O Children

 O Children

There will be more victims

 In the middle of these past 9 months, since a millennial moment sent me down this Maron rabbit hole, the biggest part that has hurt my heart is watching how easily a sexual predator has slid into a new market for himself, a market of the most vulnerable humans on earth.  A market where this man has children, little girls, drawing pictures of Mr. Snake, to send to a man who will misuse and exploit some of these same little girls sexually the moment they turn 18, and who will receive some illegal pictures from some of these girls while they are still underage, pictures that he will not turn in to the FBI or to the parents/guardians of these girls.  And nobody is going to protect these children.  In many of my emails to Mr. Maron, I mention these children he is only just within the past few years starting to target.  They are the most vulnerable sector of the human population, and this man is being given more and more access to them, being actively marketed to them.

Since April 26, I have been trying to bring this predator into a public light, and my biggest reason for doing this is to try my best to protect the little girls this man will one day sexually exploit and leave suicidal, like the girl with a gun who was pleading Mr. Maron to take her back, in public replies on his posts that would disappear as soon as she posted them, words telling him she loved him, begging him not to ignore and ghost her anymore, now that he was done with her.  This girl was 12 when Mr. Maron filmed his Thanksgiving book-reading for children, which gets played in schools across our country.  This girl was shown Mr. Maron was safe, at twelve, by having him publicly marketed to her as a child.  A few years later, this girl, a girl diagnosed with BPD, a sexualized child, a suicidal girl with a gun in her possession and on display in her Instagram photos, was in a very real crisis, because Mr. Maron was done using her, and he did not give a shit about her anymore.  I was hoping my public words might, at the very least, make Mr. Maron decide to back off his playing more and more for a child market.

In his WTF podcast today, Marc Maron makes it clear he is hoping for more appearances by Mr. Snake in the future, and is publicly enjoying  how he is reaching children.  It hurt my heart so much to hear his words today.  He knows exactly what he is doing, and he knows nobody cares enough about sexualized little girls to ever stop him.  He will be marketed to more children.  He is happy about that.

Victims of sexual exploitation do not need public exposure.  That is a fundamental truth for me.  But right now, it is taking everything in me to not insert a picture of this suicidal little girl right here in this blog post, along with pictures of her posts full of suicidal ideation, and a photo of the gun in her possession.  I know such pictures might have an actual impact on those reading this.  That is probably the one thing I could do right now that might actually protect future children from being sexually exploited by this predator.  How in the hell do I weigh the damage that would do, me putting that broken girl's photos here, against the damage Mr. Maron is going to do to those victims he will be exploiting and throwing aside in the future?  

The pain of this is horrible for me. 

There will be no pictures in this post.

There are children, this second, who will be future victims of Mr. Maron's.  Nobody is protecting them.

Caring About What Others Say

Ever since I first started developing memories I have always been able to recall, somewhere around 2 years of age, I have felt a deep need to keep others happy.  I'm not sure why.  I was always sensitive to other's feelings, especially the feelings of non-humans.  (This post is an example of that behavior in action: Sensitivity.)  I do know that once I became an adult, there was a lot I never said, out of fear of offending anyone.  The minute I said anything that got a negative response, I would shut up.  I think this happens to a lot of people.  I think it comes from simply not wanting to be hurtful to others, which isn't bad, until it makes people stay quiet while others are being harmed.

As an adult, I have heard people say that I needed to learn to not pay attention to others who made me feel like I should shut up.  So many times I would hear things like, "Don't listen to them," "Let that shit roll off your back like water off a duck," "Do like a dog, kick some dirt over that bs and walk away," "You really need to stop caring about what others think," etc, etc.  I tried hard to figure out how to speak up about issues I felt were important, without letting other people's negative responses make me feel guilty or wrong for speaking.  I knew I was not ever intentionally trying to say mean or offensive things whenever I wanted to speak up.  I knew what I most wanted to say were words about issues that were very important to me.  Issues like the need for people to get their pets spayed or neutered.   Issues like the ever-increasing occurances of childhood sexual exploitation.   Specific issues like corporal punishment in schools, where I knew very well how my sda school principal had gotten hard-ons every time he got to hack little girls under his care, with the blessing of the school board and the church behind each one of those hacks.  Let me tell you, no teacher was ever gonna hack my kids.  Not with what I knew.  (Yes, I know not all teachers would be turned on by hacking students. Simply not a risk I was ever gonna take with my own children.)  The negative reactions of others to those things I once tried to say, always shut me down.  For many years.  Decades even.  A long-ass time.  Until they didn't. 

I don't know what flipped that switch for me, but I think working in shelter medicine/rescue helped a lot.  I knew the numbers, I saw the abuses and suffering created for thousands of stray/feral animals.  Anyone who tried to tell me I was wrong to speak up about spay/neuter, was a person I realized simply did not know the truth.  It wasn't my place to yell at or belittle or shame that person.  That was something I believe would have been wrong of me to do.  But I finally realized it was right for me to speak the truth I knew about this issue.  I could create a blog post like this, Spay/Neuter, and the misinformation inherent in any negative responses I got, made it easy for me to simply let such responses roll off my back.  I found my key to actually not letting other's opinions about my words get to me.  

My biggest breakthrough in speaking truth without letting negative responses get to me, was when I posted this. (Trigger warning)  My sister compared that post to the day she "came out" to our family.  It probably was somewhat similar.  When I hit "publish" on that post, it was a huge step in my life.  There were things others said about that post that could be hurtful, but nobody who tried to make me feel bad for saying those words about a disturbing issue, could make me feel bad for posting those words.  I knew those words needed to come out, for me, and for those who don't understand what trafficking and child sexualization looks like, how easily and often it occurs, how it is something that happens all around us, all the time.  

I have finally reached a point where I feel comfortable enough not to internalize guilt when others try to make me feel bad for speaking up about an important issue I know needs to be better understood.  The re-exploitation of sexually exploited children is commonplace.  Cis girls are being systemically sexualized in our society from birth/toddler-hood on, and then blamed and ascribed the very agency such childhood sexualization steals from them.  Sexualized and sexually exploited children are viewed as fair game, by celebrities like Marc Maron, and by a lot of society as a whole.  Finally, at 57, I have figured out how to speak the truth about this, and when others try to make me feel bad for speaking it, I can finally kick some dirt over that shit and walk away.

Beauty, and a prayer by Tina Fey

 There is a prayer I read awhile back, written by Tina Fey, and it ranks right up there with "Yea though I walk...," "Grace," and the "Our Father," in my opinion. One section in particular stood out to me, that Mother's Day I first read it years ago, because it sums up a truth most of us don't seem to comprehend. It's a concept I internally understood, but had not yet found a way to describe, until I read Tina's inspired words. Here is that section that stood out for me:

"May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty."

The minute my oldest son was born, I was filled with that deep, cellular-level parental love, an almost indescribable feeling that is universally experienced by many, but cannot be properly defined or explained. To me, my son was the most beautiful human I had ever seen. Suddenly, every bad driver on the road was a personal threat specifically to my child, a baby food company that was selling "apple juice" with no real apple in it was a company that deserved to be put on death row for endangering my child, every leader of any country who did not immediately destroy all weapons of mass destruction was a psychotic killer threatening my child. There are now 4 other humans on this planet who are loved by me in this dna-level deep way: my 2 other children and my grands. I did nothing to manufacture how I feel for them. Like breathing, it's just there. It is something so strong, I immediately identify with and feel connected to the mother bear that is instantaneously feared by any sensible human who spots a bear cub in the wild. Whether that mother bear can be seen or not, a being who has spotted a bear cub is in very clear and present danger. That mother bear and I share a bond, and anything she does to protect her offspring is perfectly acceptable and logical to me.

I don't know where that kind of deep emotion comes from. I have no way to shut it off, or to even comprehend any scenario where I would want to shut it off. It also leaves me unable to understand any human who can see any child as a target for exploitation of any kind.

My stepmother knew exactly which children were going to make easy targets for sexual exploitation. Predators have and hone this ability to spot vulnerable prey. After decades of trying to figure out what it is about myself, and others, that makes us stand out to predators, I still can't define what it is. But I can tell you what it isn't. It isn't beauty. It isn't height or weight or gender or any of many other outward attributes that might be defined as "attractive." Whatever it is that attracts sexual predators, it does not include beauty.  

No matter my age, my clothing choices, my outward appearance, I can still be spotted and approached by predators. I am no Helen Mirren or Nichelle Nichols. I am not aging in any way that could be defined as beautiful. But I still attract predators. This is no compliment. It is a dangerous deficit I would like to be rid of. I can only conclude that whatever attracts sexual predators to specific prey, exploitation during childhood reinforces and strengthens that "attractiveness," and leaves such prey vulnerable to predators in apparent perpetuity. A person who tries to describe being such a target for predators is not bragging or being vain. They are describing what it means to be prey.

Here is Tina Fey's full prayer:

A MOTHER’S PRAYER FOR HER CHILD BY TINA FEY

“First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.”  -Tina Fey

A Month of Pain

 I know I am not supposed to show weakness.  But I am sick of having to hide my lifetime of pain.  I am sick of watching other little girls like I was, going thru pain.

Mental Health Awareness Month came and went, and not one word of acknowledgement from Mr. Maron about the way he has publicly joked about, misused, groomed, and harmed very young girls with BPD.  Nothing. During my 8 months of trying to reach him by doing what others had done, by sending him emails using every written technique I was able to think of, I tried to explain how sexual abuse is not some horrendous slur he has used for decades, "Daddy Issues."  How a BPD diagnosis is not a label saying "This person will be easy and exciting to fuck, and a lunatic I can make fun of and blame afterwards."  How suicidal thoughts, and self-harming behaviors of broken abuse victims with BPD was not something to ignore after he was done sexually exploiting broken girls.  I truly believed the man who was convinced by a fan to stop using the R word, who stopped telling jokes made at the expense of the LGBTQIA+ community, would be able to see that he had been harming a very young and damaged group that needed desperately for men like him to stop continuing to destroy them.  Then I saw the little girl with the gun.

When I realized he could ignore that broken girl after he was done with her, even after everything he had read that I had sent to him about the damage he was doing to this group I belong to, I knew I could stay silent no more.  

Speaking up has not been easy.  The words some people feel justified in saying to me hurt.  But do you know what I already knew would hurt the worst?  And does hurt the worst?   The way a man, who I once respected, who has changed his mind and publicly spoken up and changed his behavior regarding his past treatment of other groups from the stage, is never going to even once acknowledge the pain in the words I have sent him, and have now made public, in trying to make a difference for the group I belong to.  He does not give a shit about broken little girls.  They are fuckable and leavable.  That's what what we are for.  That is the biggest lesson my childhood taught me.

I'm glad Mr. Maron has started off Pride Month so strong in his June 1 podcast intro, for me and my friends and family who are part of this group that has been so harmed and marginalized and mistreated. 

My heart hurts, because Mr. Maron will never once even acknowledge the damage he does to little broken mentally destroyed girls who have been thru hells just like mine.  His ability to simply dismiss my words privately for 8 months, and now publicly throughout all of Mental Health Awareness Month, it fucking hurts. 

Joe Camel

 

Cigarettes have a varied and interesting history.  Camel cigarettes once had a slogan similar to the ad campaign that mentioned 4 out of 5 dentists recommending a certain brand of toothpaste.  Doctors were once cited in an ad campaign as preferring Camel cigarettes above all others.  Thankfully, we have come a long way, from the days of such ads.

In the '90's, a popular cigarette mascot was retired.  Old Joe, the most famous camel who ever lived, was removed from circulation.  Kids around the world recognized Joe Camel in greater numbers than Mickey Mouse.  It took a long time, but the marketing campaigns geared toward bringing in new smokers by targeting children, were finally called out and stopped.  As a smoker who wishes I had never started, I wholeheartedly approve of ceasing such ad campaigns.  Do I think Joe Camel, and products like candy cigarettes, are to blame for me smoking?  I don't think they did anything helpful for me or other smokers my age, that's for sure.

It took a long time for society to recognize how Joe Camel was introducing a dangerous substance to the minds of children.  When society recognizes that children are influenced by ad campaigns targeted toward them, certain products can be forced by consumers to stop being marketed directly to children.  Did Old Joe's removal help less children take up smoking?  The numbers seem to back that idea up.  I doubt tobacco companies would readily admit to that proof, but why would they?  When I die earlier than I might have, from some disease attributed to years of smoking, my contribution to tobacco funding will need to come from somewhere.  Morals and ethics aside, priming children to purchase a product as soon as they hit 18 makes great marketing sense.

Sexual predators who are afraid of being raped in prison, may limit themselves to victims 18 and older, at least when they are in countries where 18 is the legal age.  But they know damn well how to start the grooming process much earlier than 18.  It's all about marketing.  They will continue grooming children for as long as society continues to ignore, deny, and allow it.

The Truth About Grooming

In trying to bring attention to the re-exploitation of sexually abused girls with BPD, which is an ongoing problem that causes suicidal and self-harming behaviors in already very broken girls to increase, there is a very real need for people to be shown the truth.  Marc Maron, the sda principal, all the other old predators re-exploiting sexually exploited children, never have to admit what it is they are doing, how often they are doing it, how they are getting away with public grooming of damaged children.  Letting a man, who only sees the legal age of 18 as any kind of limit, be viewed as safe by children, allows him to groom children.  Blaming sexually abused children for responding to such grooming is wrong.  Mr. Maron, who only sees 18 as the limit, should not be marketed to children.  He is not an old man who is innocently being approached by "enamored" sexualized little girls.  He grooms them.  They would not think to even glance his way, if he was not grooming them.  The sda principal does the same thing.  These predators are the ones drawing in broken children.  Until that is called what it is, and stopped, no child is safe from predators like this.

My next few blog posts will try and make this specific issue clearer.  These grooming old predators know exactly what they are doing, and children need to be protected from such grooming, not blamed for responding to it.  Children already exhibiting the symptoms of BPD do not need these predators brought into their lives, and then be blamed for responding. 

A Little Follow-up

 I need to clarify something I wrote in my recent blog post, "What Gets Stolen."  There is a sentence where I mention being ostracized from my paternal family, for behaving like a slut when I was five.  That is a simplification of a very complex reality.  

Starting from about 2 years of age on, I began displaying sexualized behaviors.  Not the normal "playing doctor" kind of stuff, either. Behavior that made a number of my babysitters tell my mom they would not watch me anymore, because of what I was doing with other children.  Behaviors that made a paternal aunt once tell my mom to "Keep your slut daughter away from my sons."  That was the first time I ever heard the word "slut."  Me, and one of my cousins (yes, one of her sons), tried to figure out what that word meant, as she had also used that word while telling my cousin why I was bad.  Our 5 yr-old minds didn't figure out that definition we would eventually come to know well, in a patriarchy that is quick to place such labels on cis girls.

Fast forward decades.  After I made the decision in '93 to cease all contact with my father for the sake of my young children, I lost touch with the paternal family members I had grown up with.  Outside of one cousin, who realized there was a legit reason I was no longer having any contact with my father and made sure to invite me and my kids over for get-togethers she set up when my father would not be around, I simply disappeared from that family.  There were whispers about why.  Some of those whispers were accurate.  But the spoken narrative that seemed to get the most traction, was that I was angry at my father for cheating on my mom so much, so I stopped coming around.  When I finally posted "A Thousand Words," here in my blog years ago, the truth about my absence from paternal family get-togethers was known.  I have had a few chances to reconnect with some on this side of my family, but those connections have not ended well.  I am not an easy person to draw back in to any family fold.  Especially when the current narrative about me is that my childhood was not what I have always known it was.  My childhood sexualized behaviors, which got me in trouble a lot from the age of 2 on, and caused a paternal aunt to see my behavior as slutty, is now being completely attributed to me as some sort of birth defect, and I am viewed as delusionally making up what my father and pam were doing to me.  I am now being viewed as a once tiny delusional hypersexualized toddler.  How am I supposed to feel comfortable around those who prefer to see me as a slutty toddler with severe delusions, while choosing to see my father as innocent of anything he actually put me through?  My father, a known philandering habitual liar who was once married to a hooker who was in my life for over 4 years. My father has always exhibited fucked up sexual behavior, in a family that has kept other predators in their ranks hidden as well, in past generations.  I can't comfortably be around people who are in denial of such glaring truths.  If my father was a decent, kind, honest, devoted man who had treated me with any sort of parental love at all, I could understand the hesitancy in believing me.  Nothing about my memories is delusional.  I was not a natural born slut.  And I can't be around family who are choosing to see me that way.  I love my extended paternal family members.  I miss them.  I understand why they have to be in denial.  I don't envy their position, the awful place my father's abusive choices toward me has placed his siblings and their offspring.  It all simply is what it is.

I hope that helps clarify that simplified statement I wrote, regarding my absence from the paternal side of my family.  Anyone who thinks poorly of this side of my family, please try to ask yourself what you would honestly do, if in their position.   Parental sexual abuse of a child is not just cruel and abusive to the abused child in the family. 

Magical Thinking

I have often heard people say that if I expect bad things, bad things will happen.  So, there is a part of me who always continues to believe good things will happen.  Kind of like knocking on wood.  Or praying.  I can't prove tree flesh or god have any influence, but I also don't want to be the one who caused something bad to occur because I didn't do some little thing correctly.  I think this is what is called "magical thinking." Does it work?  I can't answer that without risking divine or arboreal retribution.

Do I think anything in my blog posts since April 26 will have any positive outcome for the group I belong to?  At the risk of pissing off every skygod and superstitious backfire possible, I am going to be honest.  No.  I foresee Marc Maron in future animated movies, and Maron followers making it clear they have no problem with him interacting with their children.  Mostly, though, I foresee busy and distracted parents having no idea who their children are being exposed to in the media and at school, who their children are being taught to view as safe, who their children are interacting with online.  Children are interacting with all sorts of predators, right this second, and not on some dark web.  

Years ago, I watched the radical right purposely set up an exploitive situation with a child, in response to the women who came forward about roy moore.  I am going to copy that blog post as written, which I originally published in 2017, and is now archived.  There will be a link included to the interview with moore.  I like to think no more children will be offered up to predators.  But you know what that is, right?  Magical thinking.

"Interview

I have spent decades wondering how my father's cruelty could be missed by my family, how the adventist principal's behavior could be missed by a whole congregation, how so many humans can decide to not see the truth right in front of their eyes.

I have realized, over the past few years, that refusing to see the truth is a flaw shared by many humans. Today, I saw something that made this even more clear for me.

I have been watching the campaign for senator in Alabama closely. It has been difficult to witness. I have been preparing myself for the moment I may have to accept that a part of my homeland has voted a man like the adventist principal into my country's senate. I thought that moment would be awful. But what I just saw now is even worse than that moment may feel. I saw this:

Interview

This is so wrong, I do not have the correct words to describe how it feels to see this.

Right now, my heart is with those women who were harmed by that man when they were young. This interview will harm each of their hearts in a horrible way. My heart also breaks for that child in this interview, who has no clue how she has just been used. 

Tomorrow, I will spend any free time I have near the river. I have very little faith left in anything most humans might do."

Extremes

 

A BPD diagnosis will include a lot of symptoms seen as extreme. If I have learned anything about how people are going to view me whenever I try to vocalize how I've experienced life, it is that my emotions manifest orally in ways others experience as extreme. For some reason, my vocal limitations are seen as part of me having a diagnosable mental problem. The actual words I've tried to audibly express don't find their way through ear canals. My inability to orate calmly finds its way into a chart as a symptom of some mental health diagnosis, often BPD. If I try to explain why a lifetime of recurring pain and blame hurts, why the death of my kitten left my voice disconnected from the rest of my mind, I am told I protest too much, I must be hiding something, or I am simply making weak-ass excuses for not wanting to figure out how to vocalize like a normal person. And then the biggie, the one response guaranteed to shut me the fuck up: I am told my shaky voice, my obvious distress, my inability to maintain eye contact, all mean I am lying.  (I dare anyone to spend 4 years of childhood staring into the eyes of someone like pam, and come out of that relishing eye contact.)

Once, while attending an adventist academy in Arizona when I was 9, I tried to tell my mom that pam was at my school every day, staring at me on the playground, watching me in the cafeteria to see if I took, or even looked at, any desserts, making sure I was not talking to other kids about anything.  My mom replied by saying, "Why would she do that? That's crazy." Think I ever tried to talk about it again? Think I can vocally talk about that time in my life right now in a calm voice? Think the terror and frustration in my 9 yr-old heart upon hearing that word "crazy" can be kept from distorting my facial muscles and skin if I try to speak aloud about all of that now? Part of why I am diagnosable with mental illnesses is because I cannot speak "correctly." I did not want to be taught the shit I was taught. I did not have any idea how my future was being formed by my childhood experiences.  If there was any way for me to have unlearned every goddam thing that created extreme responses in me, I would have learned it. Fifteen years ago, when I finally went to college, my 4.0 GPA was proof that I am a person who is quite capable of learning. I am not the dumb slut blond everyone sees. If I could unlearn my incorrect vocal deficits, I would have done it by now.  

Do I have BPD? Sure. But I have learned something this past decade, and that is the truth behind that popular definition of insanity. Same shit is gonna keep happening to the humans in my group, if they keep being blamed and re-exploited over and over. They will keep having that "kick me" label of BPD slapped on them, which makes them targets of predators like my sda principal, like Marc Maron, and that will only lead to further escalating behaviors that will be used to increase the blame placed on the person diagnosed with BPD. This problem will never be solved if we don't stop sexualizing and blaming cis girls from the moment they are born, and letting predators use those girls with no repercussions.