No doubt the state of California will pass a new law concerning "sex offenders" due to the recent arrest of a registered sex offender that is charged with killing his victim...I have this to say and hope that I am not ignored:
“Molested”
I was 15 at the time, a kid much like the original “Ritchie Cunningham” of “Happy Days”, only I never found my thrill on blueberry hill.
I was a loner, shy of girls, backward in relationships. An Air Force brat who never learned how to have a girlfriend; if I began to like one after a long acquaintance before I could even let them know how I felt, we moved…to another base, to another school…to another city.
On the positive side I saw a lot of traveling experiences…the gas station man giving us gas commenting on my many freckles: “Hey, what did you do? Eat a ten dollar bill and break out in pennies?” Or the NCO on base seeing me on the steps and tossing me a quarter saying, “Here, go buy yourself a beer and a candy bar.” “I don’t drink beer.” I’d reply and he’d just say, “Then buy your self a coke.” And I did.
All fond memories, as are the times spent saying goodbye to my friends…being given a toy car to play with, a girls picture, or even a kiss on the cheek. But then there were also other experiences not so sweet to remember but were life learning experiences that became lessons once you got older and were able to view them with more maturity.
I remember once when I was selling candy to raise money for my school to buy blazers for the school music class, I was set up buy a coke machine when this car pulled into the parking lot in front of me, and this guy got out and walked past me into the store. What made it strange was he was holding a five-dollar bill up next to his chest and as he walked by me he was winking at me. And when he came out with his bag of groceries he was again holding the five-dollar bill up to his chest where I could see it and was winking at me.
When he got to his car, he put his groceries on the seat and came back to the coke machine and bought a coke. He called me in a low voice…”psst hey.” But I looked around and refused to see him. He called a little louder and suddenly I saw him.
“Would you like to earn five-dollars?” He asked. I said, “How?” “Do you know what a homosexual is?” “No.” I said. “It’s a man who loves another man. Come with me and give me a kiss and you get the five dollars.”
“No thanks.” I said. “I got to sell this candy for my school.”
“If you get the five dollars you can buy all the candy and eat it yourself.” He said.
“No thanks.” I said again. “Okay.” He said and then walked to his car and got in but he tried that one last time to motion me into his car, before he drove away.
I may have been young, not yet in my teens but still I knew he was wrong. When he left I got his license number and went into the store to write it down. I’d missed one of the numbers but it was enough that the police investigator to believe they had the guy dead to the rights. It seems he had done it before.
When I got home my mom and dad were home and I laughed out saying guess what a queer tried to pick me up. That of course got my dad to ask me to repeat the story and to him, and he called the cops.
With my dad in the front seat and me in the back, the investigator knocked on the guys screen door, with the plan of having him step out side for me to identify him, but he refused to step out and the police investigator called me to come over and take a look at him through the screened porch. It was him all right only he wasn’t wearing his glasses.
When I got back to the car my dad asked me if it was him and was I sure of it. I said I was. The investigator took me and my dad back home, explaining about a possible trial and me being called as a witness, I now know the homosexual made a plea bargain to avoid trial; and I never was called on again.
So you see I’ve grown up knowing right from wrong and yet I was still kind of naïve when it came to having a girl friend; so I was years later when I was 15 and had an accident that caused me to have surgery and stay in the hospital for a few days.
It was there, that, after the surgery I was still sleeping off the anesthetic when I woke up in a strange place being molested by the nurse, an older lady with gray hair and wrinkles. Up until this point I’d never had a girls attention with sexual contact to my genitals. Waking up to it literally scared the hell out of me.
It left its mark on me. I’d start crying in the middle of class at school and ask to get permission to leave the room. For years I’d cry about it when I was asked to talk about it.
I went to five state hospitals because of it messing my life up. And after that, I ended up going to prison eight times. Why did I go to these places, you might ask, but I’d tell you that I didn’t know why I became an exhibitionist.
Never rape, never molesting, always for indecent exposure. Because of this molestation I’ve been a bum on skid row Los Angeles, I’ve been locked up for over 25 years of my life. Warehoused in prison after prison.
Yet it was there that I found God in Jesus. It was there in prison that I was gifted in the spirit with the gift of prophecy. Even after being born-again it took over 25 years to find the confident assurance of understanding in the Truth of Jesus to be able to be set free from this burden I had carried most of my life.
I now know that I was blessed to make the best of this life that was given me to suffer from and to learn from. Isn’t that the way of reality??? To learn from our mistakes and experiences? To turn suffering around to know the joy of God’s Love?
“All things work out for the best for those that love God!” the bible even show a period of 41.6 years where we are given to learn to worship God in spirit and in Truth. I’m 56 yrs old now…subtract 15 from that and you got 41 years!!!
“The hour cometh, and now is, when we shall all worship the Father in spirit and Truth.”
But I am still tied to my past. I must register as a sex offender. I must wear a GPS. I am constantly monitored and I can no longer go to a park with my loved ones. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never exposed myself in a park; or that I no longer have that burden to carry. I am still considered a child molester. Though I never have.
The facts are; only about five percent (5%) of the registered sex offenders are molesters, killers, and rapists. The other ninety-five percent (95%) are exhibitionist, public defecators, or streakers. Many of us were once victims and not given any help. Even today an exhibitionist can’t get psychological help in a state hospital because they don’t consider it a problem. Yet it was a problem with me!
I hated myself for years and years and in the publics eye I’m an outcast forever!
Does it matter that I’m of the 95%? No! Does it matter that I’ve been set free from my past burden and have been given many good works to strive for? No! Does it matter that the 95 percenters detest the 5 percenters and wished they would get their lives right? No!
In the public furor over the recent arrest of a “sex offender” that belonged to the 5 percent group, it doesn’t matter one bit to the public that there is a difference in us. Kill one kill them all!
This is wrong, but will the public see the sense of it? Will the public address the ones who need strict measures without punishing those that belong in the lesser category? Will they help those of us that need it, that don’t want to be counted in the 5% group?
Would it make a difference if the majority of the “sex offenders” were women? I am reminded of the school teacher that was sent to prison for having sex with her minor student and that after doing seven years was set free by a judge. She then moved to Europe and wrote a book entitled “I did it for love” or some such title and made over $25,000.00 dollars for it. And then she ended up marrying the student!
Had this been a man he would still be in prison, he would still be labeled as a “sex offender’ a “child molester”.
There are a lot of double standards; there is a lot of hate and paranoia too! Some is valid…yes we need to do something to the SVP’s the 5% percenters; but lets not drag in the 95% percenters too. Many of who are products of being molested themselves. Let’s help them!
Let’s not let fear blind us to the realities… ‘let Truth be your goal, and let Love be your guide.’
In Him,
J.J.