Recently steve ahlquist has been claiming he was molested when he was 10 years old and posted something to this effect on his blog. After reading it I noticed it seemed more like a kid getting beat up by other kids after school. Below is the link with full uncensored text of his claiming to be molested
Be warned, I describe a sexual assault in this piece.
When I was ten years old I was sexually assaulted by a boy five
years older than myself. It was late Autumn, and very cold. The air was
crisp and dry, and the last of the un-raked leaves were still scattered
on some people's lawns. My walk from Lippitt Elementary School to my
house was about a half mile. For about half the walk I had a friend with
me. We would split up and go our separate ways after crossing the only
really busy intersection on our route, which in hindsight wasn't a busy
intersection at all. This was Warwick, Rhode Island in 1973, in a
suburbia of housing developments built on long dead farms and swampland
near the airport. It wasn't that busy between 3 and 4pm.
Bullies were common, and adults, specifically parents, teachers and
neighbors, did almost nothing to stop them. Bullies would jump you and
beat you up for no real reason other than to jump you and beat you up. I
was a frequent target of bullies when I was younger. I was the only boy
my age in the advanced readers group until fifth grade. The other five
or six members of my reading group were girls. Playing on my last name
and the fact that I read books like a girl, kids would corrupt my name
as "Ahlqueer." I got beat up all through first grade by this second
grader across the street named Joe, but he moved away the following
year. Other bullies saw me as a target, but I mostly kept my head down
and avoided confrontation. I didn't have many friends, but the kid I
walked halfway home with, James, was also the target of bullies, and
this united us though we had almost nothing else in common.
We separated, James going his way and me mine. Then I saw Mike, and
his two friends. Mike was five years older than me, a wiry freckled red
head with an always furrowed brow. He always looked like he was thinking
hard about confusing things. I barely knew him, but his father and my
father were both firefighters. I had seen Mike less than a month
previously at an event where firefighters were being honored and
promoted. Mike’s father outranked my Dad. The fathers introduced us to
each other, but Mike was older and uninterested in me, which was fine,
since I was younger and shy.
Seeing Mike today, in my neighborhood, on my way home, was
surprising, but I had no reason to suspect he had any malice for me. I
was all alone and Mike, as I said, had two friends with him, both his
age. I said hi or hello and thought I was going to walk past when all of
a sudden the three larger boys moved to block my path. I didn't know
why they we're looking for trouble with me, and really, what trouble
could I give them?
They started with the taunts and insults, nothing I couldn't handle.
I wanted to get past them but they said that if I ran they would beat
me up. I could never have outrun them anyway. They were long legged
teenagers and I was still a kid.
I should also point out that if I got home too late, I would get in
trouble with my parents. Explaining that three bigger boys delayed me
would only result in my father shaming me for not properly standing up
to the bullies, a refrain I learned all too well in first grade when
that kid Joe would beat me up. It got to the point that I wouldn't say
anything about the bullying to my parents, just so I wouldn't have to
hear my father tell me to start standing up for myself. Worse than being
abused, in some ways, is being told that the abuse is your own fault.
The three teenage boys in front of me now were going to make me
late. I needed to get past them. When I tried to move around them, they
stood in my way. So I had to try and talk my way past them.
"I have to get home, guys."
"Where's that?"
Shit. They didn't know where I lived, and I didn't want to tell them. The less they knew about me, the better.
I pointed in the general direction of my house. "That way," I said.
One of the boys I didn't know told Mike to just beat me up already. Mike stepped forward, and I raised my Hot Wheels lunchbox.
"You better not hit me with that,” said Mike.
"I have to go home," I said.
Mike swung and hit me in the arm. I hit him back with my Hot Wheels lunchbox and ran.
I
didn't get far. The two kids backing Mike up had me in two steps. They
were gigantic compared to me, faster and stronger in every way, and
there were two of them. They knocked me down and then Mike was on top of
me, hitting me. Somehow I got up and ran, but now Mike grabbed me from
behind, wrapping his arms around me, somehow pinning my arms with his
elbows (or maybe the other boys were holding my arms at this point, it's
hard to remember).
I was braced for a beating, but Mike did something I could never
have imagined doing to another person. I've still never really heard of
anyone doing this to someone in the way it was done to me. Mike reached
his hands into my pants, into my underwear, and grabbed my scrotum. Then
he found my testicles, and squeezed them with his fingers, rolling them
and squeezing them hard. I could smell the cigarettes on his breath as
he efficiently tortured me.
I couldn't believe what was
happening. The attack was so targeted, and unimaginable. He reached into
my pants and explored my genitalia with his fingers until he found my
testicles, the spot that would hurt me the most, and then proceeded to
squeeze them for no purpose other than to cause me pain.
I cried out and screamed. The pain was blinding, in that bright
lights filled my eyes, obscuring my vision. I’m not clear on this, but I
think my screams were muffled by one of the other boys with his hands. I
know tears streamed down my face, I remember my reflection when I
finally got home: the tears were streaked down my dirty cheeks.
After they hurt me, they left on my hands and knees, sobbing. This
all happened on the front lawn of someone's house, in broad daylight.
From someone's window, did it all just look like some kids just fooling
around? Did anyone see what happened to me? I hoped no one did. I didn’t
want anyone to know about this, because of the shame I felt at this
terrible violation. I picked up my lunchbox and walked home. I was in so
much pain. I was humiliated and ashamed.
I got home and told no one. Ever. Until today, writing this.
My
testicles hurt for weeks after that. I would lay in bed at night and
feel them throbbing. They were bruised and swollen, making it difficult
to run. But I soldiered through, and lied to everyone about how I was
feeling.
I could never have told my father what happened, and telling my
mother was telling my father by proxy. My father would have offered no
sympathy.
"How could you let someone do that to you?" he would have asked, as if it were all my fault.
I don't even know if I had the words back then to describe what had
happened to me. I certainly did not know why this had happened. Looking
back, I think about the way Mike targeted my testicles so efficiently.
Even a fifteen year old sadist had to learn that from somewhere. He
didn't just come up with that. Years later I would wonder if Mike's
permanently furrowed brow wasn’t born of confusion, but of pain caused
by abuse.
I would often wonder why I was targeted. I found no answers, of
course. This was a crime of opportunity, I was weak, and Mike needed to
hurt someone. Perhaps he did this to other victims as well, but I don’t
know. I never really saw him again. I have no idea what became of him. I
hope he’s a better person.
The next day, at lunch, came the final indignity to this whole
affair. I was sitting in the lunchroom, eating my sandwich and drinking
milk from my thermos, when suddenly my mouth was full of broken bits of
glass. I choked and spit out blood. I walked to the water fountain and
spit blood and glass out, rinsing my mouth. The day before, when I had
hit Mike with my lunchbox, I had shattered the glass inside my Hot
Wheels thermos. Now that glass was in my mouth and my throat.
That night I had to tell my mother about the broken thermos, and
listen to her tell me about how I should take better care of my things.
I'll bet his next cartoon will be of himself eating hohos and farting dingdongs. That anyone could create a cartoon of a boy who goes naked because his penis is too big and masturbates constantly shows not just a perverted mind, but they have no sense of right and wrong, and need to be culled.
