How many women has this happened to (maybe triggering?)

[Mad8NR1]

I've just watched Dark Money on BBC1 and it's left me wondering. V different circumstances but it did bring up some stuff.

I started having sex much sooner than I should have, when I was 14. With much older men. Several men over the years between 14 and 18, not loads. Some were 18, some in their late twenties (when I was 14).

At the time I thought I was being very grown up, but I was also very uncomfortable with it at the same time.

I had a mental health crisis a year or so before this started so was quite shakey in the world. I was absent from school due to this for over a year and in that time my parents tried to encourage me to do things I was interested in. That meant theatres and music. I was given more freedom than a child that age should be, I think because my parents were frightened of stopping me doing things I had some enthusiasm for. I don't blame them, though I do think they should have had a tighter grasp of things. They did their best in a tough situation.

The men I was involved with were all theatre/music people. They all knew each other in some way. Some of them were known to my family, though not that well. Others not. None of them have gone on to be famous or anything, but one or two are very succesful in other fields.

Some were more coersive and manipulative than others. One tried to get me to be in a (dodgy) film. Topless. To which I said no.

Over the years I've come to understand that I was quite vulnerable and they probably took more advantage than I realised at the time. And I know what the law would say. But I've always felt iffy about how to label these 'relationships' (if you can call them that).

It led to a lot of problems for me and further mental health issues. I felt shame and guilt and a distorted sense of who I was as a person, where my value and self worth lay. It still does to an extent. Luckilly I am married to a wonderful, gentle, respectful man of integrity who I met over a decade later and is the only person who knows about any of this stuff.

And it just made me wonder, how common is this?

Sorry if I upset anyone. I'm still trying to unpack it all I guess. I've had psychological help for other things over the years and it's touched on this but never fully explored it.

Thanks for reading this far and sorry for the long post.

God, just me then. Well that makes me feel better!

No, the same thing happened to me. I don't want to go to details but very similar in terms of I thought I was being grown up and making choices but in hindsight I was only 15. My heart goes out to you. It wasn't our fault.

I'm now actively involved in delivering sex education to girls and that helps me.

Not only you Op I was the same.
I started going to pubs and even nightclubs at 14 and lost my virginity to a friend's 19 year old brother.
I was in 'relationships' with guys 15 years my senior etc. At the time thought I was so cool and grown up having my much older boyfriend pick me up from school in his car but now I see schoolgirls and feel physically sick thinking about it. I was vulnerable and certainly preyed upon by older men. I actually met an ex of mine (15 years older) at a pub as a 20 year old and his comment of "your so grown up now" made me so uncomfortable I left. My boyfriend at the time (only 3 years older) was ready to kill him.
I'm now in a job where I work with vulnerable young people and sadly I see young girls in exactly the same position as I was. It's horrible that older guys are interested in school girls but I remember the appeal as a teenage girl.

At the age of 14 the older men were definitely taking advantage of a vulnerable young girl. You should have no guilt over those times in your life.
I do recommend that you find a good counsellor and talk through these issues. They don’t define you!

Funny that you both mention your work. I work with young people too and have a real interest in sexual health work. I'd love to do more but my lack of education is a barrier.

Hello Op
I am very lucky to have avoided similar experiences but just wanted to thank you for posting and say you are not alone in spirit. Most folk have probably gone to bed by now, that's all....

I have a young daughter, and I pray I can keep her safe- those teenage years are so vulnerable.

I am so glad you have found a really good partner and hope you can manage to work through your earlier experiences.

Not only you, OP. Havent seen the programme but I think my teenage experiences weren't a million miles away from yours and it still affects me.

I was given far too much freedom from 13 or 14 years old and was out until all hours at gigs in different cities, drinking, getting lifts home with and spending the night at the houses of 20- something guys.

I had been a very shy, solitary, unpopular kid before then, bullied to an extent and I think my parents might've been relieved I was finally socialising as I was really into music. I went from being a chubby kid, not one of the desirable girls, to being a beautiful teenager very abruptly.

As I didn't really know how to handle the male attention, I tried to please everyone which led to being in some situations a young teenager should not have been in.

I found an older boyfriend and moved hundreds of miles away at 16.

My boundaries were all over the place and in my later teens, I found myself in yet more weird situations with mostly older men. After being raped, I was letting a big group of them do pretty much whatever they wanted, thinking I was sexually liberated and cool but actually being manipulated. I can't be sure but I think money may have changed hands between them (behind my back).

I feel dirty, 'other' and of low value even now. I feel that my facade of being a 'real' person- with a great job, true friends, my own place and ambitions to retrain in something really worthwhile- is paper thin and could collapse any minute.

Funnily enough the area I want to retrain in pertains to health with sexual health being a particular interest, too. It's a lot of work but I am trying to muster the self belief and discipline.

I'm in my 30s and when I was at school (incidentally at all girls school) a lot of girls had lost their virginity at 13/14 and there were two girls who I remember were going out with and having sex with two 25 year old men when they were 15.

I am not sure whether this would still happen today. I hope not.

My daughter is 15 now and she occasionally mentions a friend who's had sex but this is always with a boy from school in the same year.

I hope that it's more stigmatised now for men to prey on teenage girls.

you know when people post on MN about 14 or 15 year olds having sex I often think of situations like you went through OP. It was wrong and shouldn't have happened and those men were predatory - at best.

At 14 I was dreaming about boys, doing my homework, hanging out with my friends. Not having a sexual relationship with an adult male. Any adult male who had a sexual relationship with me would be a bloody rapist.

I don't care how many MNs had relationships with 26 year olds at age 14 and now have phds, own their own homes and have 25 years of blissful marriage - it isn't normal and it isn't right for a 14 year old to be in this situation and OP, you were badly let down by your parents and by the milieu you found yourself in and by those men - they were wrong to do what they did.

I think you should name what happened to you the way I would if it happened to my 14 year old - statutory rape and coercive sexual contact and fucking creepy abusive behaviour by bad selfist men.

On the other hand I would just want to wrap you up and mind your 14 year old self and tell you you deserved better from everyone around you and were failed but well done you for finding a good person to be with in the end.

I shudder when I think about what I was doing aged 14. First kiss was with a 19 year old guy, I was 13. I was raped that same year by a 17 year old, I'd willingly kissed him but never intended it to go that far, he wouldn't stop when I said no.

I remember dating a 20 year old guy who lived near my school when I was about 14, we'd go back to his house at lunchtime and have sex. There was also an older guy, early 30's maybe who used to pick me up from school and take me on drives in the country which inevitably ended one way. There were lots of others, I never dated people my own age til I was in my 20's.

I do think the rape had a lot to do with my behaviour, it's taken a long time to let go of my guilt and shame but I'm genuinely more disgusted by the behaviour of the men involved now. So no, I don't think what you've described is uncommon, neither the 'relationships' (I'm not sure what to label them as either) nor the psychological fallout for us afterwards, and certainly not the type of men who groom schoolgirls, sadly.

I was 16 when I lost my virginity to a 32 year old man

Technically not illegal

Not just you at all!

I had similar experiences except not with theatre people but people involved in the peace movement (I did go to lots of concerts and events). The peace movement has many charismatic men in their numbers. My parents were less understanding than yours and quite draconian. I used to have to sneak out. Other than that, our stories could be the same.

Lots of sympathy and empathy coming your way. It does keep sneaking up on you, unbidden, sometimes triggered by a TV programme, book or news article.

You say you do not have the level of education to do what you would like, work-wise. I don't know how old you are but there could be opportunities if you have the confidence to take advantage of them. I too did not finish my education but wasn't badly educated, I ended up doing a very worthwhle job which was fulfilling but it took time.

Take care of yourself.

Me too, 15 and thought I was being grown up. You've got nothing to be ashamed about. I have toyed with the idea of consent since the Adam Johnson case. But listen it happened, you can't change it, it doesn't define you, just move on, Chuck it in the bucket of experience & empower any daughters to never be in the same situation.

@BigfanofCheese if you can chuck it in the f£ck it bucket and move on than do it!!! You were not to blame, doesn't sound like your family were either. If you can't bin it off than get help. It's a blip from the past.

I'm in my early 50's and from a very rural background.This sort of behaviour was quite normal when I was young and I had several boyfriends who were at least 7 years older than me from when I was 15/16. Sex and relationships are messy by nature, I was abused as a child and it really increased my vulnerability to abusive relationships.If we had it all to do over again I'm sure we'd do it all differently and recognise our predatory men for what they were. Meanwhile all we can do is look after ourselves and help other young women.

I went to a sixth form college. Very messed up girl due to a highly physically and sexually abusive childhood.
My 39 year old lecturer started having sex with me.
I thought I was pulling the strings and had seduced him!!
I was so blind and damaged.
I left my education, he kept his job. Nothing was said and I'd conveniently made everything easy for everyone as I was no longer his pupil.
Within six weeks I was pregnant.
My mother, outraged at the disgrace, signed the consent so I had to marry him, still at 17. He was 40.
When I left him (by then with 3 kids) at 24 with just the clothes on our backs, he hooked up with another pupil, even younger than me. They're still together 20 odd yrs later.
He has suffered zero consequences.
I still remember the smug feeling of "oooh I've hooked the cool lecturer" and then him taking his clothes off and being faced with the reality of a big, hairy, paunchy ADULT.
I was shocked into horror. But I was trapped. Couldn't see a way out.
We should NEVER feel guilty for what these predators did to us.

"My boundaries were all over the place and in my later teens, I found myself in yet more weird situations with mostly older men."

Me too. I came across creepy blokes in all sorts of random ways, and found myself in some odd situations. The oddest I met volunteering as part of my Duke of Ed award. But they were mostly friends of friends, a friends brother or boyfriend and his mates, or your own boyfriends mates etc.

Sometimes it would be drug dealers, people who sold imported cheap tobacco/cigarettes, or ran bars that would knowingly serve underage customers, and other illegal activity like that. I knew teenagers who would brag about having access to guns, or whose fathers or other relatives did. Or they could torture you. Or make your life hell, or maybe "put you out" or "burn you out. On a whim. An argument with the wrong bloke could cause a "feud". Obviously anyone who was "involved" (the polite way, of describing a member of one of various terrorist organisations that were funded by all sorts of rackateering).

Sorry it's only when I post on mn, I realise how extreme that last bit sounds, but that's just how it is here, even now in certain areas. These men are intimidating, and I've seen for myself how teenage girls (and women in general), are treated by these thugs.

You are not alone. I was (what I now know as) groomed by a 32 year old family friend when I was 14. Childhood of emotional abuse left me vulnerable to such things. Anal sex till 15, then got pregnant at 15 to him. Parents kicked me out and made me live with him. I was subsequently abused by his friend also. Later got into drugs and was date raped twice. I felt like nothing for years and was self medicating basically.
I now have a wonderful husband and three great kids.
You are all not alone and deserved so much better, every one of of you. I will do everything in my power to protect my daughters ever being treated with anything other than respect and love.

Oh, and similarly to pp, my secondary school maths teacher offered me private after school maths lessons. Luckily my head of year found out and stopped it.

What a tragedy that men like this sniff out girls who have been abused so they can do the same.

Yes can unfortunately relate to so much of your op and the other posters 💔
I hope I can protect my daughter, I don’t won’t to wrap her up in cotton wool as I want her to enjoy life but..

Yeah, I had this too.

But the situation I was in certainly had its benefits.

During my teens I was in with a crowd let's say (I'm avoiding the word hobby! ) that was mostly men, and many of them in their 30's, 40's. Pretty much all of them tried to sleep with me, married, girlfriend, whatever. I slept with quite a few of them. Coercion maybe on their part, but definitely with consent from me.

This taught me a lot : how pathetic and easily manipulated men are by women, how to smell bullshit from a mile away and how to protect myself and trust my senses. I remember one guy who reminded me a lot of my grandad, but he was my dad's age I. E. 30 years older than me, and he tried it on several times. You honestly cannot make it up with these men!

These people were from a fairly 'hard' background, but lots of salt of the earth type characters, good souls etc. But it definitely made me want more from life than fromwwhat just a small group had to offer.

By the time I was 17 there was no way I was entertaining any bullshit from 'older' men who thought I was some naive, impressionable teen : I really felt like I had seen it all before! And in a sense I had so could sense these creepy men from a mile away. I wasn't impressed by a car, money, a job, a house etc etc.

My story is quite different to yours but in essence very similar. I was 14 when I became sexually active and some of the men I was involved with were far too old for it to be considered ok. I suppose people were less bothered back then. They were easily able to manipulate me into doing things that I wasn't comfortable with. No one around me seemed to care very much.

I can kind of see where you are coming from managedmis I can see bullshit from a mile away now I’m an adult. It was certainly abuse as a young teen. It wasn’t a lesson I wanted to learn and it’s not how I want my daughter to learn. Not sure there’s a good way to learn iykwim? (Overuse of the word learn 🙄)