OK, not to steal Rakkaus's "thunder" here, but his thread has given me the courage to post about this. Basically, wanting to know people's opinions about this incident and what (if anything significant) is means. I was nine years old. I was visiting my best friend in the world, Russell, at his house (he was also nine, a few months older than me). When I arrived, he was in the bath. Not sure exactly why, but when I got there, his mother started stripping my clothes off to put me in the bath with him. Now, Russell was kind of a rambunctious boy (I was a little more laid back), so it didn't take him long to start rough-housing amongst the bubbles. He started grabbing me and wrestling with me. I was kind of bashful being naked in the tub with another boy, even if he was my very best friend, so I tried resisting him. However, he was stronger than me, and at one point, he had forcibly turned me around in the water, pulled me toward him, and then thrust his little nine-year-old penis (which had become erect) up my backside. To say that I nearly leap out of the tub at this intimate contact would be an understatement. He only laughed at what happened, so, despite the discomfort this has caused me, I began to feel that he had only been horsing around. But had he? I recall another time in the boy's room at school that he looked into my eyes in a dreamy kind of manner and then leaned in with his lips puckered, as if inviting me to kiss him. Maybe I was under his spell, because, although part of me was very uncomfortable at his advance, another part of me was somewhat bewitched and I leaned in to kiss his little puckered lips back. However, once I got within a few inches, he then broke out in laughter right in my face. There was another boy in the bathroom with us, perhaps it was his discomfort that made Russell break off the kiss (the boy had threatened to tell the teacher), I don't know. Was my little nine-year-old friend gay? Was he attracted to me? Does what he did in the bathtub qualify as rape? Assault? Or was this just boyish rambunctiousness in action? As one whom has struggled with both his/her gender identity and sexuality all his/her life, I will say that these incidents never leave the forefront of my mind for very long. In fact, oddly enough, I often find myself hoping that one day my friend will find me or I will find him (we lost touch many, many years ago), it will turn out that he is indeed gay and that we can resume a relationship, this time a romantic and sexual one. Is this just totally whack or reasonable? I'm still so confused.
Yes it was rape, but was it malicious? Probably not, seeing as he was nine. But that and the kiss seem like pretty airtight evidence that he is less than straight.
...Rape seems like an extreme accusation here, as he was a nine-year old kid. Was he straight? Probably not. Depending on his other proclivities, I can find a category on the Kinsey scale.
oh god this one is difficult. no sorry i wrote a whole paragraph on my opinion but truthfully there are too many factors when it comes to children this young. he could have been acting on his hormones without being aware of what he was actually doing, or he could have been aware of what he was doing but not of the consequences. when u say he entered you was it one quick motion, which could indicate it was an accident, or did he have to "position" himself/you? i dont think this one can be so easily answered. Just had a horrible thought. For him to have done that so young could indicate that he was being sexually abused. Possibly by his family since his mother stripped you, a nine year old boy (which is HIGHLY inappropriate by the way), and put you in the bath with him. i have another theory on that too but don't want to startle you, so can i ask if you can think of any other instances that might make you think this boy might have been abused: did his behaviour change around his parents eg scared, overly affectionate with them or having injuries that he didnt want to talk about? i work in childcare and so many red flags just went up in my head on a second read through. the sexual activity at such a young age and his mothers behaviour are all stuff we are trained to look out for in cases of child abuse. its a shame you were to young to think to report it, it may not have been taking place but it has all the signs it needed investigating.
Ok I realize the question is about what the 9yo did but WTF was the adult (the mom) in the story doing here?
He definitely, intentionally positioned me. The moment is vivid enough for me to be sure of that. As for other proclivities which might profile him as queer, just about nothing else I can think of. On a couple of occasions, he would snatch this girl's hair clips and put them in his hair, inevitably laughing like a fool while doing so. Thanks everyone for your replies.
My memory is hazy on exactly how I got into the bath with him. I remember arriving at his house with him in the tub and I remember his mother there in the bathroom with him. I seem to also recall him coaxing his mother to get me into the bath too, though I can't be certain. As for whether I was asked and consented (despite feeling very uncomfortable) or simply went along with it because his mom was an adult and I was brought up with a very healthy(?) respect for an adult's authority, I'm all fuzzy. I do recall that the "horseplay" started almost immediately after his mother left the room. Feel free to say anything you like. I never detected the slightest hint that there was any abuse going on in that house, everyone seemed pretty cool and relaxed around each other. Now, Russell did seem to have a habit of showing up at school with some mysterious injuries. Once he showed me a large bandage on his stomach, which he said was from surgery after he drank antifreeze (always a big imagination, that boy). Another time, he appeared with a very large contusion on his face, which he said came from falling off the top of his dad's truck. (Bizarrely, that scar held a special intrigue for me that I would say bordered on attraction. He may not have been the only potentially-queer one in our friendship.)
hmm its still seems very fishy to me. Before you said more about how you got into the tub id wondered if the mother had hidden a camera somewhere to record what you boys had been doing, hence her eagerness to get you in there. Not a nice thought and there is no evidence to even support that abuse was taking place there, just speculation. The injuries he sustained also give me concern but you did say he was rambunctious so it is possible that he sustained the injuries by accident. im sorry ive deviated the the conversation a bit but like i said there were a few red flags that made me think abuse might have been taking place which could also have been a cause for his behaviour in the bath. but again this is all speculation.
Yeah, speculating about it is all I've been able to do about it for nigh on 30 years. What concerns me as much as what occurred is how I feel about it. I felt violated at the time, but not traumatically so. I seem to recall playing with him in his room (almost) as though nothing had happened not 20 minutes later and I never felt threatened by his presence during subsequent visits. (He did move away with his family a few months later.) To this day, although my feelings are mixed about the incident, I feel some part of my being sort of longing for him. (Until I got with my wife, I was never so close to another human being outside of my immediate family.) As I mentioned above, I even fantasize about resuming a relationship with him. Is this terribly weird and sick? Again, thanks for your time in responding.
I would say no, its not weird. He was a close friend and you were both young and he was obviously experimenting although he did take it to far. he should have asked permission before doing so, even though i wouldn't condone doing it at that age anyway. unlike other casses there are too many factors to consider, but yes i do feel it was rape since you did not give him permission to do that. But then age comes into it too. unlike Rakkaus's scenario where age does not apply you were both the same age and both still way too imature to be in the scenario you were. But i do recognise that allot of young teenagers have sex before being of legal age, i myself experimented with a few friends when i was a teenager. The difference was it was consensual and never went further than fondling, so technically it was within the law. i do understand you wanting to meet him and maybe start something though, ive often had feelings like that when i look back on some of my friends i experimented with.
Technically it was rape since you didn't consent. However, there's not really any way to know if there was malicious intent or if for some reason your friend had seen or experienced something he shouldn't have and was acting it out with you without realizing the consequences. Since you were so young, you probably also didn't process everything that was going on, so it makes sense that you went back to playing with him not long after and felt fine with him after. You may have realized it didn't seem right, but responded more like a child who got in a fight with a friend or was hit by a friend than like someone who was raped. Another thing to think of is that kids sometimes do just experiment with their bodies and don't think of it as sexual. I remember as a child my brother and I used to play doctor. We would go behind closed doors or under water in the pool and ask to see the others body parts. I vaguely remember some touching happening when we were very young. Neither of us was doing it in a sexual manner. We were just exploring. This could have been something like that that accidentally went too far. I don't think it is unheard of for you to sometimes think of this friend and wonder what happened to him and hope there could be a romantic relationship there. Chances are that you had a good relationship with this friend or you probably would have responded more strongly in a negative way to the incident you describe. If you have memories of a good relationship and you now process what happened on an adult level as being sexual, it makes sense that you would put the two together and think about the possibility of there being a relationship between you two. I don't think it is crazy or sick at all.
Well this seems like a difficult case since you were both 9-years-old, both prepubescent children. Boys, who mature much later than girls, don't usually even start puberty until about age 13; I had my first erection at age 12 and first ejaculation at age 14. Perhaps this boy started puberty earlier than is the norm, though I still doubt he would have been capable of ejaculation. I could be wrong, but I doubt your friend had any malicious intentions of trying to force himself sexually upon you, and was likely just experimenting, exploring his and your bodies, as children of that age, on the cusp of puberty, are wont to do. Perhaps, as your "best friend in the world", he simply saw it as playing around with a friend, not even understanding the sexual ramifications of what he was doing. Though he certainly should have asked your permission for doing something like that. If he were a 30-year-old man, then obviously that would be a closed-shut case of child rape. But a fellow 9-year-old boy...that's a bit tougher. I just find it hard to imagine that a 9-year-old realized what he was even doing when he did that to you. It's hard to judge a child in that way. I'm not sure if a court of law would find that to be rape. Even then, there's a reason why children, especially those as young as 9, are charged as children rather than adults, and usually the harshest punishment is to just to send them to some juvenile delinquent facility until they turn 18. Because children don't understand what they are doing, and why the things they do are wrong. However you still have every right to feel violated and uncomfortable about what happened to you. (*hug*) You say you are interested in finding him and finding out if he is in fact gay in hopes of pursuing a relationship, so I'm guessing you don't think of him as being all bad news and some sort of predator? Perhaps if you run into him again you could just bring up the situation that happened when you two were 9 and get some clarification of just what was going on, and maybe he will apologize for something he did when he was too young to understand what he was doing?
