A Sexualized Child
There are those among us who are pushing to normalize ephebophilia (the sexual attraction of an adult to older teens). This can never be allowed to happen. The ‘love’ of an ephebophile robs the targeted child of their childhood, leaves them emotionally damaged, and rushes them into a world that even most adults couldn’t handle.
Some say that statutory rape laws are controversial and in most cases, shouldn’t be enforced. This thinking is based upon the idea that many teenagers are sexually active and therefore, able to consent to sex with an adult. The government contradicts itself, as tax dollars are used by schools to teach children how to have sex, safely but the law states that children are too young to consent to a sexual relationship. Most teenagers won’t graduate and many who do won’t be able to read, write, and calculate but all of them will know how to put a condom on a banana. Television, music, and movies all portray teenagers as sexually active and culpable for their actions. Many parents put their daughters on the pill believing that their children are certain to become sexually active, even before they start college. I heard on the radio, yesterday that one high school passed out free condoms at the prom. In this present secular culture, children are sexualized in masses and pushed toward sexual promiscuity. Unless a child is utterly cloistered, they will not escape being sexually abused on some level, if not directly then by being sexualized through the media. The innocence of children is no longer valued and protected as it should be and children are being sexually abused and exploited at unprecedented levels. Most teenage girls who become pregnant aren’t impregnated by boys their age but by grown men. If I were to have my way, statutory rape laws would be strengthened and stringently, enforced.
There is a great deal of emphasis placed on keeping sex physically safe but very little emphasis on keeping sex emotionally safe. Emotionally safe sex requires healthy morality with strong boundaries but the sexual revolution has resulted in sex without clear boundaries. Sex is no longer regarded as sacred but as recreational. Children are highly vulnerable in this type of culture and regarded as a sexual commodity, by many. Child pornography is a money-making market because of the popularity of child porn. Next to drugs, the sexual slavery of children, teenagers, and young women is the top money-maker for the Mexican cartels. There is a huge appetite for the sexual exploitation of children and it is global. This type of society is perfect cover for pedophiles, hebephiles, and ephebophiles, as they prey upon children.
Because so many children are becoming sexually active at a young age, ephebophiles often argue that their relationships with teenagers do them no harm. Even people who hold traditional morals are likely to put as much moral weight on the decision of an older teenager to have a sexual relationship with an adult, as they do on the adult. Neither view holds the child in the correct perspective. In every instance of a sexual encounter between an adult and a child, the child is raped because a child is unable to give adult consent. A teenager who is sexually precocious is a teenager who was sexually abused as a child. Previous abuse and sexual experience doesn’t mean that a child is ready for adult sexually activity. It does mean they are highly vulnerable to being sexually abused and exploited by other adult predators. Pedophiles, hebephiles, and ephebophiles know how to spot and target children who have already been sexually abused.
Pedophiles, hebephiles, and ephebophiles all claim to love children. I don’t think they are lying. I believe they’ve convinced themselves it is true but their definition of love for a child is twisted and toxic. Love for a child should be unconditional and the good of the child, the top priority. The love of those who are sexually attracted to children and teens is based on the adult’s self-gratification. In such an instance, the child is an object of a sexual compulsion. A sexual compulsion is not love. As all abusers must objectify their intended victim,in order to manipulate and abuse them, these people who claim to love children actually, view them as desired sexual objects. The abuser’s sexual gratification is the basis of the relationship entered into with the targeted child. The relationship consists of the predator emotionally and sexually feeding upon the child.
Teenagers are highly vulnerable to being sexually abused by hebephiles and ephebophiles because their bodies are ready for sexual activity even though emotionally, they aren’t ready for an adult sexual relationship. Teenagers are very easy to manipulate and it isn’t difficult for a predator to convince a teen that they love them, even while they prey upon them. It’s confusing for a teen to understand how an adult is hurting them when they are kind and make their bodies feel good. In fact, their bodies betray them by responding pleasurably to actions which cause deep shame and psychological harm. Society offers very little protection to teenagers and they aren’t likely to find the support and help they need from adults if they are led into becoming sexually active too soon. Girls are often judged as sluts and not seen as they truly are, children suffering the effects of sexual abuse. When boys are sexually active as teenagers, people dismiss it as normal behavior, as “boys will be boys”. Few stop to realize what has been stolen from these children.
As a teenager, I was led away from home by an ephebophile or perhaps even a hebephile. I say this because though I was nearly sixteen when I met him, I looked more like I was twelve. I definitely had those ‘daddy issues’ that such predators look for when targeting a child. I was a troubled teen and I was self-medicating my emotional pain by the age of 12. It didn’t take much for this man to manipulate me into leaving home to live with him. He said he loved me, offered me all the drugs I wanted, and a place to live away from my troubled home. I didn’t even know what a pedophile was and ephebophile is a term that I have only learned, lately. I was very nieve even though I was also, rebellious. My parents were sick of me, I guess and they did nothing to stop what happened to me. They simply, let me go. I think their attitude was that of many people during that time. They believed that sexual morality rested on the shoulders of the girl even if she were taken advantage of by a grown man. What happened to me was against the law, even back then but statutory rape laws are ‘controversial’ to many and my parents don’t think they count. After all, my mom was 18 and my dad 28 when they married. I was only a couple of years younger than my mom was when she married and in their eyes, I was getting what I deserved. I don’t think they even bothered to find out how much older he was than me. The fact that he had been married, had a child, been divorced, and worked in the porn industry didn’t send up any red flags either. I was the girl, a bad girl, it was all my fault, and I accepted the responsibility for my sexual abuse. I was nearly 50 before I understood that it wasn’t my fault.
My memories of the years that I was sexually abused by ephebophiles and men who aren’t necessarily attracted only to teenagers but will engage in sexual relations with them if the opportunity presents itself, are fragmented and jumbled. Those two years seem to be at least, twenty years long. I remember some of the horror but much of it I’ve hidden from myself. Sometimes, I remember in a flashback and then it escapes me again. What I couldn’t hide from myself was the shame. I carried the weight of it for decades. To be sexually abused as a child is to be heavily lathered in the abusers emotional excrement and no matter how hard you scrub, the stain is indelible, on the mind and the soul. The man who first abused me, murdered the child I was and left an emotionally damaged young woman in her place. He took away all the rites of passage that are so important in easing a teenager into adulthood. He stole my purity and the possibility of a first-time sexual experience between two consenting adults, who love and respect one another. Instead, my first time was rape and I was raped repeatedly, nearly every day, for two years. My already low self-esteem was crushed and I learned to value myself as a sexual object rather than a person. Already easily manipulated, I completely lost my ability to say “no”. I was a good object and I moved as I was commanded to move. It was the only way I could survive. As a person, I shattered and became many persons, each a reflection of whoever the adult ruling over me wanted me to be. I also, dissociated to become the type of person who could handle doing what I couldn’t bear to do. Shame and guilt bore down on me in the form of depressions that immobilized me for months at a time, for decades. Instead of a happy, innocent young woman, I became hyper-vigelent and afraid. In the flowering of my youth, I wanted only, to die. The ephebophile who abused me, robbed me of a normal life and the person I could have been if I had been allowed to develop, normally.
I’m thankful that I know, Jesus and for God’s intervention in my life. He gave me a husband who loves me unconditionally and through him, taught me what love really is. At my lowest point, when all I really wanted was to die, God stepped in and instead, gave me eternal life, through faith in, Jesus. Believing in the power of life over death, gave me a desire to live and the will to fight to overcome the damage done to me. It has been a long road to recovery and I didn’t become who I might have been if I hadn’t endured such a painful childhood. That was taken from me, forever. However, God has worked all the evil set to destroy me to my good and I am becoming more like, Jesus every day. I am blessed but there are many like me who aren’t so blessed. I wish I could say that things have changed since I was a teenager and the kind of abuse I suffered, less common but I can’t. If anything,things have gotten much worse for teenagers and more young girls and boys are being sexually abused and exploited, than ever before. That’s why I’m speaking out now. No child should be treated the way I was treated and no child should be held responsible for being treated that way. If it is ignorance that causes people to turn a blind eye, then I will do everything in my power to end that ignorance. As a grandmother, I want a better world for my grandchildren. I want them to live in a world that values children as important human beings and not objects of gratification for character disordered adults. The ephebophiles and others who abused me, hid under the cover of the sexual revolution that was in full swing in the seventies. They also, took advantage of an old moral code that placed all responsibility for sexual morality on young girls and next to none on men. Now they cloak themselves in the sexual promiscuity that is embraced as normal, today. It is all sexual insanity and lies that support the criminal sexual insanity of those who prey upon children. My prayer is that if I and others like me, share how we were damaged by sexual predators that somehow, we will begin to rebuild the sexual morality necessary to make sex emotionally safe and a culture that places high value on children as persons and not as commodities. Law alone isn’t enough. Strong morality gives the law teeth and the power to make sexual predators more rare. I don’t enjoy writing or speaking about the destruction of my childhood but by doing so, I am taking the guilt and shame that I wrongfully bore for such a long time and putting it back on those to whom it really belongs. May pedophiles, hebophiles, and ephebophiles be buried in the shame and guilt that they have lathered on their victims and labeled as love. May the reality of the pain they cause children burden them so heavily that they respond by turning to, Jesus for salvation and deliverance. I pray they would struggle to overcome their sin in the same way that I have struggled to overcome the emotional, psychological, and physical damage done to me. As the Truth has set me free, may Truth set all children free from sexual abuse and exploitation.
