Lack of younger encounters?

[cintarius]

I saw some threads relate to peoples younger experiences and other users called some posters pedos. I have a question for the group? Rather than the hasty accusation of pedo is the topic of younger experiences a little more prevalent just because many of us didn’t have any since growing up gay limited our opportunities? Thoughts?

[ErosWired]

I’m not entirely sure I understand your question properly, but in general my observation about the accounts of emergent sexual experiences on the forum do seem to exhibit a division in tone between those who report being exposed to sexuality at an early age and those who come here to discuss their awakening to same-sex relations as legal-age adults.

Among the former set there seems to be some alternation between those who feel that the experience shaped them positively, and those who do not. What I sense less of, however, is the overall feeling of self-examination that occurs among the latter group; it’s as though the early exposure establishes a set of parameters around an individual’s sexual identity that then require less introspective analysis later. This is a generalization, obviously; some who experienced early encounters may be dealing with deep-seated confusion or trauma still related to those early events.

All of this is said with the caveat that a certain amount of the narratives of young experience, especially of an incestuous nature, is almost certainly at least highly embellished, if not outright fictitious. The sheer number of people claiming to have been molested as children and love the fact that they were is highly dubious, and flies in the face of the experience of those who deal with children coping with the aftermath of abuse.

I think that if you find that topics involving experiences at a young age are more common than topics about ‘coming out’ or ‘self-realization’ narratives as adults, my guess is that it’s probably a reflection of a preponderance of fictional narrative about being turned out young. I’m always suspicious of stories that purport to be an account of a memory from childhood, but contain detailed descriptions of things that a child would not have observed at the time - a child, for instance, is not going to note that the adult had an 8” cock. Cock inches are an adult fixation.

As to whether the persons involved in the narratives are ‘pedo’ - I try to be somewhat circumspect in judgment. I am an absolute defender of children, and were I to come upon a man sodomizing or despoiling a child I would kill him on the spot, without a moment’s hesitation. That is what must be done with monsters. Given that conviction, I always wish to be quite, quite sure what I’m dealing with.

[backdoorjimmy]

15 hours ago, ErosWired said:

All of this is said with the caveat that a certain amount of the narratives of young experience, especially of an incestuous nature, is almost certainly at least highly embellished, if not outright fictitious. The sheer number of people claiming to have been molested as children and love the fact that they were is highly dubious, and flies in the face of the experience of those who deal with children coping with the aftermath of abuse.

This is a great observation. I don't like to point fingers and accuse people of making stuff up, but I think it's obvious when someone is writing fiction and when something is real. I had sex at a young age (13), but it was with someone I went to school with (14) and not with an adult or an adult family member. I have a hard time processing posts where someone says they were brought out at ridiculously young ages and enjoyed it. On the other hand, it would be foolish of me to think that those things don't happen in homes all over the world.

I was a pretty sexualized kid when I was growing up, but I kept it to myself until I was ready to come out. Some of the stuff I did alone in my room didn't feel sexual at the time, but now as an adult I can look back and see it for what it was. But I would have been frozen with fear if an adult made sexual advances toward me. When I was sexually active as a teenager, I hooked up with a 16 year old and was way out of my comfort zone. I won't say I hated it, but I didn't want to sleep with him again.

On the other hand, I'm sure there are 13 year olds who are perfectly comfortable hooking up with older guys. And I'm 100% positive that members of this site were just as comfortable doing that when they were young. Saying so out loud now doesn't make them pedos, or wrong. It was their experience. Also, some people might be working through trauma by posting positively about what happened because it makes it easier to cope. Again, that doesn't make them pedos. It means they were powerless to stop something awful that happened to them, and now they're reclaiming some of that power the only way they can.

15 hours ago, ErosWired said:

As to whether the persons involved in the narratives are ‘pedo’ - I try to be somewhat circumspect in judgment. I am an absolute defender of children, and were I to come upon a man sodomizing or despoiling a child I would kill him on the spot, without a moment’s hesitation. That is what must be done with monsters. Given that conviction, I always wish to be quite, quite sure what I’m dealing with.

I always try to separate a pedo from an offender, which is what you seem to be doing in this paragraph. I feel sad when people say they want all pedos to die - I want all pedos to get help before they offend. I'm not violent (I can't even throw a punch) but I have loathing for people who hurt others. Men, women and kids alike can be sexual assault victims. I think the best thing we can do as a society is get them help without the life-destroying stigma that comes with the label of pedo or rape-apologist.

[ErosWired]

@backdoorjimmy - Thank you for that perspective. I’m always a little hesitant around these topics because I wasn’t molested or sexualized in any way growing up - indeed, quite the opposite, I was an extremely late bloomer. The fact that I was largely oblivious to the sexual world through my teen years makes it difficult for me to identify with those whose experience started early and has essentially never stopped.

This does, nonetheless, leave me with a curious way of looking at my own situation. I read the accounts of men who day they were turned out early, and say that the experience strongly shaped the sexual beings they have become. Some say that the learned, or were taught or trained, or simply realized, at some early point that their role is to service men, to submit, to be receptacles, etc. I can see how early manipulation of a psyche could result in that kind of self-view, particularly if there were no intervention.

But I have come to the same conclusion about myself, yet I experienced no childhood sexualization at all. How have I ended up the dame way, when there was no external influence that groomed me to become a cumdump? I question whether whether some are perhaps led to it while others are simply born with it encoded within them. The fact that Dominant men have been able to cultivate it so readily in me as an adult leaves me to wonder what would have been the result if some predator had come upon me early - it’s a disturbing conjecture.

[backdoorjimmy]

2 hours ago, ErosWired said:

But I have come to the same conclusion about myself, yet I experienced no childhood sexualization at all. How have I ended up the dame way, when there was no external influence that groomed me to become a cumdump? I question whether whether some are perhaps led to it while others are simply born with it encoded within them. The fact that Dominant men have been able to cultivate it so readily in me as an adult leaves me to wonder what would have been the result if some predator had come upon me early - it’s a disturbing conjecture.

One of the results of being so sexualized as a kid was being placed into therapy by my mom - I wasn't exactly out, but I had a habit of blurting out "he's so cute" whenever I saw a cute boy I was attracted to. Add a nasty fetish that I can't mention on this site, and my mom took me to a therapist that I had to see for years. One of the things we talked about was my yearning to be at the service of other guys. Not because I was gay, but because I wanted to be controlled and used. I can't explain how it came out, but the therapist got it out of me and it was something we talked about every week.

I can only speak for myself, but my yearning to be a cumslut probably came from two things:

1. Me being a natural bottom who also happens to have a high sex drive.
2. Growing up without a man in my life - my dad passed away when I was 4 and I have really vague memories of him.

I spent my entire childhood yearning to be picked up and cuddled by a man. Not necessarily in a sexual way, but just in a loving, nurturing way. Since my mom runs through partners like I do, I was never able to have a meaningful connection with any of her boyfriends. The men in my extended family seem to be allergic to touch and especially hugging, so it was never an option for me to get that kind of affection from my grandpa or any of my uncles.

Looking back, it's probably a good thing I explored my sexuality with another boy. I would have been putty in a man's hands if I'd have been subjected to an adult who wanted to seduce me. I would have been petrified and might have even looked for a way out of it, but I was susceptible to emotional manipulation and always aroused. So I probably would have given in at some point, especially if cuddling and male affection was on the table.

 

[PigBoyDallas]

For starters I know firsthand the moderators are pretty strict here on talking about sexual adventures when we were underage. And I know a lot of guys on here didn't have any experiences until after they were 18 and I get that. I did and unlike the straight kids in HS I didn't talk about my experiences as my school was primarily Latino and there's a lot of social stigmas to gay sex even though a lot of Latino boys and guys engage in it. And that's the heteronormative pressure in our society. Straight guys are the norm and its acceptable for them to talk about or brag about their sexual exploits. Gay guys, not so much, unless it's with other gay guys. I wasn't ashamed of my desires and what I did then, but I was only open about it with buds I could trust. But guys talk and word got out I could be had and soon had other guys telling me they wanted to have sex with me. And honestly, that puts a lot of pressure on a gay kid as you can't be open and honest about yourself and what you're doing sexually. Pile on top of that the fact that our sex ed was utter crap and really didn't address sexual health for gay kids and it made it worse. So, I learned from trial and error with buds and figured out what I liked and didn't like.

And I understand not wanting to sexualize children and sheltering them from things that make adults squirm or uncomfortable, but not being honest with kids and withholding important information from them is fucking them up and warping them. A lot of sex ed is geared towards scaring kids away from having sex entirely and that's also messed up. Kids are going to have sex, so why not explain to them how it can be a wonderful thing as well as safe and fun. Because let me tell you, the current system is generating the kind of guys who feel they have to drug girls (or guys) to have their way with them and non-consensual sex. And honestly, it is getting better now as there's more talk of what constitutes non-consensual sex, but again, it's an emphasis on the scare factor. But hey, no one listened to the mouthy Latino kid then and certainly not to the mouthy Latino guy now...

And honestly, I look back on my sexual encounters then with a mix of fondness and horror. I was a stupid naive kid, navigating my way through a dangerous world. I don't want to close the door to the past, but I don't think back on it often or talk about it much. It made me who I am but I'm more focused on the here and now. My behavior then set the template for who I am now, and I've done some work on casting off some of the fucked-up shit that was dumped on me by teachers, counselors, and priests. I'm not who I was then, thank you. Sadly I have buds who seem frozen in their behavior, and it hasn't changed since HS. And that's not only sad but scary. They're stunted emotionally. 

And I understand the guys who rage against this kind of thing. They feel they're defending children and stopping human sexual trafficking. But they fail to see the underlying systemic problems that actually create and perpetuate the problem. And I know I'm not articulating all of this well and probably not making a persuasive argument. In that respect I'm still the mouthy Latino kid popping off, angering the teacher, and winding up in the Principal's office.

[Close2MyBro]

On 4/3/2022 at 9:09 PM, ErosWired said:

All of this is said with the caveat that a certain amount of the narratives of young experience, especially of an incestuous nature, is almost certainly at least highly embellished, if not outright fictitious. The sheer number of people claiming to have been molested as children and love the fact that they were is highly dubious, and flies in the face of the experience of those who deal with children coping with the aftermath of abuse.

Not everyone is traumatized by early experiences. For many, the trauma sets in when they're told they're "supposed" to be traumatized. I have numerous friends that had early experiences and only a couple saw it as traumatic. The others were somewhat ignorant about what they were doing but knew that they enjoyed doing it. You're assuming every person is "abused" but that's a purely subjective label. Many people don't feel abused, and I believe it is wrong to mess them up mentally by convincing them that they need to feel abused.

[ErosWired]

2 hours ago, Close2MyBro said:

I have numerous friends that had early experiences and only a couple saw it as traumatic.

You would have us believe that the great majority of persons subjected to sexual abuse, assault and rape don’t actually experience trauma from it? Not buying it. My own experience was mild by comparison to some, but the trauma was real, and I didn’t have to be told I was supposed to feel that way.

The way you say abuse is a subjective label sounds like an apologist argument in defense of abusers. Individual reaction to personal violation certainly varies, but I think there comes a point at which we have to say abuse is abuse.

People shouldn’t “mess with their heads”? We’ll revisit this discussion when you’ve completed your degree in psychiatry.

[Close2MyBro]

1 minute ago, ErosWired said:

You would have us believe that the great majority of persons subjected to sexual abuse, assault and rape don’t actually experience trauma from it? Not buying it. My own experience was mild by comparison to some, but the trauma was real, and I didn’t have to be told I was supposed to feel that way.

The way you say abuse is a subjective label sounds like an apologist argument in defense of abusers. Individual reaction to personal violation certainly varies, but I think there comes a point at which we have to say abuse is abuse.

People shouldn’t “mess with their heads”? We’ll revisit this discussion when you’ve completed your degree in psychiatry.

You're obviously projecting your experience. You aren't everyone else. Let other people decide for themselves how they feel about their own experience instead of trying to convince me or them that it should be or needs to be traumatic.

[BootmanLA]

13 hours ago, Close2MyBro said:

You're obviously projecting your experience. You aren't everyone else. Let other people decide for themselves how they feel about their own experience instead of trying to convince me or them that it should be or needs to be traumatic.

I think, to be fair: a lot depends on who the people involved were. There's an enormous difference between, say, a 19 year old young man and a 17 year old young man having sex, and a 35-year old man having sex with a 13-year old, even if the 13-year old is horny, even if he's sexually capable, even if he's attracted to older men, even if he's the top, even if he doesn't think he's being traumatized. Just because someone says "I wasn't manipulated and I don't feel traumatized" doesn't mean that they were not, in fact, manipulated, and had they known that earlier, they might well have a different perspective on trauma.

As long as humans develop and mature at varying rates, any limits placed in terms of age of consent laws are going to be somewhat arbitrary: some young people are mature enough and ready for sexual experimentation long before others are. And there's also always going to be some discretion involved as to which cases to pursue and which to let slide. For far too long, those decisions were based more on influence and misperceptions of power; the 19 year old junior-college boy who had consensual sex with his 16 year old girlfriend got felony jail time because mommy and daddy wanted to punish him for defiling their baby girl while the minister or coach or doctor who groomed dozens of kids and had sex with all of them never got charged because no one wanted to ruin the reputation of a good man who had done so much for the community.

And for gay kids, historically, the situation was worse because they were all, almost to a person, closeted and frequently ashamed of feelings they didn't understand that society (and often their families) were vocally condemning. Those kids were ripe for grooming by adults to get them into sex with the only other gay people the kids knew: themselves. 

Thankfully, there's an ongoing shift in accountability for those who groom kids. 

[DarkroomTaker]

People have their own experiences and should be allowed to feel how THEY feel, not how people generalise how they should feel.

But hey ho.

[ErosWired]

23 hours ago, Close2MyBro said:

You're obviously projecting your experience. You aren't everyone else. Let other people decide for themselves how they feel about their own experience instead of trying to convince me or them that it should be or needs to be traumatic.

If it’s all right with you, I’ll take my advice on the prevalence of the effects of sexual abuse from mental health professionals, social scientists, and other researchers in the field who know what they’re talking about and have something a bit more enlightened to offer than ‘let them feel the way they want to’. There are whole organizations and working groups whose purpose is to help people deal with the consequences of having been sexually victimized. Why? Because it usually negatively impacts people at some level, your ‘numerous’ examples notwithstanding.

What about a person who is dealing with trauma by adopting a maladaptive denial strategy in which he tells himself and everyone else he’s fine in order to avoid having to cope with the fact that he very much isn’t, and is in fact struggling with feelings of shame, doubt, and loss of self-esteem? Are you saying no one should even suggest to him that he might want to talk about any negative feelings he may have as a result of what happened to him? No mental health professional would agree with you.

By your metric, anyone who feels traumatized should shut up about it lest by ‘projecting’ he make someone who isn’t think that he ought to be. There may indeed be people not badly traumatized by abuse, assault or rape, but the consequences for those who are can be profound and life-altering. Your prescription of not talking about trauma sounds a lot like it would contribute to the stigma that already surrounds the issue and prevents many who could benefit from help from seeking it.

Besides, a person whose psyche and personality are stable and healthy is not going to become traumatized by the suggestion of trauma if they experienced none to begin with. Your argument against ‘messing with their heads’ is the same as that heard frequently among anti-psychiatry zealots.

[Close2MyBro]

3 minutes ago, ErosWired said:

... By your metric, anyone who feels traumatized should shut up about it lest by ‘projecting’ he make someone who isn’t think that he ought to be. There may indeed be people not badly traumatized by abuse, assault or rape, but the consequences for those who are can be profound and life-altering. 

I'm not telling you to 'shut up' (as you put it), all I'm saying  is that YOUR experience is not everyone else's experience, even though you seem to think it should be. You can talk or not talk about your own experience any way you want and feel how you want to feel. You just can't try to tell someone else what they think or feel is wrong. Every time you choose to disagree with someone and they challenge you, you have to turn to insulting them. I think this action of yours does more to damage your own credibility than it helps you win an argument. And thanks for falsely concluding (based on NO evidence) that I am an anti-psychiatry. I think we see where the zealot thinking really lies.

[blackrobe]

20 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

I think, to be fair: a lot depends on who the people involved were. There's an enormous difference between, say, a 19 year old young man and a 17 year old young man having sex, and a 35-year old man having sex with a 13-year old, even if the 13-year old is horny, even if he's sexually capable, even if he's attracted to older men, even if he's the top, even if he doesn't think he's being traumatized. Just because someone says "I wasn't manipulated and I don't feel traumatized" doesn't mean that they were not, in fact, manipulated, and had they known that earlier, they might well have a different perspective on trauma.

This.

I was drugged and then raped at 12. My memories end when he climbed on top of me in his briefs and pick up again the next morning when I'm in the shower feeling weird (post-drug haze or disassociation) and with a really sore hole. I don't have memories of the experience, but my underwear was quite bloody so that says a lot.

Part of the human mind's evolutionary development is to make sense of the world we live in and to rationalize our experiences. I spent plenty of time getting help when I realized what had been done to me and how it had affected me years later. I've been in men's groups where we talked about what happened to us and how we came to understand and integrate it into our lives. We renovate our memories after the fact and give new and different meaning to them as part of finding a way to make sense of them and to live with them. The same thing happens in near real time as well. Almost every kid finds a way to make what happened to them their fault. It's only in the process of understanding what happened to them that they see their limited agency and the part the adult played in a more objective light.

There is no clear correlation between the severity of the experience and the impact it has on the individual. Some men who had a man expose himself to them, but never touched them, are horribly scarred, while others who were brutally and repeatedly raped over years are much more functional. It's not what was done to you, it's how it affected you. That varies wildly according to the individuals nature, knowledge, and gifts.

[Kayne]

I don't know whether talking about my experience is gonna add fuel to this fire, but this subject touches me, so I am gonna say my piece. 

I've described in other threads what I went through as a child. It was horrific. there were years of fear, secrecy and pain. at 6 I should have been a care free child playing with toys and learning about the world. instead, I modeled the psychotic and self destructive behavior of my abuser... My dad. This was going on while I was still being abused by my "God parents" My Mom had to shut me away in a psychiatric children's hospital, where I was raped by a teenager also in the facility. I spent years 7- 10 in another facility where the abuse continued. 

I say this because it really fucked up my ability to trust. It fucked up my ability to be comfortable around others. It made me paranoid. It totally destroyed my ability to ask for help,  It is a good thing to teach a child that nothing in life is "Free"  but teaching them that everything has a proce in the manner that I was taught does irreversible damage.

Mental Health facilities are like prisons in their way . I was on my own an surviving meant I had to learn to use my body to get what I needed or wanted. extra food, protection and the like. Surviving meant I couldn't appear weak or defenseless. Surviving meant I had to learn to act like and identify with those with the power. by the time I was 10, Iwss a predator. 

I bounced from underage hyper sexual predator targeting older men and boys to  creepy teen babysitter.  I went from Fine to suicidal.  Im amazed that though I fantasized about drugs I never did any or got hooked. even as a bartender. I didn't start drinking again until I was 25. (there was much earlier experience with alcohol).

I Did gamble, I did shop. Hell!i became a stripper. To this day my mind goes to very dark, very dangerous places. many of them I have been able to keep away fromby the grace of some higher power. The post orgasam guilt and disgust I feel can be crippling. at times. And still I have self destructive behaviors like bug chasing despite being Poz. 

Mentally "re-writing" history to give me agency and power has helped me cope and its gotten my rocks off. but being able to step outside myself to be both victim.and aggressor scares the shit out of me some days.

Having someone depend on me is a healthy deterrent to indulging indulging in things best not discussed or disclosed.

At the end of the day I don't believe anyone who says he or she was nod adversely affected by sex too early. I also don't believe that society's idea ofva "magic" number be it 16, 18, 21, or whatever, makes a person ready or mature enough to handle sexual situations.  I do think today's kids are worse off than their forebears when you consider that people had whole families at what we call the age of consent today less than 200 yars ago.  

But times change.  I dont believe the issue is as black or white as its been made to be. I do know that despite living in a world of gray, is hard and many people prefer the simplicity of black or white.