Eye Witnessed
Eye Witnessed!
Happy Tuesday!
This is a response to the #WhyIDidntReport posts on Twitter. As a white male in my fifties I thought I would write about some of the messed up rape and sexual assault I witnessed as a kid. This was in the 1970s and 1980s.
I also wanted to start a new hash tag, #EyeWitnessed.
Child Prostitute
I'm going to start with my first and worst, totally messed up witness of child prostitution. There was a girl on the end of block who had a reputation of her Dad pimping her out for money. He had sole custody of her and you just went to his house. I'd see various boys in my neighborhood walk home with her. I don't remember too many faces from that era but I can still see her face, clear as seeing someone today.
But the story doesn't end there. I had only ever exchanged hellos walking home. I felt sorry for her because she was ruthlessly teased for being a whore. She was one of the few people in our class who got bullied more than I did within my experience at the time. One day walking home form school she approaches me and asks me if I want to have fun. I said no, I'm not like that. She pulled on my shirt-sleeve and begged me. See she was trying to run away from home and needed money. I wasn't known to her Dad so he'd never call me out. She had started pimping herself out and said we could use the shed in our backyard to do it. I didn't know what to say. My brain couldn't process what I was hearing. I do know what I said, and that was "No". I'm guessing I was around fourteen at the time. At fourteen I had the moral clarity to say "No" to a girl offering herself to me for money. Just for record, this was also the summer I read the Bible cover-to-cover, became an atheist, and formed my own moral code. Saying kids at the age of seventeen are not capable of making these kinds of moral decisions is bunk in my book.
Her prostitution went on for years in my neighborhood. Eventually they moved out of the neighborhood. I never heard why, although I did ask around but never got an answer.
Teacher Pedophiles
When I got to high-school I became aware of two pedophile teachers in my high school. In the 1970s in Indiana a sixteen-year-old girl was more considered an adult and not a child. Teenage pregnancy happened commonly and these girls got married during high-school once pregnant.
One teacher was an English teacher and the other was communications teacher.
As a top student one can easily imagine that I was regularly hit up for cheating. That wasn't my thing. I only let kids cheat off once me for a short period. When I was in grade-school I did go through a period where I let people cheat off me to stop the bullying. But that happened like for three-to-four months and then I quit. I wouldn't cheat again until I was fifteen and the hormones kicked in. There was this nice looking blonde cheerleader who sat next to me. This was an honors class and I knew her, she was smart enough to do the work. She just didn't have time because she wanted to party and have cheerleader fun. I wanted the attention. Anyway, since she was a cheerleader then one day I asked her if it was true that our teacher was sleeping with the girls. She asked me to remember a particular girl who had been pulled out of class two-weeks after the start of the semester. She had gotten pulled because the two had gotten got caught.
The communications teacher really bothered me. Lafayette Jefferson High School had fully equipped radio and television studios even in the 1970s. I was a TV camera operator as well as a disk jockey. I had gotten on a bus and went to Chicago to get my third-class FCC license to be a disk jockey, and then again went to Chicago for second class FCC license to work on equipment.
The communications teacher had an enclosed office with a door, no windows. He liked to yell at us kids and if you acted out then he'd call you into his office, ask you to close the door, and then proceed to chew you out. I always thought it was odd that you had to close the door.
Eventually I started noticing a pattern with one particular girl. She'd go into his office, close the door, and not come out of his office for an hour. Once? Whatever. Multiple times? I asked around. What was going on? I soon learned that these one hour meetings were common for good looking girls, and only the good looking girls.
I didn't know her personally, but she was okay smart and highly respected in class. She worked on the school yearbook and other social events like homecoming. She was going places and aggressive. After high school she wanted to work at a local TV station. She was the exact opposite of my previous, younger experience of a girl in this kind of situation and I was confused.
This became my first experience at getting involved. I asked this girl what she was doing? Wasn't she concerned about the consequences? The accidents of nature? To my surprise I got my first dose of full-on feminism lecture. She was empowered and could do what she wanted with her body. If this is what it took to make it in the big time, this is what it took. Well, okay then.
Looking back at this incident it strikes me that at sixteen we did not believe ourselves to be kids. We believed we were fully empowered to make adult decisions. We thought we were adults. You would have surprised me if anyone had suggested to me that my decision making process was deficient because of my age. I think this is perhaps a sense of false adulthood that doesn't get much play in these discussions and the complete opposite experience of boys-will-be-boys. That wasn't a thing. In high school I got paid $50 cash for as a TV camera-operator filming Purdue University teacher lectures. I had a job at sixteen. I was working the fields detassling corn at age thirteen. I did not think of myself as a child, but an adult. I had a second class FCC license.
Drunken Teens
I got my first job at the age of sixteen. I had money. First I bought a car. You get the picture.
In school my reputation was the outcast geek and nerd. All my friends were also outcasts. In my first job though I got a fresh start with kids for other schools who didn't know me. All I had to do was offer to buy the booze and I had friends.
My first experience with drunken teens is all too common. Certain girls got passed out drunk, often playing shot games like quarters, and boys would take advantage. It was the way of things. To be honest, I couldn't recognize or name any of them today to bear witness, except one.
There was one girl who was semi-regular. I never talked with her much because we had nothing in common and she was not bright enough for my idea of conversation. Guys at previous parties had bragged about taking her home after the party. She loved to drink. She would be the first person drunk at the party and pass out while the party was still going loud.
At one particular party I found myself close to drunk. I was sitting on the floor, back to the wall, nursing a glass of Jack Daniels debating if I wanted to get drunk or sober up and drive home in a couple of hours. This particular gal sat down right next to me. There was all kinds of sitting space on the floor around me and she nearly sat in my lap.
So I said, "what's up?" She replied, "can you watch over me?" I'm like, "what?" She replied, "Well, I don't want to go home with anybody tonight and I know you won't. Will you watch over me, make sure no tries to take me home, until I sober up?" What was I suppose to say? So I said, "sure!?"
Turns out she never sobered up until morning, as usual. I ended up sitting up all night playing bodyguard. That was just so weird that I vowed never again. After that I would always ask if she was coming to a party and if she was then I didn't go.
The other drunken teen girl I knew I had a crush on. This one almost did me in. I had the kind of crush on her the kind where you write songs about them. Unfortunately she had a boyfriend who didn't much pay attention to her except to party, but this allowed us to spend time together. She was probably about nineteen at the time and I was eighteen. First year of Purdue I think for her.
This was just one of those situations where her boyfriend had decided to leave a party early. She stayed and got wasted. She threw herself at me when she was smashed. It broke my heart to say no. Really and truly. I did put her in a bed though so she didn't drive home drunk.
I wanted to share what eye witnessed because this stuff happened in my life and I did the right thing throughout my youth during the 1970s and 1980s.
We could be responsible. In fact, we thought of ourselves as adults. Looking back on those days I do not have any recollection that I felt different in my moral responsibility than I do today. I never believed there was any moral standard for kids and adults. I must live up to adult morals.
Freethinkers unite!
Freedom!
Party On!
Let's get cracking!
Voluntarily Reject Demagoguery!
Politics as Science!
Demand Irreni World Scale!
Anti-theism is feminism!
Think disruption!
Empathy for all!
Moral relativity: think it, breath it!
Prove it or lose it!
Conversations equal consensus!
Welcome to the 21st century!
Scale your empathy, scale the world!
Find your tribe!
Be sexy people!
The future is coming!
Innovate at a rapid pace!
Slow speed ahead!
Well come! and well met!
Happy Tuesday!
This is a response to the #WhyIDidntReport posts on Twitter. As a white male in my fifties I thought I would write about some of the messed up rape and sexual assault I witnessed as a kid. This was in the 1970s and 1980s.
I also wanted to start a new hash tag, #EyeWitnessed.
Child Prostitute
I'm going to start with my first and worst, totally messed up witness of child prostitution. There was a girl on the end of block who had a reputation of her Dad pimping her out for money. He had sole custody of her and you just went to his house. I'd see various boys in my neighborhood walk home with her. I don't remember too many faces from that era but I can still see her face, clear as seeing someone today.
But the story doesn't end there. I had only ever exchanged hellos walking home. I felt sorry for her because she was ruthlessly teased for being a whore. She was one of the few people in our class who got bullied more than I did within my experience at the time. One day walking home form school she approaches me and asks me if I want to have fun. I said no, I'm not like that. She pulled on my shirt-sleeve and begged me. See she was trying to run away from home and needed money. I wasn't known to her Dad so he'd never call me out. She had started pimping herself out and said we could use the shed in our backyard to do it. I didn't know what to say. My brain couldn't process what I was hearing. I do know what I said, and that was "No". I'm guessing I was around fourteen at the time. At fourteen I had the moral clarity to say "No" to a girl offering herself to me for money. Just for record, this was also the summer I read the Bible cover-to-cover, became an atheist, and formed my own moral code. Saying kids at the age of seventeen are not capable of making these kinds of moral decisions is bunk in my book.
Her prostitution went on for years in my neighborhood. Eventually they moved out of the neighborhood. I never heard why, although I did ask around but never got an answer.
Teacher Pedophiles
When I got to high-school I became aware of two pedophile teachers in my high school. In the 1970s in Indiana a sixteen-year-old girl was more considered an adult and not a child. Teenage pregnancy happened commonly and these girls got married during high-school once pregnant.
One teacher was an English teacher and the other was communications teacher.
As a top student one can easily imagine that I was regularly hit up for cheating. That wasn't my thing. I only let kids cheat off once me for a short period. When I was in grade-school I did go through a period where I let people cheat off me to stop the bullying. But that happened like for three-to-four months and then I quit. I wouldn't cheat again until I was fifteen and the hormones kicked in. There was this nice looking blonde cheerleader who sat next to me. This was an honors class and I knew her, she was smart enough to do the work. She just didn't have time because she wanted to party and have cheerleader fun. I wanted the attention. Anyway, since she was a cheerleader then one day I asked her if it was true that our teacher was sleeping with the girls. She asked me to remember a particular girl who had been pulled out of class two-weeks after the start of the semester. She had gotten pulled because the two had gotten got caught.
The communications teacher really bothered me. Lafayette Jefferson High School had fully equipped radio and television studios even in the 1970s. I was a TV camera operator as well as a disk jockey. I had gotten on a bus and went to Chicago to get my third-class FCC license to be a disk jockey, and then again went to Chicago for second class FCC license to work on equipment.
The communications teacher had an enclosed office with a door, no windows. He liked to yell at us kids and if you acted out then he'd call you into his office, ask you to close the door, and then proceed to chew you out. I always thought it was odd that you had to close the door.
Eventually I started noticing a pattern with one particular girl. She'd go into his office, close the door, and not come out of his office for an hour. Once? Whatever. Multiple times? I asked around. What was going on? I soon learned that these one hour meetings were common for good looking girls, and only the good looking girls.
I didn't know her personally, but she was okay smart and highly respected in class. She worked on the school yearbook and other social events like homecoming. She was going places and aggressive. After high school she wanted to work at a local TV station. She was the exact opposite of my previous, younger experience of a girl in this kind of situation and I was confused.
This became my first experience at getting involved. I asked this girl what she was doing? Wasn't she concerned about the consequences? The accidents of nature? To my surprise I got my first dose of full-on feminism lecture. She was empowered and could do what she wanted with her body. If this is what it took to make it in the big time, this is what it took. Well, okay then.
Looking back at this incident it strikes me that at sixteen we did not believe ourselves to be kids. We believed we were fully empowered to make adult decisions. We thought we were adults. You would have surprised me if anyone had suggested to me that my decision making process was deficient because of my age. I think this is perhaps a sense of false adulthood that doesn't get much play in these discussions and the complete opposite experience of boys-will-be-boys. That wasn't a thing. In high school I got paid $50 cash for as a TV camera-operator filming Purdue University teacher lectures. I had a job at sixteen. I was working the fields detassling corn at age thirteen. I did not think of myself as a child, but an adult. I had a second class FCC license.
Drunken Teens
I got my first job at the age of sixteen. I had money. First I bought a car. You get the picture.
In school my reputation was the outcast geek and nerd. All my friends were also outcasts. In my first job though I got a fresh start with kids for other schools who didn't know me. All I had to do was offer to buy the booze and I had friends.
My first experience with drunken teens is all too common. Certain girls got passed out drunk, often playing shot games like quarters, and boys would take advantage. It was the way of things. To be honest, I couldn't recognize or name any of them today to bear witness, except one.
There was one girl who was semi-regular. I never talked with her much because we had nothing in common and she was not bright enough for my idea of conversation. Guys at previous parties had bragged about taking her home after the party. She loved to drink. She would be the first person drunk at the party and pass out while the party was still going loud.
At one particular party I found myself close to drunk. I was sitting on the floor, back to the wall, nursing a glass of Jack Daniels debating if I wanted to get drunk or sober up and drive home in a couple of hours. This particular gal sat down right next to me. There was all kinds of sitting space on the floor around me and she nearly sat in my lap.
So I said, "what's up?" She replied, "can you watch over me?" I'm like, "what?" She replied, "Well, I don't want to go home with anybody tonight and I know you won't. Will you watch over me, make sure no tries to take me home, until I sober up?" What was I suppose to say? So I said, "sure!?"
Turns out she never sobered up until morning, as usual. I ended up sitting up all night playing bodyguard. That was just so weird that I vowed never again. After that I would always ask if she was coming to a party and if she was then I didn't go.
The other drunken teen girl I knew I had a crush on. This one almost did me in. I had the kind of crush on her the kind where you write songs about them. Unfortunately she had a boyfriend who didn't much pay attention to her except to party, but this allowed us to spend time together. She was probably about nineteen at the time and I was eighteen. First year of Purdue I think for her.
This was just one of those situations where her boyfriend had decided to leave a party early. She stayed and got wasted. She threw herself at me when she was smashed. It broke my heart to say no. Really and truly. I did put her in a bed though so she didn't drive home drunk.
I wanted to share what eye witnessed because this stuff happened in my life and I did the right thing throughout my youth during the 1970s and 1980s.
We could be responsible. In fact, we thought of ourselves as adults. Looking back on those days I do not have any recollection that I felt different in my moral responsibility than I do today. I never believed there was any moral standard for kids and adults. I must live up to adult morals.
Freethinkers unite!
Freedom!
Party On!
Let's get cracking!
Voluntarily Reject Demagoguery!
Politics as Science!
Demand Irreni World Scale!
Anti-theism is feminism!
Think disruption!
Empathy for all!
Moral relativity: think it, breath it!
Prove it or lose it!
Conversations equal consensus!
Welcome to the 21st century!
Scale your empathy, scale the world!
Find your tribe!
Be sexy people!
The future is coming!
Innovate at a rapid pace!
Slow speed ahead!
Well come! and well met!
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