Tbh, it depends on what you mean exactly, and still there’s a barrier for me that I don’t get creeped out by much of anything as an adult. Didn’t as a kid tbh, but it did happen here and there.
I think the one that’s going to fit what most people would think of as creepy, rather than just being a very imaginative kid that could scare himself silly, is this old guy that lived nearby.
There was a trail in the neighborhood that ran across several little batches of trees and hidden sections of yards that kids would use instead of walking on roads. It was faster for one thing, and there were sections that older kids couldn’t get through, much less adults. So it was ours.
Anyway, the guy lived on one edge of the trail. One of the few open sections, it ran alongside his yard and into a ditch.
He was a nice guy. He’d wave, say howdy, that kind of thing. Sometimes I’d join him for a spell on his porch if it was super hot. He’d usually offer something cold to drink, we’d talk a while, and that was that.
One day, I was wearing some swimming trunks. They swished a lot when I ran. When I stopped to set a spell with him, he joked about hearing me before he saw me because of the fabric. I explained I had been swimming earlier, and didn’t want to change.
He said something along the lines of “oh, swim shorts, right?”
To which I said yes. He asked if they were the kind with built in underwear. It so happened they were, so I said yes. He then slid a hand up the leg of the shorts to feel the built in underwear. Needless to say, there were things in those shorts being supported by the built-in undies, and he ran his fingers over them.
Very gently, and only for a moment before pulling away and saying they seemed comfortable. He offered me some tea, and I had some.
It wasn’t in any way traumatic for me. Now, I knew enough to not go back. This was the eighties, and we were being taught about good and bad touches, and I didn’t like what he did. I thought it was very rude for one, but everyone was saying that grownups weren’t supposed to be touching kids “down there”. So I figured he might not stop there, even though he didn’t do it aggressively, or even in what seemed like a bad way at the time.
It just tickled a little, and he didn’t ask permission. So it was rude.
Nothing else ever happened. Didn’t think to tell anyone about it at the time. Mainly because I forgot it had happened until a few days later when I was going by and he waved. I remembered it, and just waved as I went about my business. It really didn’t bother me, it was more that you don’t hang around people that do that kind of thing.
As an adult, it’s a little creepy in that it could have gone way worse. And I wish young me had told someone purely because I doubt he would have been that brazen to grope a kid on his porch if he wasn’t in that habit already. But, he was old old, as in well into his eighties, so he didn’t last much longer. Had a stroke maybe a year or so later, though I didn’t know that part until a few years ago, only that he had died.
Thing is, back a decade or so ago, I ran into some of the kids from the neighborhood and the subject of the trail came up, and he got mentioned. I told the story about him, and everyone was surprised. He hadn’t tried it with any of them, though all of us had had drinks with him alone a few times. One of the guys said his brother complained about the man and told him not to be alone with him, but didn’t say why at the time.
Eventually, word got around and the most the guy ever did was touch. Never for long, never enough to really scare anyone, but enough that they would stop visiting with him. It’s one of those things where nobody he fondled really thought it was the same thing we were being warned about. It was bad, but the instructions we were getting back then made it seem like the bad people that liked doing sexual things to kids were going to kidnap you or be really aggressive. This was just a dude on his porch.
Which is pretty insidious, and makes it creepier looking back on it than it was at the time. Like, the guy was flying under the radar, and probably kept it that way on purpose. That’s creepier to me than someone going all Chester Molester and trying to undress you or get you to do sexual things. The stealth is creepy, the more aggressive stuff is “just” evil, if you get the distinction.
I’m still kind of surprised how little it bothered me. It doesn’t even bother me now tbh. It’s just something that happened, akin to getting a sunburn. Not good, but no real emotional impact. It was more disappointing than anything else. Dude had always been nice, and a cold drink on a shaded porch was a great thing, and now that was over because he couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
Most of the time I talk about it, folks around me have more emotional responses than I had in the moment. I uses to wonder if that means I’m just extra weird, but I’ve run into enough people who had similar experiences that weren’t traumatized either that I figure it’s more about the details of how things go than the simple fact of it happening.
Creeps me out?
Tbh, it depends on what you mean exactly, and still there’s a barrier for me that I don’t get creeped out by much of anything as an adult. Didn’t as a kid tbh, but it did happen here and there.
I think the one that’s going to fit what most people would think of as creepy, rather than just being a very imaginative kid that could scare himself silly, is this old guy that lived nearby.
There was a trail in the neighborhood that ran across several little batches of trees and hidden sections of yards that kids would use instead of walking on roads. It was faster for one thing, and there were sections that older kids couldn’t get through, much less adults. So it was ours.
Anyway, the guy lived on one edge of the trail. One of the few open sections, it ran alongside his yard and into a ditch.
He was a nice guy. He’d wave, say howdy, that kind of thing. Sometimes I’d join him for a spell on his porch if it was super hot. He’d usually offer something cold to drink, we’d talk a while, and that was that.
One day, I was wearing some swimming trunks. They swished a lot when I ran. When I stopped to set a spell with him, he joked about hearing me before he saw me because of the fabric. I explained I had been swimming earlier, and didn’t want to change.
He said something along the lines of “oh, swim shorts, right?”
To which I said yes. He asked if they were the kind with built in underwear. It so happened they were, so I said yes. He then slid a hand up the leg of the shorts to feel the built in underwear. Needless to say, there were things in those shorts being supported by the built-in undies, and he ran his fingers over them.
Very gently, and only for a moment before pulling away and saying they seemed comfortable. He offered me some tea, and I had some.
It wasn’t in any way traumatic for me. Now, I knew enough to not go back. This was the eighties, and we were being taught about good and bad touches, and I didn’t like what he did. I thought it was very rude for one, but everyone was saying that grownups weren’t supposed to be touching kids “down there”. So I figured he might not stop there, even though he didn’t do it aggressively, or even in what seemed like a bad way at the time.
It just tickled a little, and he didn’t ask permission. So it was rude.
Nothing else ever happened. Didn’t think to tell anyone about it at the time. Mainly because I forgot it had happened until a few days later when I was going by and he waved. I remembered it, and just waved as I went about my business. It really didn’t bother me, it was more that you don’t hang around people that do that kind of thing.
As an adult, it’s a little creepy in that it could have gone way worse. And I wish young me had told someone purely because I doubt he would have been that brazen to grope a kid on his porch if he wasn’t in that habit already. But, he was old old, as in well into his eighties, so he didn’t last much longer. Had a stroke maybe a year or so later, though I didn’t know that part until a few years ago, only that he had died.
Thing is, back a decade or so ago, I ran into some of the kids from the neighborhood and the subject of the trail came up, and he got mentioned. I told the story about him, and everyone was surprised. He hadn’t tried it with any of them, though all of us had had drinks with him alone a few times. One of the guys said his brother complained about the man and told him not to be alone with him, but didn’t say why at the time.
Eventually, word got around and the most the guy ever did was touch. Never for long, never enough to really scare anyone, but enough that they would stop visiting with him. It’s one of those things where nobody he fondled really thought it was the same thing we were being warned about. It was bad, but the instructions we were getting back then made it seem like the bad people that liked doing sexual things to kids were going to kidnap you or be really aggressive. This was just a dude on his porch.
Which is pretty insidious, and makes it creepier looking back on it than it was at the time. Like, the guy was flying under the radar, and probably kept it that way on purpose. That’s creepier to me than someone going all Chester Molester and trying to undress you or get you to do sexual things. The stealth is creepy, the more aggressive stuff is “just” evil, if you get the distinction.
I’m still kind of surprised how little it bothered me. It doesn’t even bother me now tbh. It’s just something that happened, akin to getting a sunburn. Not good, but no real emotional impact. It was more disappointing than anything else. Dude had always been nice, and a cold drink on a shaded porch was a great thing, and now that was over because he couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
Most of the time I talk about it, folks around me have more emotional responses than I had in the moment. I uses to wonder if that means I’m just extra weird, but I’ve run into enough people who had similar experiences that weren’t traumatized either that I figure it’s more about the details of how things go than the simple fact of it happening.