Something disturbed me today. I was spending time with my boyfriend and his parents at their house, when his mom recounted a story from when he was four. He spotted a cute girl at the mall around his age, and he ran over to her and kissed her on the lips. His parents just laughed and acted like it was a cute story, and my boyfriend acted embarrassed but not in any way ashamed.
I work with sexual abuse survivors and the whole story - and their blaise attitude towards it - disturbed me. Am I just taking things too seriously because of my line of work? Mom and Dad see a cute story, I see sexual assault and a violation of boundaries.
For what it's worth, my boyfriend is pretty saintly and would never have forced himself on anyone beyond that age.
Nope, I've been certified to work with survivors of sexual abuse since 2013. I'm 28 and my boyfriend is 27.
Asher Clark
They're fucking kids, they're still learning and exploring the world.
>sexual assault >violation of boundaries
Go see a counsellor about how your work is affecting your ability to react to things outside it.
Elijah Torres
>I work with sexual abuse survivors and the whole story What is the average age of the abuser and the survivors?
Do you really think a 4 year can assult someone? You need to put the situation into perspective. There is a huge difference between a 50 year old man grabbing and kissing a random woman in the subway and a 4 year old kissing someone. If you want to toss all common sense out the window and be literal with it, then yes, your boyfriend sexually abused someone and should be thrown into jail for 25 years.
>probably
Lucas Diaz
The fact that you haven't initiated a sexual assault case on the behalf of that 4 year old girl is pretty shocking. I'd say you're a complicit rapist, if not an active one.
Gabriel Morgan
and to think you are in a position to help people and cannot see how absurd. get your head out of your ass
Here's the thing about women like OP. She attacks a 4 yo, questions the mindset of her bf's parent for laughing at this abuse but would give a pass to a muslim refugee that raped a woman in a bikini at a pool saying he didn't know he couldn't do that and the remedy to prevent further rapes, put up a sign they can't do that here.
Eli Butler
No, the solution to further rapes is to convince women that foreigners can't rape, and that all sex from them is good and pleasureable.
Aaron Reed
Hmm... do you think that's what happening? Their laughing at the story made me think about how sexual abuse is trivialized so much, and that made me distinctly uncomfortable and want to just leave the room. Maybe I have gotten in too deep... all I could think during that whole stretch of conversation was "You are part of the problem. You are why so many men (and women) spend their whole lives doubting themselves and never come forward about what happened."
Noah Hughes
Oh, and nice strawman, hon. Yes, that is totally a thing I would do.
Julian Bell
Calm the fuck down they were 4
Ayden Harris
B8
Owen Sanchez
Do refugees who are rapist deserve to be tried on the same charges and risk the same penalties as native born people who are rapist?
Liam Ortiz
Yes, rape is rape.
Landon Turner
K. You disagree with the vast majority of Western judges
Aiden Howard
I think that 4 year olds don't know what is right or wrong and are still learning and their parents think it was cute. What bothers you is now you wonder if they raised him to continually be let off the hook and excused rather than using these moments as a teaching moment.
And your answer is probably that they have given he was embarrassed about it and his parents shared a cute and personal story from that time. It's likely they taught him right from wrong. If you have bad vibes you can leave but based on this story alone it's a very common experience and you are hypersensitive to it due to your line of work.
Unless he gave any other reason to not trust him, let it go.
Jack Thomas
Yeah, nigga. At that age, children minds aren't fully developed to be that conscious of their actions or the repercussions. It's more of curiosity and intutive sort of thinking rather than logic and reason. Your parents probably have tons of similar stories about you too, OP. Get yourself off /tumblr/ and stop following leftist mentality. Not everything is an attack on something or someone. Y'all just like for any old reason to complain or have a discourse about fucking nothing.
Luke Kelly
Wait, do you honestly think your boyfriend, as a 4 year old, was assaulting another kid by kissing her? Kids do that shit all the time. They're being playful and mimicking what they see in movie and in real life. Their social awareness simply isn't developed yet. You can bet your ass he wouldn't smooch a random chick on the street as an adult.
Elijah Butler
Only thing this story reveals is that his parents weren't good parents that teach their kids from a young age how to behave in public, but that's standard in the western world.
Jaxson Ortiz
christ
he was FOUR.
and sexual abuse isn't even trivialized, it's literally regarded as worse than murder
Oliver Fisher
It is. You search for the absurd, that hidden gem everyone else cannot see, so you can prove how pervasive the culture of abuse is. The refugee rape is so blatant to the rest of us you don't get any points or accolades. However, to feel important you easily explain away and blame it on their culture and they cannot be held responsible in yours.
Christian Lee
So your bf at 4 attempted to rape his playmate?
Luis Bell
holy shit people on this board are so fucking stupid to think this is real if you must reply (which you don't have to btw) put sage in the options so this shit doesn't get bumped
OP believes rape is rape. a 4 yo or a rapefugee are equivalent
Easton Howard
They clearly did as the guy was embarrassed when the story was told, meaning the parents damn well knew that it was an embarrassing but harmless thing for a kid to do.
Nathaniel Martin
He was four years old, you fucking imbecile.
Juan Martinez
Harmless for HIM. No one knows how the girl felt about it. That said had it been my daughter, I would have curbstomped the kid. I really wonder why parents in the west don't teach their kids to stay close by, or God forbid maybe even hold them by the hand. Or those new leashes for kids, lmao.
Austin Jackson
Yes. Op Btfo'd again.
Jaxson Robinson
>4 year olds don't know what is right or wrong but she doesn't consider that in the 4 yo but does in the case of a refugee rapist. At home the refugee rapist isn't a rapist so therefore cannot be held accountable for laws in another country.
Ian Scott
OP's bf didn't pull the girls panties down and hump her. Whats wrong with you people
Jason Lopez
Based
Samuel Perez
I mean it is indicative of the trivialization of boundaries but you have to contextualize the situation—they're 4 years old. The pragmatic option would be to leave it be, the power dynamic is really minimal there and being kissed is not as bad as some things. And that's important, we need to stop creating this idea of rape as a crime beyond all crimes because it makes us not recognize most rape, which isn't Ted Bundy just some fucking idiot fingering an unconscious girl behind a dumpster. The power dynamic between two 4 year olds is different from the power dynamic between two adults or an adult and a child. I get it cause I'm a CSA victim, and have been victimized shortly after moving out at 18, but unless you have an intimate relationship with the topic you aren't as sensitive to it. Pick your battles with his family if you do want to change stuff. If gross grandpa talks about hitting on women and he says he did x thing ask him, 'well what did she think about that'? in a non judgemental manner. It forces people to empathize in a way they normally wouldn't.
Kevin Reyes
its pretty simple really. A. Toddlers are fucking intense little people. They're a strange mix of both Satanic and Angelic. B. Don't take this the wrong way, but you seem to automatically assume that his kiss was taken negatively, or seemed invasive to the little girl. Again 4yo's, toddlers don't exactly react like socially conditioned adults. That little girl was possibly 100% happy to have been kissed. Or she wasn't, and like any 4yo would have automatically shown an emotional reaction to the situation, angry, sad etc. and I don't want to assume to much but I imagine she didn't or the parents may not have remembered the moment as fondly.
Tyler Smith
he was 4. you're letting your line of work blurr reality for you.
Ethan Wright
>He spotted a cute girl at the mall around his age, >he ran over to her and kissed her on the lips. Plot twist OP, that girl was you.
You guys were meant to be.
Lucas Brooks
For real OP you can't be serious. I am someone who has been abused and in no way do I see your point.
>no one knows how the girl felt about and innocent (even if it was inappropriate) kiss, that wasn't meant as assault because his mind isn't even fully developed yet. >me the righteous hero will physically assault a 4yo to teach him how normal rational people should act within society.
Elijah Thompson
Stop being a bitch user. Sexual assault isnt a joke and im proud of you for helping people but he was 4. The reason sexual abuse damages women is because of the world view built up by society over years. A worldview 4 year olds dont have. Cave women didnt have breakdowns when they were raped, neither do 4 year olds. Hes changed and nurture killed nature.
Jaxon Phillips
He was 4, do you want toddlers put in juvenile prison and put on a sex offenders list? You're taking it way too far. Jesus christ.
Leo Watson
Your job is clearly affecting your perception of day-to-day occurrences in your daily life. That said, it's indicative of a strong sense of empathy that probably makes you quite good at your job.
Get better at separating the two mindsets.
Kevin Miller
I was butt fucked when i was three. Would have much rather preferred a kiss.
Jason Garcia
Srfu bitchanon id curbstomp your daughter but youre r/unfuckable
OP, if you can't understand the difference between a four year old child and an adult, and why, in our society, one is treated as having agency and responsibility for their actions and one is not, this thread is going to have an awful tough time explaining it to you. He was four years old. The most important decision he'd ever made in his life up to that point was which color to make Sebastian the Crab in the Disney Coloring Book he drew in last week.
Having said that, I think you need to take a long, hard look at why you feel personally violated by something that someone else did, to someone who wasn't you, many many years ago. You should probably also try to explain to yourself why you look on an innocent show of affection between little kids who don't know any better as sexual abuse. To them, its just a kiss. Its what they do to show love to their mom or their sister/brother or whatever. It doesn't have a sexual component to it until you're old enough to discover sex.
You're really internalizing a lot about this situation, and assuming a lot more if you think that anything about this behavior was threatening to anyone in any way other than you. And you should probably figure out why you feel that way, because it doesn't sound very healthy.
