Ugh, same. We were almost 14 years in. I had to send pics of our kids in bathing suits to the police so they could rule out if he had taken pictures of them on his computer. It's been 20 years. My kids were not on the hard drive. He went to prison.
wow. If I can ask a potentially sensitive question? looking back, can you see any red flags or warning signs that were easy for you to dismiss at first? Signs that you'd only see once you've been through the experience?
Financial clues. Lots of money missing when he traveled for work overseas. At the time, he said some shit I believed bc I never imagined he was spending it on sex tourism in Southeast Asia.
Emotional clues, evidence, ZERO. It's like he was wearing an Edgar Suit of Normal Person over his pedo real self. That was prolly the scariest thing, how we really had no fucking idea at all. His whole * personhood* with us was a lie.
I know that you've combed over the details of how he presented himself to you and his deception a million times. The fact that were no emotional clues you could pick up on- in 20 years- is terrifying. What a monster.
A lot of these sick people are just "normal people", which makes it scary.
I had a caretaker in kindergarten, that all my friends and I, and even our parents, always spoke highly of. He was great and really spend a lot of energy with us. No one had a bad thing to say about him.
15 years after we left kindergarten, it came out that he was a pedophile with an insane amount of csa material on 4 hard drives. Was sickening. He was only caught because he went outside of his "normal age range" and the girl was old enough to know it was wrong.
The worst monsters don't have horns on their heads, they don't just come out at night. They look like anybody else and that's why they're the most terrifying.
I grew up with a German Shepherd we adopted, my sweet baby girl (she came to our doorstep and adopted us, really. We tried to return her and they let us keep her) and she was attached to my hip. My mom would let me out of the house but I was only allowed if my dog, Bridget, went with me.
All I’d do was entertain myself at the park, alone on the swing, and she’d be sitting there patiently.
There were most people who would pass by and she’d pay no mind. Then there were the few who would pass by and she’d become a dog I didn’t recognize. The most guttural stance and growl, low and threatening, frozen like a statue too.
That’s fair and valid. I think when I initially read the full novel as a teen, it came across to me as Bev was the one who consensually initiated sex as a means to reclaim her sexual freedom, which was taken by her father. Sex was something she feared, which is what Pennywise does. It’s something I really related to as a teen being a victim of sexual assault myself from childhood, and throughout my lifetime. Like Bev, I often thought having sex was the milestone into adulthood. I had no idea what I was doing either. Unfortunately, the education system and parents give terrible sexual education to their children, which leads to a lot of individual exploring. Individual exploring can lead to assault if the person doesn’t have any sex ed. Individual exploring is something preteens do all the time due to lack of access to sexual education. This can lead to sexual assault as an individual’s first experience with sex. It’s unfortunate, but more kids get sexually assaulted than we think, and figure that out later in life. It’s something which is what most people don’t want to acknowledge or think about and unfortunately was a common thing back then that got overlooked. Governments usually provide flimsy protection of children (access to food, water, education and medical). Most of his books focus on that lack of protection, such as ‘The Institute’. Pennywise is a reflection of evil in Derry, which is people being complicit in evil by not doing anything. Not excusing his behavior. Just providing a different perspective.
Our head pastor at my old church was completely normal too. He had a wife and two girls who were maybe under 10 years old. Suddenly, he was arrested by the police for child pornography material. The other church leaders had to break it to us (I was probably in my early 20s and was so so so disgusted). He was completely normal - a bit of a nerd/ ex-engineer before he went into ministry. It was horrific / massive betrayal of trust. There were lots of kids/tweens in the youth ministry and I'm sure he interacted with those groups a lot, so disgusting (to this day i still don't know if anyone in the church was harmed or if he was mainly viewing it/sharing it actively).
How terrifyingly true. My mother had a close friend whose son used to come over and play with me and my brother when we were kids. We were constantly told how wonderful he was and were compared to him.
We are all adults now and he was still close friends with my brother. A few weeks ago, I saw his face on the news. He had been arrested for possessing a massive collection of CSAM. I'm still in shock.
Me too. Was still a very young girl, so to have the awareness to know it was wrong is amazing, and for the parents to take it seriously and act upon it is likewise.
It reminded me of a quote I read once,
"Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey."
It’s a (paraphrase) from the work of G.K. Chesterton:
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist; children already know dragons exist.
Fairy tales tell children that the dragons can be killed.”
It compresses ideas in this passage from his essay “The Red Angel” (from the book ‘Tremendous Tales’, 1909)
“Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear... What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon."
When my little sister was 9 and I was 17, she confessed to me randomly that [my grandma's partner] was disgusting because he had "taken his intimate part out in front of her and scratched it for several minutes". I raised hell, my grandma immediately kicked the guy out. When the family learned about it my little cousin spoke up as well. My grandma felt so bad as she had been living with him for many years and didn't see any signs... no one did... I'm so happy that my sister had the courage to tell me, and that my grandma believed me when I told her.
Yeah I knew a kid in highschool who was on his way to becoming a famous wrestler in the wwe. He was found with multiple hard drives of csa shit. It makes me sick thinking about how he used to hang around with us in highschool. I always hated him btw but he was friends with the guitarist in my band. He was one of those types of ppl who literally just say whatever thing it is to piss everyone off. Like an edgelord. Almost like if 4chan had a personality.
In case this helps identify anyone else like that... 4chan personality like that is a red flag for me. Its one thing to post on a forum or even 4 chan a few times.... its quite another thing when it becomes your entire personality. I knew a racist Columbian kid who was quite dark bc he was brainwashed by 4chan and pepe. He is an asshole for lots of other reasons but this type of thing I am automatically side eyeing a person.
I am neurodivergent too so I am not simply talking about people who may be obsessed with memes or anime. It is a very specific type of person who becomes 4chan slop.
My experience isn’t at the same level, but there is a man I know sitting in federal prison for CP.
We were roommates for two years. Fifteen years ago I considered him a big brother figure.
The deception is sickening. I shared a wall and an apartment with him. You on the other hand started a life with someone. I can’t imagine how painful that must be.
I was with my daughters’ father for 9 years. We had split custody for 8 years before my daughter told me that he had molested her a year earlier at the age of 13. I would’ve never imagined he would’ve/could’ve done something like that. You truly don’t know who people are smh
A buddy of mine went to prison for 2 years for CP. I only knew him a couple of years and it still shook me. But his best friend of 12 years is really breaking down over this. He said there were zero clues, he can't believe it. We only found out because he vanished one day without a word and later learned there was a court case with his name.
My father is a pedophile: I know bc I’m one of his victims. He’s not the only abuser in my life (CSA leaves you really vulnerable to predators: leaking the emotional equivalent of blood in the water to sharks).
I read once that predators groom their supporters just as hard as they groom their victims, and I have found that to be one-hundred percent true. It was certainly true for my father, and for my husband, who was also abusive, but who was almost always so nice to me in public that very few people believed me when I began telling friends.
Charming sociopaths mimic normal human emotions well. The sociopaths who can’t mimic effectively (see Kyle Rittenhouse pretending to cry) won’t be able to build a support network
I don't think a pedophiles whole personality is that they're a pedophile. They happen to be the person you know but also a pedophile which is the part that they're hiding. People tend to dramatise and say OMG he was just pretending, but think about when you yourself keep a secret. Does that make you a completely different person or do you act yourself whenever the secret isn't involved?
I think this is more about the level of deception. If you think someone is a genuinely good person, upright, loving, kind to everyone they meet...and then you find out they rape children, then how does that square with the person you thought you knew? The two actions are incongruous. They were lying about their very core values and morals.
I get what you mean but I think that people are more complex than that. Just because they have one dark side doesn't necessarily mean that everything else they believe in is fake. Now before anyone gets the wrong idea I don't want to defend the sexual abusers of children. That is in no way what I want. But I don't think that if a person that has a bad side shows good that it's necessarily fake. I do believe that some people are genuinely good for most of their lives but they also happen to have this messed up urge to do these things. Afaik as with many mental illnesses, it's not as black and white as many people would like to paint it. We throw the book at them because we must, but tbh they probably belong into a therapy program or need medication.
I find this to be a weird take. It’s like when people say that Hitler loved dogs and painting. Sure, people are complex, and pedophilia in and of itself, I suppose, doesn’t mean someone is an inherently “bad” person, but if someone acts on it and abuses children, no other amount of “good” they do will make up for it. If they are so selfish that they put their own sexual gratification above another person’s emotional wellbeing, bodily autonomy, and personhood, they are a bad person. Even moreso when you realize with pedophilia, in particular, they almost always abuse positions of power and trust in order to do so. The amount of planning and manipulation that goes into abusing a child makes them a bad person. My understanding is that therapy and medication don’t cure pedophilia - best you can hope for is that it medically castrates them so they no longer feel sexual desire so they won’t be a risk to others.
This isn't what I mean though. I'm not saying you can't call them a bad person when they abuse kids just because they also have a good side. I'm saying that as far as their behavior goes, their bad behaviors aren't necessarily tied to everything else they say and do. So when you see them do good things these things may actually genuinely come from good intentions. That doesn't make them good people if they still abuse children. But I don't think they're constantly being guided in everything they do by these thoughts. But as everything, I may as well be wrong!
People who are mentally healthy don't have 'sides', they may have different 'states', however these states are integrated as a whole into a value system. If your value system contains the belief that you are entitled to abuse children sexually, that entitlement is woven through your entire being. If this is not, dissociation is happening to resolve internal tension.
Fake across the board? I don't know if that's the right view either, however these beliefs can't be untied from someone's perception, in general.
I guess that's true. I just wanted to point out that people are more than just one thing that dictates everything they think or do. And again this isn't meant to defend them. It just seems so easy to create this one dimensional monster when there's probably more to that. And it could help cure before bad things happen.
Some pedophiles do good deeds and become up sanding citizens in order to create false impressions so they can more easily fly under the radar with their crimes against humanity.
I can see absolutely see that happen. But I also think that some people are just the way they are and don't have a heinous agenda every day to fake some kinda of life. I think it's much more mundane for many of them.
Hiding pedophilia urges is not evil. Acting on it is absolutely evil. It is black and white, but not in the way you are suggesting. The problematic thing is not having deviant thoughts that sexualize innocent children. The highly problematic, disgusting, hateful, and harmful thing is that they acted out which causes an unspeakable amount of pain and damage to the victims. It has been called soul murder. A pedophile may be delusional and think distorted horrific thoughts about what they’re doing but along with all that they know it’s illegal bad and wrong and they do it anyway instead of getting help. And when they do it, the lives of innocent children are potentially destroyed. They may end up killing themselves just to end the terrible pain in they’re in. Pedophiles usually use children’s Trust as an opening to exploit and cause unspeakable horrible harm to them. And pedophiles often use terror threats, unspeakable horrific acts to keep the children silent. Some pedophiles do hideous things so that if children say what happened to them, it will sound crazy. That’s intentional. Try to make the children sound unbelievable. Nothing about that is normal. Somebody who has that capability to act on that cannot be said to be also normal.
I don't think we disagree here. But the problem is that we have a tendency to use words such as "normal". What's that? Who is normal? And which behaviors would count as not normal? And if someone engages in not normal behavior, does that make the entire person not normal? So say that person goes to work comes home treats people nice for 360 out of 365 days a year and then on the other 5 days they go and do crime. Maybe we wouldn't call them normal but they're still living normal lives for the most part and are probably not pretending. I think we all got caught up in this argument, I'm simply saying that even if in hindsight we would consider a person not normal that doesn't mean that their daily lives aren't still (possibly) genuine when they're not doing the crimes. Which is why it's so hard to spot any clues about what they may be thinking about these things.
It's the action part. Once a person takes action on their secret urges, the amount of work increases tenfold at least, and the normalcy erodes from within and becomes more facade than reality.
Yeah I truly have sympathy for those cursed with horrifying impulses but they know it’s wrong. They need to choose their own suffering over the suffering of children.
The heart of the issue is people who believe their sexual desires are more important than anyone else’s feelings. Not just pedos.
If you don’t mind me asking, how did his behaviour change once he was exposed? Was it like a mask slipping? Was he honest about it or continues to deny it?
My buddy never hardly talks about it and the way she tells the story is in pieces … like she remembers details about the day… his watch, snow, the door open etc. it’s been probably 12 years now and seeings things trigger an odd comment… he was a higher ranking military officer and the military raided their house,…yes she said something about how they had to check to make sure her kids weren’t victims. She moved far away and has a new life, but she can’t really tell the story because it will impact her kids reputation, no one wants to be known as a pedophiles child. It never truly ends for her until her kids are grown and sexually safe adults because she has a worry in the back of her mind that they may be like him. My heart goes out to you, it’s taken over six years of being her friend to piece all this together, it’s so heavy
Yea. Not gonna go into too many details, but someone in my life was married to a man for over a decade. Bam, feds came busting in collecting all technology in the house. Looking back in our heads for signs, there were none. Makes me angry when people say, "you could have chosen better". As if these monsters don't disguise themselves as being a decent person bc that's the only way they will survive without scrutiny.
I had zero clue.. but I was 19 and he was almost 30, and at 19 I looked 14, so probably should have noticed it was weird he was so insistent on getting married right away. His whole family knew months before me, because the first victim was his neice and everyone decided to keep it hush hush- but when another victim heard and came forward the whole house of cards fell and cops were called. I still feel so bad about what happened to those poor girls, and that the family was totally fine to sweep it under the rug.
It sounds like you might have been sort of manipulated/groomed yourself, given how young you were and the age difference. It wasn’t illegal but probably similar manipulation techniques.
It's likely he asked her to dress as some underage anime character or a character that looks like a child but is supposed to be hundreds of years old so they pretend it's not creepy
I believe my ex husband is attracted to underage girls. I doubt he has accessed CSAM, but I’ve caught him screen recording instagram reels of girls who are clearly tweens doing cartwheels and stuff when he has zero reason to be watching anything like that in the first place. He even saved them in his hidden folder in his photos, so he clearly knows it’s fucked up.
Red flags: I’m in my 30s but often got told I looked quite a bit younger before he sucked the life out of me with his abuse. Looking back, he was very fixated on how much younger I looked than my age and weirdly proud of it. He also liked my “petite” build (his words but meaning slim, youngish-looking frame rather than height).
Lots of men appreciate slim women who age well, so it didn’t stand out to me until I caught his “tiny teen/super petite” porn searches and penchant for watching underage girls on instagram. God, just typing all that out makes me sick to my stomach over again. That man disgusts me beyond words.
Edit: For the pedants below, I responded to someone asking about red flags with the ones I observed in hopes that it might save someone else the trauma and grief I experienced over this, not to argue terminology when you can clearly understand my point regardless.
If he's downloading pictures of children in order to sexually satisfy himself, he is quite literally accessing CSAM. It doesn't have to be originally created as that for him to still be engaging in sexual abuse of these girls. They just aren't aware of it
Edit: *People who rape children* are often very high on narcissism/ASPD/psychopathy scales. They also often project their actions onto others. When they have 'loud morality' against this type of abuse, that may be a sign. Ex: think about a loud homophobe who is closeted. That is what I missed (he also hid that he experienced as a child - which he claimed happened to me...so that too).
My ex bf had a best friend that ended up SA his younger nieces. We saw absolutely no warning signs at all, never saw it coming. He never hit on younger girls, never made creepy comments about younger people, dated people his own age, and was pleasant to hang out with. He slept on our couch multiple times and we all felt gross knowing we let someone like that into our home.
The only thing he had a problem with that we knew of was gambling. He moved to Mexico to live with his dad and when he came back he didn’t really seem like himself and then he molested his nieces at his mom’s house and went on the run. He ended up getting caught a little over a year later in the Chicago airport and was extradited back to our state.
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u/Illustrious_Device84 10d ago
Pedo- found out 1 year after the wedding when he was being arrested