Adolescence

As related, I actually committed a serious crime (the statutory rape of a 16-year-old in a state where 17 is the age of consent when a few years older than the victim, who I believe did feel pressured and obligated late in the relationship) but also sometimes find myself feeling very frustrated by the knowledge that I know several people who have had sex with partners below the age of consent or done sexually harmful things like distributed nude images of girls without their consent/ not stopped having sex when asked/ etc. who don't seem to experience any guilt or self-identify as sex offenders or abusers whatsoever.

But when I think about these people, I don't really wish them any suffering, especially since most of them have long since matured and are now in happy relationships. I think about bring up old partners they had who were 14 or 15, or times in which they behaved inappropriately, and I know that I would only be doing it out of a sense of 'unfairness' that I should be suffering, while they're not. And that's ###$ up. I want people to realise if they've been abusive and to be decent human beings, but I don't want anyone to suffer if it's not going to change them or help a victim. Individuals are more important than ideology, especially when it is motivated by personal feelings of anger or sadness, rather than true justice.

As to why you reflect while others don't, despite the fact that, to quote you directly, you have: "never harrassed anybody, never touched without consent, never had sex with a minor (or at all, for that matter), never downloaded indecent material, nothing that's contributed to harm, never pressured anybody into any sort of sexual activity" (unlike many people you know IRL) is because you are a very conscientious young man and feel anxious around sex since you are still yet to have it.

Maybe it's not even a matter of 'deserving', but if anyone deserves not to worry about this kind of stuff, it's you. You are not a sex offender and you are not a bad person. Even thinking of that documentary, how much did you really want the genuine offenders on that to suffer? How long do you think they should feel anxious or scared for? Every day until they die? Every second of every day? Even in their dreams? I don't think you'd punish anyone as harshly as you're punishing yourself... over, at the end of the day, nothing.

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Regarding adolescence - yeah - there was a lot of #######5 behaviour around my school too. I wonder if it's our generation or whether it's always gone on. One poor 16-year-old girl was filmed having sex with a guy in his early 20s and, according to my brother, almost everyone in the upper years and sixth form (including many 18-year-olds) watched and shared the footage. The teachers found and confiscated it, but no legal action was brought against anyone. The girl was slut shamed, insulted, basically lost all her friends and had to take her remaining lessons and exams on her own until she left school. And I would bet that not one of the people involved feels any remorse over any of it, save the poor kid herself.

Also - around year 10, I think - I remember there being a nasty trend towards guys bullying and pressuring their girlfriends into making out with one another at parties. It was grim and sad and it made me really uncomfortable the two or three times I saw it happen, but I don't know how the girls felt about it.

There were rumours of teacher relationships with students, but they never seemed to come to anything. The only thing approaching a teacher being inappropriate, was my form teacher insisting that all his 14-year-old students play a game of spin the bottle in the form room at Christmas time. I was pretty nervous (never having kissed a girl at that point) and said I didn't want to play, but he basically told me that I had to. I ended up having to kiss Lisa Crawford, which I did very hesitantly, and was then ruthlessly mocked by many of the boys in my class for my lack of prowess.

My first relationship was with a 16-year-old in a year below when I was 17, nearly 18. We were introduced by the sister of a friend. She had a close-knit friendship group and they all made bets upon when we were going to lose our virginities to each other. Generally they guessed after a few months. So, after those dates had passed, my girlfriend was given continual reminders by her friends that it was high time that she lost her virginity. All the bets had been lost. My girlfriend would then remind me that the predicted dates had passed. This peer pressure made both of us pretty anxious, I think. I kept delaying moving on from sexual touching etc. to full intercourse, but increasingly, my girlfriend would bring up the idea of having sex, such as when I suggested we do something 'lighter'. When it got to Valentine's day, I baked her a cheesecake (with a biscuit crumb heart on top) and decided that it was time we should have sex, which my girlfriend was in agreement with, despite not really wanting to and being hella nervous. Basically, when push came to shove, I couldn't do it properly and ended up in tears. We later had a pretty fun sexual relationship, though I think just listening to music and watching films together was always far more important. We dated for about 4 years, but I became increasingly convinced over a year-and-a-half that I had a brain tumour (!) or BSE (!!!) which drove us apart. After I found out that I had actually just been suffering from headaches due to a wisdom tooth, I realised that my life was not actually doomed and promptly accepted the romantic advances from a 16-year-old long term online friend, with the deeply delusional and basically demented thought process of 'I was lost but now I am found! This girl is an angel who has saved my life!' and thus managed to cut myself off from any future self-respect, dooming my life ironically at the very point at which I realised it was not doomed.

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Anyway, I don't know if there is a lesson to take away from all that apart from to politely reject romantic interest from anyone under 18 once you are no longer a teen and to never enter a relationship for reasons of desperation and loneliness or because you feel that person has 'saved your life'. They're just a human being and putting someone on a pedestal or treating them like an icon of worship is actually a pretty messed up and abusive thing to do. Don't project onto your romantic partner! Don't make them fill some gaping hole in your life! Let them be their own person and never seek to control them! Stay calm and relaxed and remember that sex isn't actually all that great or important!

Anyway, you know all this. You're a sensible, good person and have nothing to worry about. Promise promise promise promise!

Well... I sometimes, quite often, feel 'doomed' but it's not wholly logical. It's this feeling of being cut off from life, from the law-abiding masses. As mentioned, a fair few of those in these masses aren't actually law-abiding, but don't even recognise it, but at the end of the day, I think it's more about self-identity. I wouldn't like to assume this is true in all cases, but in that documentary, I think the reason the subjects felt 'cut off' and monstrous was being they've been given the official label of 'sex offender'. I wonder if they'd gotten away with their crimes whether they would feel as such or whether it is the speech act itself that marks this transformation.

Basically, I remind myself as much as I can, that my relationship would have been legal in at least 3/4ths of the States (and obvs here in Britain) and that, most important of all, my victim doesn't recognise herself as such and has made it pretty clear that she's long past the relationship and not traumatised. Though I'll always feel serious regret over the relationship and also the fact that I lost a very dear friend from it, I am thankful that my ex's life isn't destroyed and that she seemed to have weathered everything. Without death (either literal, or of all hope and love) there can still be change and accountability and repentance, but it's a matter of having the faith to feel that one is worthy of all these things. Because individuals will all differ as to where they set the cut off point for a person being irredeemable, really it has to rest with the individual and their victim - as much as I want to, there will always be some people whose forgiveness I can never earn. But that doesn't mean my life is entirely worthless.

I totally agree about better sex education - mine was aforementioned creepy form teacher talking about 'ravaging' girl guides as a boy scout and making a teenage girl play Just a Minute (talk without repetition, deviation or hesitation) on the topic of female masturbation. I think Sexpression are a very Good Thing indeed, though I was disappointed that the motion towards implementing better sex education across the board was rejected. A lot of young people are breaking the law (especially with regards to sexting) or generally behaving badly in relationships and though many of them change or heal or just forget all about it, why not try to stop it before it happens?

-- Wed Apr 09, 2014 10:08 am --

EDIT: Also, in pedantic clarification to my first reply, it was me, rather than my first girlfriend, who was nervous when we first attempted sex... although it seems likely she was also nervous, but better at not letting on. She's a cool customer (though kind of dorky when you get to know her) and pretty hard to read sometimes. We're still good friends and she's an amazing human being, who has survived some really tragic, difficult life events. But I do wish her friends hadn't made all those bets about when we'd have sex and that our earliest sexual encounters hadn't been marked by peer pressure. It sucked and there are healthier, happier ways to lose one's virginity.

I have had days, though very few and far between. I think the flushes of first love can basically quell most any anxiety and guilt for a week or two. Going round a naked maze with a young genderqueer chap I'd later go on to date, felt like taking part in some brave new world of bright-eyed, Quaker, nudist types and it was a day that would have been very hard to quash. The afternoon spent just hugging and hugging on my bed with my current girlfriend, when it had become apparent that we liked each other very much and that she had worked up the courage to break off with her abusive, long-distance partner, while still retaining the sense of mind and judiciousness not to kiss or take anything further until that relationship was cleanly ended, was amazing and joyous and freed me temporarily from anxiety.

Apart from those two really magical days, probably not... though there have been stretches of hours in which I have managed to go without thinking about the matter. Generally this is when I am witnessing other people, people I love, be happy. Actually, last weekend I was best man (!) at a very close friend's wedding and just seeing him and his bride beam through the ceremony and after-party made me feel glad to be alive. Even though I didn't feel like I deserved to be best man, the fact that he was so pleased with my speech and said such kind words about me, I felt pretty glad I was.

Really though, the best times are those with my girlfriend in which I can recognise the crime/s that I committed, my status as someone who has committed a sex crime/s, but still feel 'ok' with remaining alive. Like, not necessarily happy, but pleased that I can support and bring happiness to a wonderful and beautiful young woman. If I stay alive, with hope, and manage to support her in her life and creative endeavours then, while it won't *compensate* or *make up for* my previous behaviour in dating someone too young for me and making her feel uncomfortable (and the serious legal implications of the former and the serious moral implications of the latter) it will mean that my life served some good and useful purpose and helped someone who deserved love and compassion and desired this specifically from me even knowing all of the above.

None of them [friends] have condemned me with anything like the vehemence and self-loathing with which I manage to condemn myself. Some haven't taken the matter very seriously... although I think this is especially true of my family who, I worry, have such a belief in my 'goodness' that they cannot reconcile the fact that I committed statutory rape with how they see me as a person and so choose to ignore the fact. I sometimes feel it is my moral duty to correct people when they say that I am a 'good' or 'nice' or 'kind' person, reminding them that I am a rapist (indeed, worse, since anyone who commits statutory rape is technically a child rapist) and that this is incompatible with me being a 'good person' or what have you. However, at the same time, I know it isn't my place to police who wants to remain my friend or acquaintance, once I have fully informed them of my behaviour. I shouldn't force people not to like me. The fact is, I like some people who have committed sexual crimes or generally acts that I personally consider to be immoral. I even read and find value in the work of some authors, such as David Foster Wallace (statutory rapist; attempted murderer; abusive) and William Golding (attempted child rape) and musicians, such as Joe Meek (murderer) and Elvis (numerous romantic and sexual relationships with underage girls possibly up to and including statutory rape) who committed serious legal and moral crimes in their own lives.

The only way in which I have lost friends is through talking about my crime(s) so repeatedly that they have grown too frustrated to continue being around me, rather than through original moral disgust at the crime(s). My last partner - who accompanied me around the aforementioned naked maze - and I broke up because ve couldn't cope with the sheer amount I spoke about the prior relationship to vim. That was my third relationship. Now, in my fourth relationship, I have worked much harder to not repeat myself and to discuss these matters on places online like Psychforums and with my therapist.

I can think of two people in my life who take the matter especially seriously but have remained my friend, despite. One, I informed that my behaviour didn't meet the English legal definition of 'rape' (the English definition has changed from forcible to simply non-consensual, but it remains penis-in-vagina and the age of consent is 16 and my ex was 16 / 17 and we only attempted intercourse once, before which there was clear verbal consent and I stopped as soon as she said the experience was painful / uncomfortable. Of course, in Texas the verbal consent given by my partner is legally null and void, but I am living in a country in which my behaviour would not constitute 'sexual assault of a child' or 'rape' and would be basically non-prosecutable. I still think the relationship *would* have been inappropriate even if it had happened here in Britain because I don't think a 16 or 17-year-old should be dating someone any more than 3 years older than them, but even as a technicality, it remains somewhat easier living in a country where I would not be legally recognised as a child rapist). She said that if I had 'raped' my girlfriend, she would probably continue to talk with me in my room. She asked about the age of consent and I told her that my ex was 16, without specifying the AoC in Texas. I believe she may well have looked for herself and I think she does keep a certain distance, which is absolutely fair, but she has also clearly made a decision to continue the friendship, which is her informed choice also.

The person I know who is most hard-line on the concept that sex with anyone under 18 is sex with a child and thus rape, is one of my house-mates. He is of the opinion that all forms of rape (including statutory) are worse than all forms of torture and murder and has said that he believes that rape should be punishable by death. He has also talked about murdering rapists. I have asked him why, considering his hard-line definition of rape as any non-consensual genital contact, including any such contact between an adult and a child (I think this is his definition, but it might be broader) he has not murdered me? He said that it was because he would not want to be caught and punished. But later he retracted the statement and said, instead, that he feels that the person I was 'is dead' due to my self-reflection and the fact that I have changed and would not commit such a crime again. He also said something to the extent that because my victim has stated that she does not consider herself to have been a victim of child molestation (or, seemingly, rape) and that she has no interest in perusing legal action against me, that I am allowed to continue with my life, since he believes in honouring the narrative of all survivors. He's pretty hardcore and though he can intimidate me, I have a great deal of respect for him.

My girlfriend - who sometimes identifies as asexual - takes abuse very seriously herself and is very much a proponent of never making a sexual partner feel pressured or uncomfortable. She is a deeply, good, moral person. As such, sometimes I find it hard to accept that she loves me or that I am whatsoever worthy of her love. However, she said to me the most beautiful and compassionate and tears-inducing thing that anyone has ever said to me:

I love you for who you are, which is because of everything you have done up to now.

I try to live with that and honour it.

Absolutely not. I think honesty is important and hopefully I can illuminate some things through discussion and maybe prompt reflection for others. Also, it stops be going on to my friends about the same stuff, which they are already well aware of, so it's good from that point of view also.

He's [my housemate] an intense fellow sometimes... I'm not entirely sue if he really believes that all statutory rapists are deserving of murder. He's never actually said that - I was joining the dots between him saying that rapists should be killed and things he said said around definitions rape. As said, he very much agrees that those under-18 are *children* ... but I think he does have some sense of nuance around age differences. He once said that he felt that a middle-aged man pursuing a relationship with an 18-year-old was a 'paedophile' and I think his stance on that was less to do with the age of the younger party, than with the power disparity between an adolescent and a middle-aged man.

Also, sometimes I think he says and believes things in the abstract, but makes exceptions when faced with some specific instances. As said, he's far more friendly towards me that one would expect considering the fact that he identifies as a trans-positive second wave feminist. I never asked him about Kaitlyn Hunt, but I would very much imagine that he would regard her as both a predator and a paedophile (I would disagree with the latter and am very conflicted about the former).

He's a hard person to write about though and I worry I misrepresent him. He can also be very playful and glib and is quite a soft, feminine person in many ways. I honestly respect his ideals, but he also reminds me a bit of Thomas Mac Miller, who scares me a lot (to the degree that I've actually dreamt about him torturing me!! I do not know if he would go quite that far, but I very much doubt he would feel I deserved any second chances... he's clearly a good man though and probably responsible for some of the best work on consent in the last decade).

It's very hard for me to know, in truth. I was diagnosed at around 12 (and was taken to a counsellor when I was even younger) so it has very much been an inextricable part of me for my entire life. I imagine (and hope) I would still feel regret and contrition. Perhaps, though, I would be less concerned with exact legal definitions (especially of 'child') and able to think more in every-day language and be more at home with contradictions and cognitive dissonance. Also, I'd probably not spend quite so many hours thinking about the issue, as OCD definitely tends towards repetition and intrusive thoughts. It is hard to know how tied up it is though as I genuinely did commit a crime, so I'm not being delusional and I do think that - mental health problems or not - someone who commits a sexual crime probably shouldn't be able to live their live with precisely the same kind of peace and happiness as they did before. However, there is a vast spectrum between that and believing that such a person (including myself) does not deserve to 'move on' whatsoever or is undeserving of any future happiness or, indeed, life.

I think he was being a bit provocative. I imagine he said it because of an irritation / disgust with the idea that once someone is 18 they are game for being pursued by any adult of any age and felt that, the age disparity and thus power dynamic between a 50-something-year-old bloke and a 18-year-old girl was such that such a relationship would be predatory, despite what the law might have to say about the matter.

Personally, I think it would differ on the individuals, but I could see his point and the reason behind his anger / distaste.

You totally don't belong on a prison or a register. I mean, I'm sure if you compare yourselves to those people in the documentary, you can see that you are worlds away. Even in cases like Kaitlyn Hunt or Gemma Barker, where the young person did legitimately commit serious criminal offences, you still see a lot of support amongst people online - more than you might expect.

Not only are you worried about things you did when you were young, those things weren't even criminal or harmful whatsoever, by the sounds! Be at peace, lovely person!

I really am glad that you recognise that you're the least criminal person you know.

I really think that you are back-projecting and finding something to latch your irrational feeling of anxiety on to. You have honestly done nothing wrong and your earnestness and moral integrity is bloody apparent!