Anonymous
“It can’t be unlearned. I’ve known the warmth of your doorways. Through the cold, I’ll find my way back to you”. – Hozier, It Will Come Back
We were in someone’s Mercedes. I think her name was Kristen. I couldn’t see much besides sides of faces and cigarette smoke. My tights were ripped, my parents were already going to kill me, and someone’s dad’s bourbon decorated my body. I don’t know how I allowed myself to get there. That wasn’t me; that was her, and I don’t know why I let her drag me into that. She was my best friend, and she wanted some company, so I gave her some. Except, that was awfully inconsiderate of her to put me in harm’s way with drinking and smoking and driving. I was 16 and she was 19.
Later that night had scenes that were very short. I know that her and I fell asleep in front of the fire. I know that one of her friends tucked us in. On the rug. In front of the fire. I’m surprised our breath didn’t cause us to combust. I know I woke up a few times throughout the night, and to my surprise, she was attached to me, and I couldn’t find my tights. My skirt wasn’t really covering anything. At least I was under the blanket.
I felt weird. Awkward. Dirty. A small relief. I lied there, looking at her. My first coherent thought was “Glad she ripped the band aid off”. Why? Because I liked her. I wanted that type of relationship with her, but I had no sense of how things were supposed to go. I thought that was the “first move” because she had already been telling me how much she loved me. We both had had feelings for each other for a while, so it was fine to me. I didn’t know any better.
The National Sexual Violence Research Center states that “Consent is more than a yes or no. It is a dialogue about desires, needs, and level of comfort with different sexual interactions”.
I didn’t learn until later that I wasn’t uneasy about the content of what might have happened that night. I was uneasy about the way she conducted it. I was uneasy because she told me that I didn’t try to fight her off, and I looked like I wanted it. I was uneasy because I don’t know to this day what really happened. I don’t know if I wanted it. I don’t know anything.
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The Royal Commission unto Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse says, “Grooming is recognized as a complex, commonly incremental process that can involve three main stages – from gaining access to the victim, initiating and maintaining the abuse and concealing the abuse”.
Typically, when people think about child grooming cases, they think that the child is an unwilling 12-year-old girl, and they think the predator is a 42-year-old man. Maybe that’s why none of those ‘friends’ believed me when I finally figured out what had happened some odd years later. My case didn’t fit the bill. Hell, that’s what I thought too, but I don’t know why. Maybe because I was brought up to fear men and to trust women, and I didn’t think there was such a thing as too much trust in the fellow female because they’re always supposed to have your back. “One in three female victims of completed or attempted rape experienced it for the first time between the ages of 11 and 17”. We’re supposed to have each other’s backs, right? Meanwhile, “About one in four male victims of completed or attempted rape first experienced it between the ages of 11 and 17”.
Betrayal is a tricky feeling. The best I could ever describe it is a smooth mix of equal parts rage, hurt, and sadness. What is really sad is that I have no clue what my situation is described as.
“An estimated 13% of women and 6% of men have experienced sexual coercion in their lifetime (i.e., unwanted sexual penetration after being pressured in a nonphysical way); and 27.2% of women and 11.7% of men have experienced unwanted sexual contact”.
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Her and I had been friends for about a year before that little party. In hindsight, I’d say she was a bit of a bad influence, but not by too much. A learning experience, maybe. We met in Sunday school. She seemed pretty taken with me right away, which I was never used to because I was, and still always am, the person that usually takes things really fast in a friendship. I loved that she always wanted to hang out, and I loved getting into the deep and personal part of relationships because it meant that they wanted me to know them, and they trusted me. It meant that I was actually liked by someone, and I wasn’t used to that.
*
“Some grooming techniques can be brief, with unclear start and end points”.
*
One thing that I remember about her the most is that she was fairly assertive. She made her presence known, and she didn’t care if you didn’t like it. She was the one who seemed to always be in control in every situation.
“For some types of offenders, abuse is more ‘situation-specific’ or is about taking advantage of a situation, often in the absence of an initially harmful motivation”.
I always thought we just clicked really well. I mean, that’s not to say that didn’t happen, but there’s always that possibility that she had a motive from the beginning.
I always loved the type of ‘obsessive’ best-friendships. The type of friendships you see girls have in movies or T.V. shows. Even social media sometimes highlights funny, super-attached best-friend moments. They’ll go on midnight drives like her and I did. They’ll pull hoodies over their heads and tie themselves together just for a picture. Only to find out that it’s a lot harder to get out of, one gets a head injury, while the other is calling them a dumbass, and it’s automatically a memory for the ages. They call each-other just to ask what kind of chips they should eat because they can’t decide. Maybe they call each other to show a weird looking bump on their toe. One of them is fake throwing up but just as concerned as the other. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t totally crave that. I had it, but not in the way it was supposed to be. You’re not supposed to fall prey to your best-friend. It sounds weird to say out loud, to admit I want a certain level of co-dependency in a friendship. Co-dependency isn’t healthy, and I know that. But the fact of the matter is that I just want to feel wanted. I want to feel appreciated and held on a platonic pedestal. I had wanted it then, and nothing has really changed.
Always having your best-friend attached at the hip still sounds desirable to me, but I’m almost certain it’s because I’ve never had a best-friend that was a girl in that way. I thought I did with her, but I didn’t. I just wanted to be loved, and that’s what I had thought she gave me. I only noticed something seemed weird when she didn’t like things that she previously had no problem with. It started with her not liking when I hung out with our group of friends without her, which I could understand. I thought she felt left out. It ended with her not wanting me to hang out with anyone else period. So, we were always together. I thought it was normal to not want your best friend to hang out with anyone else. I considered her to be the very first best-friend I had because everyone else I felt didn’t count (because they were fake towards me). She would get so angry with me, and I thought she was well within her rights to be.
“Hey, you didn’t call me last night. What was up with that?”
“Yeah, I was busy, sorry. I was hanging out with T.”
“Stop spending time with my friends without me.”
“Why? They’re my friends too!”
“Uh, because it’s weird, and it pisses me off!”
“How is it weird? That makes no sense.”
“Just don’t fucking do it! God! It’s that simple! What are you not getting? I don’t want you around my friends, unless I’m there! They aren’t your friends; they’re just putting up with you because you’re my friend!”
“That makes no sense! You should want me to be friends with your friends. Did they really say that?”
“You can’t just be going around like some lost puppy and letting everyone have a piece of you! Am I not enough for you?! I should be enough! You don’t need anyone else!”
“I-. I mean. Well, you are enough. I guess you’re right…?”
I was so distracted from the pain of a falsified rejection that I couldn’t think clear enough to actually try to get to the bottom of what she was saying.
*
“Gaining access to a victim, initiating and maintaining abuse, concealing abuse”.
*
The kicker is: I thought her possessiveness was just because of her feelings for me that had already been expressed. I developed feelings for her too, but I didn’t want to ruin the friendship. So, I didn’t tell her until later, and when I did,
“You made me wait this long? We could have been together earlier. I cannot believe you.”
We had super cute times, though. I loved hanging out with her, when things were good. We danced around like crazy, did blind makeovers, walked home from 7/11 like we were prepping for a road trip, and drove around with the windows down, blasting music at midnight. She would shower, and I’d be putting my makeup on in the same bathroom. She’d even shampoo my hair when I was in the bathtub. I know that last one is a little more on the gay side, but we both were already rolling with the punches, and lightly fooling around at that point. I felt like I already more than platonically loved her. I think she loved me back too. There was something there that wasn’t fake.
Whenever we had sleepovers, it was always very wholesome. I really, truly trusted her with everything, and genuinely never believed she would ever intentionally harm me. Even today, I still don’t think she would have, despite the aforementioned assault. The first time I ever got drunk was at her house. I drank too much, because what 15-year-old drinks straight Captain Morgan out of the bottle and knows when to stop? It was my idea, too. She basically had to babysit me the whole night. I think still hate rum. I haven’t tried it since then.
I feel like that’s what most people think of when they hear the word ‘grooming’. Some cute, romantic scene of a lover helping another out in the tub. Maybe a dog getting a bath, a mother washing her baby’s hair for the first time, a cat cleaning another cat, or possibly even the Dawn dish soap commercials after BP leaked all that oil into the ocean. I guess the duality of it makes sense. Grooming is cleaning. Preparing, maybe? Preparing for a brand-new day. Preparing for bed. Preparing to be bedded.
*
Incremental acts of grooming usually increase in intensity. While the initial stages in the grooming process may appear innocent, later stages are more overt in the perpetrator’s attempt to desensitize the child to sexual activity (Elliot, Browne & Kilcoyne, 1995). Some perpetrators may offer the child alcohol and/or drugs.
*
After that night, things changed. I didn’t want to distance myself from her. I thought our relationship should have had a new ribbon cut down or something. A milestone of intimacy. However, my gut would not let me feel the relief and happiness I tried to feel. I thought the happiness and relief was what I should have felt. Instead, felt like something wasn’t right. So, naturally, I started distancing myself from her anyway. She freaked out on me. Our friend group tried to get me to reconcile with her. Nonstop calls, nonstop texts, she’d show up at my house, and she’d be let in because I couldn’t tell my mom what I had done. She’d corner me in the church bathroom. She didn’t care that she scared me to the point of tears. She’d grab my chin, as gently as she could, and make me look up at her through teary eyes when she spoke. It was about her, not about me. I don’t go to church anymore.
I, eventually, told my mom that we just weren’t friends anymore because she hurt me and to not let her in the house. As Moms do, she eventually found out everything, but that’s a story for another day. My mom and I still talk about everything I had gone through. Not only were there some major red flags, but she mentioned that I was probably groomed, and most definitely assaulted. The circumstances don’t feel that way though. They feel icky for sure but labeling it like that still confuses me. I think it’s because I don’t feel like that was all our relationship amounted to. Could that be because that’s the result I’m supposed to be left with after the whole grooming situation? Sure. Could it be because our relationship was actually more than the grooming aspect? Absolutely. But that’s something I don’t have the mental capacity to figure out, yet.
*
“Consent must be freely given and informed, and a person can change their mind at any time”.
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One of the biggest questions anyone ever has about this type of thing revolves heavily on “why”. It makes sense. Except, I’ve spent so much time trying to figure out why. So much time.
Choosing to violate another person is not about “drinking too much,” “trying to have a good time,” or” getting carried away,” nor is it about the clothes someone was wearing, how they were acting, or what type of relationship they have with the person who abused them. Violating another person is a choice.
“Violating another person is a choice”. What I’ve sort of been telling myself is simply that. She chose to. It wasn’t anything I said or did. It wasn’t how I looked. She simply made a choice.
“Nearly three out of four adolescents (74%) who have been sexually assaulted were victimized by someone they knew well”. It helps to know that I’m not alone, though. I have people who love me, and I have people to continue to give me support.
“Nationwide, 81% of women and 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime”.
I doubt most of us know why. Everyone tries to figure it out. Everyone tries to recover. But I don’t think this is something that can be recovered from fully. Things get easier, but not always better. Things don’t always have to get completely better. But what does have to be done is everyone has to learn to simply manage.
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Grooming and related techniques are difficult to explicitly define and identify. Empirical evidence tells us that grooming includes a range of techniques, many of which are not explicitly sexual or directly abusive in themselves.