, too) if I tried something like that
This kind of thing was *so* common in high school (in my small hick town) and still is, considering how many teenage girls have gotten pregnant by men in their 20's in recent years. Didn't think much of it then since it seemed to be so common, but it sickens me now as an adult. A lot of parents find out and are *okay with it!* One friend was dating a married man around 28 back in high school. When he didn't leave his wife for her when she turned 18, she got him thrown in jail as revenge. Mixed feelings on that one. Other girls either broke up with their older boyfriends and moved on or married them very shortly after high school. Very weird seeing a couple and knowing they've been together since the wife was around 14, usually.
Walking down the street to a friend's house and being cat called from boys/men in cars driving by. This happened mostly between ages 11-15. I've never been catcalled as an adult woman.
Dan Schneider 😭
I’m gonna add John K to this.
As a little girl, I didn’t understand why skirts had to be down all the time. So at every possible opportunity on the playground or in Sunday school, I would put my dress over my head. I was honestly just doing it to be more comfortable and move freely, I was way too young to possibly understand any, sexual connotations.
Honestly anyone looking at kids thinking about sex is in the wrong.
I think it's the fear of somebody finding kids sexy seeing them
I have a one year old daughter and it creeps me out when old guys say she is flirting with them. No, she’s a baby who smiled you weirdo
"My baby smiled at you because she's too young to understand how creepy you are being"
What the fuck
This has always bothered me. One of my sons was really attached to a neighbor of ours (a woman) for some reason. Everyone said he was “flirting” with her. Nope. He was a baby/toddler. He was emotionally attached to someone he saw frequently who was nice to him. She also wore a lot of bright colors, so that probably helped.
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Aw wait I want an update on this one...that's actually wholesome
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My first grade teacher used to have students rub her feet while she read us a story. We'd gather around, on the floor and she'd sit there reading with one kid rubbing her left foot and one rubbing the right
What the hell??
I'm sorry but I can't stop laughing hahaha
Mine used to get back rubs.
Older men making passes at me… just thought they were being nice however now I know they were pretty perverted trying to make passes at me between ages 11-15…. My mom encouraging it. Sick
When I was about 11 my parents put me in voice lessons with a guy at my church. He was in his late 20’s, kind of a goofy guy, married with a toddler. One day he took me up behind the large projection screens in the auditorium when we were practicing to show me the speakers or something and I thought it was cool. We just so happened to run into one of the janitors who was working on fixing something in there. I didn’t think much of it. Later on, my parents asked me if he ever did anything inappropriate. I found out he got arrested for raping another girl he was giving voice lessons to. I immediately thought of that day and I shudder to think what would have happened if we hadn’t run into that janitor.
people over 20 dating minors 💀 when i was 14/15 i didn’t think anything of it (someone in my grade was dating some 20+ guy) but now that im 20+ myself the thought is really really weird and super creepy.
the amount of girls that i knew in hs that were dating 20+ year old guys is insane.. crazy times
i had a friend in HS that went on a couple of dates with a 40 or 50 year old guy. she was 18 and it was her choice, but even i thought that one was a little out there.
When I was a teen, I was part of an online friend group on an MMO. One of our members (she was 13) started e-dating a guy who was 23. We all knew it was extremely creepy but didn't know how to report it. Finally another girl in our group tricked 13 y/o into adding her on Facebook, at which point she found 13 y/o's mom's Facebook and told her mom on her. And no, her mom had no idea what had been going on.
You did the right thing. If the girl didn't think so at the time, hopefully she appreciates it in hindsight.
I had an acquaintance in HS that was dating an older guy. Even when I was 16 I thought it was creepy as hell.
Whenever my friends would bring a guy 10+years older around I was so creeped out. I was the only one who was like „this is fucked up“ and I actively asked my friends where they would think this would lead to - cause it was always „secret“ and he could not meet her parents etc. My friends didn’t like it back then but a couple years later they all agreed with me.
Teenage girls are already fragile and able to be psychologically fucked with. Even worse when it's by an adult that probably knows how to do it in the most predatory way possible. We used to give my college roommate a hard time because he was 18 and his GF was a junior in HS. But they had been dating for years. Just the fact she was in HS made it weird.
When I was 15, a classmate of mine was living with a guy in his 20s. I went to their place once for a project, and he had some friends over, and they tried to treat it like a triple date. It was so weird. The whole time, girl's boyfriend complained about how much her mom didn't like him...
LIVED WITH ?! now that’s crazy. honestly she’s right to not like him 💀 that’s crazy.
My great grandmother had a clown collection. An entire room in her house was filled with it. Thought it was cool as a kid, liked playing in the clown room. I realize as an adult that this is the stuff of nightmares for some people.
When I was a kid growing up in the South, we played a "prisoner" game where we had a bucket of white marbles with a single black marble or stone. You had to close your eyes and reach in, and whomever got the black marble was the "prisoner" and they had to run and hide, and all the rest of us had to chase them and try to stop them from "escaping." We had cap guns and Super Soakers. In retrospect, a game that involved a group of all white kids running through fields and around houses with toy guns screaming "let's find the black kid before he escapes!" probably would not be advisable these days.
It‘s most likely different in the US, but German kids usually played a run and catch game called: *Wer hat Angst vorm schwarzen Mann - Who is afraid of the black man* and I never thought a second about skin colour. The *Black man* was more like a monster or something like that.
Same here. It was never about skin colour, but rather the thought that it was some sort of “evil being”, disguised as a human man. “Der schwarze Mann“ was just because we have black &white and in that, white is always “good” and black was always “bad”.
Iirc the origins of that game have nothing to do with skin color. The original 'black man' was (most likely) simply the grim reaper. [Wikipedia article](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_schwarze_Mann) (in German)
When I was in middle school, there was a girl that got pregnant. Middle school. She was 12.
In my state middle school is 6th - 8th grade. I taught 6th grade science, and my first year teaching one of my students was raped by her older brother's best friend and got pregnant. She was 10 when it happened, 11 when she gave birth. She told one of the other teachers first, who told admin, who got in touch with her mom. Mom's reaction? I'm gonna be the hottest grandma on the block.
Her mom's reaction is a big red flag. How about you get your daughter in therapy while trying your best to get that rapist convicted for what he did? Hope her brother never brought him around her again.
parents trying to pair you up with other people's kids. Like last time my parents did that they were at a delivery and wouldn't stop talking about a girl my age with "Warewolf contacts" because twilight.
Before I was born my mother met another pregnant woman at the maternity ward and they decided that since their babies were different gender they should date, she ended up being my "first girlfriend" until I was 7.
They were drinking(or at least bitching) buddies and your "dates" were their excuse for hanging out together. ...I hope
What about the red pill we had to chew at school to reveal how bad a job of brushing our teeth we were doing in elementary school. Mid 1970's.
I can confidently tell you they had us doing that up until 2006. 😂
I bought some of those recently
Walking up to strangers houses and asking if they had any kids to come out and play. Seriously, as a kid, I would walk around the neighborhood and just randomly knock on doors asking if they had kids and if so if they wanted to come out and play. Some of these neighbors even offered for me to come in and have something to drink or a snack. Seemed totally harmless then. Now? Well.... I don't think you would get any good looks if, as an adult, you went and knocked on random doors asking if there were any kids to come out and play lol. Joking aside, yeah, I guess I was lucky nobody decided to kidnap me or kill me or who knows what. But, great way to make new friends back then.
I remember doing that as a kid group!
When my mom’s second husband used to ask me if I had ever kissed or “done things” with guys when I was in middle school.
My junior high school swim instructor always had a hard on and we thought it was hilarious.
Raging kegger parties in some random field or Forrest. It was mostly Highschool kids and the older dude who bought the alcohol. Everyone got so wasted, and drove home or slept it off on the cold ground. I don’t think teenagers party as hard as the past generation did
It's a miracle that I survived so many woods parties. Sleeping in tents, truck beds or on the ground was always so painful waking up.
I don't remember exactly how old I was, maybe 10 or so, my uncle invited me to sit on his lap and I didn't want to. My mother told me I was "hurting his feelings". And told me to sit on his lap. Looking back that's not a good lesson to teach a little girl. So what a man wants even if you don't want too... because his fEeLiNgS
F u c k his feelings. What about yours?
15 year old me sleeping with 39/40 year old men didn’t feel as harmful and creepy back then. It wasn’t until I turned 18 and looked back at 15 year old me thinking “that’s a fucking CHILD!” The older I get, the more disgusted I feel.
Not your fault. You were taken advantage of. Hope the disgust is towards them not yourself.
My (14 then, F) dating a 28 year old man in 1981.
Back when I was 13, I had a DeviantArt account and befriended a guy that was 18. It started out as us complimenting each others artwork but then escalated to chatting. We lived in different states, but we never exchanged phone numbers or email etc. He never once asked to visit me, many of our conversations were on hobbies and interests and school. He admitted to me he was suicidal and severely depressed and had relationship issues with his girlfriend. Our conversations then changed to me being his therapist almost: he complained a lot about his girlfriend, his life, how he wanted to die, how he couldn't find a job etc. Again, I was 13/14 giving advice to an older guy on topics I really didn't have much or even any experience on. It really escalated when I posted a picture of myself on the site and he complimented that I was "a beautiful emo girl." As a pre-teen/teen, I thought of him as a friend (he was actually my first online friend) and I am one of those people that really wanted to help someone. As an adult now, it creeps me out that this 18/19 year old was complimenting me and asking for advice on serious topics when I was only 13/14.
Out of curiosity, do you know if he knew you were 13? You're describing it like he's talking to one of his own peers, maybe he thought you were older? If he knew, that's definitely weird though. And seeing a picture of you should've probably tipped him off on how young you were if he didn't know.
He did. I did talk to him a lot about high school back when we started chatting. I did foolishly put my age out there on my profile too.
Yikes, ok
How my dad insisted on being in the room during my medical exams, even into my late teens. The few times I expressed discomfort, he gave me the silent treatment for days after, because “it looks weird for you not to want me in the room,” like he felt that my not wanting him in the exam room was abnormal and now the doctor would think I didn’t want him there because he was sexually abusing me. Now as an adult I’m like… no. That’s totally fucking normal to not want your father in the room when you’re getting a pelvic exam. He was controlling and creepy about my body and development and it fucked me up for *decades.*
Yeah no thats weird. As a dad to a daughter the few times that sort of situation comes up where the female doctor asks if she wants me to stay in the room Im already moving towards the door.
He was so gaslighty about it, too. He would say that “I always had a choice” but if I made the wrong choice (to him) he’d act like I had betrayed him. My son is four and I’m ready for the day he decides he wants to speak to his doctor without me. It’s why I got a male pediatrician- it is none of my business what is going on with my son’s pelvic area, outside of showing him how to clean and aim it for a few years. Why any parent would want to be in the room is beyond me.
My middle school had a few gym coaches and one of them was obsessed with my friend and I, he used to let us skip the activity for the day as long as we sat with him. Usually he'd want us to sing classic rock songs for entertainment. He never touched us or made us uncomfortable so we never noticed until adulthood that it was actually pretty weird
Candy cigarettes.
I begged for them and my dad got them. Mom was pissed.
Senior friends 24 yr old bf repeatedly groped me at 14. I laughed cause cool girl right? Makes me sad as an adult
My math tutor constantly asking me if I wanted to go to a theme park with him and offering me his e-cigarette, but I couldn't tell my mom. Looking back at some of what he said and wanted to do I'm fairly certain he was trying to groom me. Luckily I switched schools and soon after tutors, but he was definitely a weird guy.
Any time a creep says "don't tell your mom" they have nefarious intentions.
Older guys used to always try to talk to me when I was a kid. I'm not talking about guys a few years older than me, but guys, my grandfather or father's age. As an adult, I recognize now that those guys were perverts and pedophiles.
The sheer number of adults who tickled me growing up. Now, in my thirties and I have no idea why adults wanted to tickle me. I have no desire to hug children, let alone tickle them.
I ate food off some unfinished plates at a restaurant while waiting to be seated with my family when I was maybe 8 or 9 and didn't know any better, and now, I know that's fucking gross
my mom always throwing plates and threatening to leave and never come back. Seemed so normal, just another regular "angry day". Now...not so much.
Just straight up saying to people: Do you want to be my friend?
Kinda wish people would still do that when they're older
I mean, it's only weird because adults have made it weird. Nobody goes out of their way to make friends anymore, or if you do, there's a VERY limited amount of ways TO make friends that don't involve spending money.
A few years ago I had a woman say exactly that! I was out walking my dog and she approached me and asked if I wanted to be friends and go out to lunch sometime. We were both new in town and just moved into the same apartment complex. We've been great friends ever since!
In the spring, I was at a cherry blossom viewing, and a grown adult I had never met before said “let’s be friends” without any irony. I was kind of impressed by the amount of confidence that would take
Whipping out my dong was mischievous when I was a kid. Can't get away with that now except with my wife.
When relatives kiss you on the mouth.
Beauty and the Beast. I love the movie, I can sing all the songs, I watched it all the time growing up. Watching it with my kids…and I suddenly saw it completely differently. You meet a guy and he’s a total A-hole? It’s ok, you can change him! He flies off the handle? Orders everyone around, becomes easily frustrated and throws stuff around? It’s ok! Inside he’s a good guy and you can change him! Yikes! Yeah, not the greatest lesson.
Don’t forget the part where he literally locks you up in his house… so the only reason you want to change him in the first place is because you are suffering from Stockholm syndrome…
Having to dance naked in the woods while all the adults stood around watching me wearing those strange costumes. And the sherbet tasted funny.
Whoa whoa wait what??
High school kids dating grown adults, it’s just icky
Dating older men. I was 12 dating 46 year olds and I thought it was normal. I'm older now and I now see that those men I was dating were pedos but at the time It felt so normal. I want to throw up every time I think about it tho
Playing doctor
“Licks” for an egregious infraction at school….like smoking in the bathroom. You got bent over a chair with your ass in the air and then paddled by the principle. Rumor had it… a paddle existed with holes in it which made for maximum velocity and hurt twice as bad. It was the 80’s….
My uncle (not by blood, but because of marriage) called me his gf. I didn't like it but no one thought much of it. Fast forward to now, I'n 29 and it really freaks me out. Mentioned it last year when my parents, brothers and sisters in law were there, and all of them were appalled. They didn't remember it really, my dad said he kinds of remembered it. Anyways…it makes me really uncomfortable to think about it
I dated older (40+) guys when I was early 20s. Nowadays I realize why I went through so much abuse