Groomers usually are. Then the people around them who get a funny feeling or have doubt or suspect something will feel out of place for speaking up because the abuser is so well liked.
You put that so perfectly because this is exactly what happens. It’s the most distressing thing that they’ve managed to concoct such a persona that you could look crazy for speaking up. They’re very good at it.
Exactly right. It's also a common tactic for such abusers to get some pics of the victim smiling before abusing them, so that they can leak smiling pictures to discredit the victim.
feel out of place speaking up because the abuser is so well liked.
This is a very important thing about Epstein, he was probably the single most well-connected man in celebrity circles in the 90s. He knew everybody, and everybody knew him, and that enabled him to do all this shit in plain sight - Because all these partys he threw were in fact not just attended by pedophiles like the current sitting US president; all the celebrities of the time were there. Stephen Hawking was there for Christs sake.
It’s all part of the grooming process. You need to be charming and well liked for people to allow you in close proximity with their vulnerable children, unless they’re also pedophiles which a lot of them were
I was the idiot (never found out if there were others) who was not adamant about expressing how I felt about a guy who I knew there was something very wrong with. Everyone else was shocked when he turned out to be a predatory fuck.
It was awful and I still kick the shit out of myself for it. Never again.
I had absolutely nothing concrete to tell my friends/everyone around him. Just strong feelings and absolute did not trust him. He was fake and extremely off and I eventually started to think maybe I was just nuts for thinking/feeling it. I only told a couple people and could have pushed harder even if it made me seem crazy.
When I was a kid my mother had a cousin who was super fun and friendly. He used to be great with kids and was always up for an adventure. I liked him a lot. I remember once when my dad was working my mom and this cousin took to me to a fair, and he was willing to go on all the rides with me and the games, and we ate junk food. All in all, just a fun guy with a kids heart. He also brought my mother this really thoughtful but small gift, but I don’t remember what it was.
My parents saw differently. My father had a funny feeling about him - he thought this cousin was trying a little too hard to get me to like him,
and also my mother as well. I don’t remember what my mother thought.
My parents had this policy of always trusting their intuition and just playing it safe but also being non confrontational. Whenever someone gave them a bad feeling they would not accuse them but would just politely distance from them.
I didn’t see this cousin ever again. Then, in my late thirties, randomly, some other relative who was a woman slightly younger than me (that man’s direct nieces) and I were chatting and one asked if they could use my HBO Max account (or whatever it was called at the time). They checked out my watch history, and saw that I had watched a movie called The Tale, which is a fantastic movie a director made about her own childhood sexual assault, which included the grooming process and all the enablers.
Anyway, after watching it, the news broke out. She asked to set up a video call with me, and told me everything. This jolly fucking cousin was a serial pedophile, who started raping her and her younger sister when they were only three or four. He even pressured their parents to enroll them in tennis lessons with his friend, was also a serial rapist with rapist friends, and they were abused by them too. She described a childhood in which he was always “behind them,” close by, a constant threat against saying anything. She said that once her mother (his sister) asked too many questions about his friends and he got offended but what she was insinuating, and the fight escalated until he grabbed her hair and dragged her out the street and hit her and kicked her. The two sisters, as I know, had always been close and inseparable, but in their thirties the younger one decided to cut off all contact from the family.
Maybe in a better world, my parents would have said something or dug in about their funny feeling. But this man was so exuberant and friendly that it just seemed weird to do so.
Incidentally, there was one other man I remember them distancing me from - a friend’s father. That man always made me uncomfortable because it always seemed like he was trying to get me alone for a conversation when I was at their house. He was a pastor, and they had what I would call a “golden retriever” family - very much a TV family. I never got an update on this one because my friend and I drifted apart, but I know when I ran into her once in my 20’s I learned that she was no contact with her whole family.
I ask because I feel guilty even entertaining the thought that it kinda fucked me up when the people he assaulted are the true victims. I know, rationally, that my getting fucked up by it doesn’t detract from his victims’ trauma, but it still feels selfish to consider it. I fucking hate myself for not trusting my gut more and acting on it…somehow. I even started to think I had to be wrong about him despite not feeling that way at all. Harder to trust people now, coulda shoulda woulda, failed, fuckin hate him, regret, etc. Maybe if I found a way to get under his skin a bit it would have made him act in a way that would have exposed him a bit/enough for others to pick up on it but literally everyone was eating up his bullshit and thought he was just the best guy. “Down to earth” and in touch with his feelings/feminine side, open to being vulnerable, chill, fun - basically perfect for any occasion or conversation. They all had given him complete trust. And now I’m rambling.
But yeah, curious how your parents took the news.
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u/augustrem 1d ago edited 1d ago
Groomers usually are. Then the people around them who get a funny feeling or have doubt or suspect something will feel out of place for speaking up because the abuser is so well liked.