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this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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This is a lot for me to comprehend, but as for people randomly calling people a pedo is mind-boggling and down right gaslighting. Unfortunately I've had an experience of this myself, recently, just for making jokes with friends around my age. It wasn't my friends who were calling me a pedo or anything, but rather third parties who didn't like what they saw and slapped an ominous name on it, tried to build up accusations, and started misinterpreting pretty much everything.
Mind you, I am a 17M. I don't like children like that, it's fucking disgusting. I am scared shitless to turn 18, am afraid to even consentingly joke around with my friends. I'm scared shitless to even get a relationship at all because of this and I'm afraid of false accusations from completely (hidden, or those who have grown to be) psycopaths. I'm afraid of human interaction, because I know these claims are nothing but baseless, but the problem is people eat that anyway and throw people the consequences they shit out.
Also, these same people accusing me of being a pedo and a creep, are no more than 15 years old AND fetishizing men well over 20 years old "impregnating" them. It's disgusting, scary, projection, and worrisome to say the least. Shit like this makes me have no hope for society, I'm not sure how much longer I can stand to live in it.
Just be genuine and I think you'll be okay. I mean you never know - some people used to roam around and string people up on trees to hang them, sometimes fairly at random even (so long as they had a certain ethnicity or immigration status or whatever) - but all you can control is yourself so don't focus overmuch on what is beyond that.
Also I believe that the literal, legal definition of pedo (or whatever, "statutory rape" I guess? I'm not searching for that term right now!:-P) excludes people who are 18 dating someone who is 17. It would be different if you were 20 dating a 15-year-old, but in general once you move past high school just don't go back and I think you'd be fine?
Also children (even at 15 years old... and sadly also at 50) are going to play regardless, and that means slinging words around that they don't mean, or necessarily even know what the definitions are. Just don't be a pedo, and then even if they accuse you, there's nothing there to justify it so you should (fingers crossed) be fine?
Appreciate it. That's the thing though, have to keep fingers crossed, shit could still happen. We have seen what cancel culture has done to people of all groups when being falsely accused.
Angry reactions is a good example recently. It's been years since I watched the dude, because I dont use tiktok anymore, deleted the app and my account years ago, but genuinely he was a funny and wholesome guy.
When the drama started, I stated that it was important to take both sides seriously, wait for facts and evidence to come out, and not just instantly side with one. I'm not gonna debate which one's worse, but sexual assault is wrong and damaging to someone's life, but so is the accusation of it. People forget that, and hell, I think it's another thing that seems so obvious that people are just so ignorant of.
When it came out that he was indeed innocent, and the accuser admitted to making up some B.S., the damage was done, his reputation already went down the gutter, and that's gonna sting.
With this only growing to be more common, this is the type of shit that I'm just scared of. Even when you were PROVEN to be innocent, your life is still ruined. That's what makes me not to touch any relationships or even interacting with "children" MY AGE anymore with a 500 mile radius.
I don't want any silver of possibility of being put into that position where I get falsely accused, and if I do, it's (hopefully) clear that it's not possible. Call it trust issues or whatever, but I hate risks, and at this rate having relationships of any kind is fucking risky.
Yes but, if you will pardon the doom speech: climate change is going to kill us all? So like, don't worry about what you cannot control. Yes keep it in mind. Yes do what you can. But if you can't do anything, then why lose sleep over it? Every single black person that has ever lived in America has experienced this, and the vast, VAST majority of women in the past. Also most immigrants - legal or otherwise - too.
I am making it sound like I am telling you what to do, but to rephrase, I am just hoping to offer this different perspective?
Fwiw, I think you have a good idea to beware of it, b/c an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say. Some super well-known people in the past, for reasons of their religion, have decided to not ever be alone with a woman (except their wife or daughters). This sounds like some Muslim bullshit... but actually in their case it has more than a tiny bit of merit. They have even declined the services of taxi / uber drivers if they are women - like WTF? On the other hand, how many evangelical church pastors can you think of that have been accused of, even outright proven (or like admitted it later) to have had sexual relations with someone that they should not have? I don't even mean outside of their marriages, but in a conflict-of-interest scenario (like a therapist and their client) where the person is in their congregation. Isn't it close to 100%? Okay probably not, but it does seem that way sometimes. Some teachers will likewise refuse to allow their office doors to be closed if a young woman student is in there with them. So go for it - stay safe, indeed. Just I hope you find your inner peace also as you do so:-). And maybe some of these practices can help with that, by providing both protection from accusations and thereby that peace of mind that the protection exists?
It sounds like your really understand. Thank you, I really needed this. I wish you the best of things in life!
Not at all - I've never faced that particular scenario, being more focused on college at that time in my life and also you have shown me that some things have really changed - but I do hope that mulling over this different perspective will help as you move forward:-).
Ah, gotcha. Sometimes hearing out another person's idea's is really helpful. I'll try my absolute best.
I may only dream of such a world where it was that simple. Some would say one's will and inspiration to frame an individual suffices as a foundation. To use a metaphor, it's a very Corenlius-Evazan-esque situation but without a jedi to retaliate and with the whole bar (representing the known world) in on it. The stigma is also contagious in a way, the few people who see things for what they are being lumped in with me, often not even intentionally. The suspicion for me was always pre-existing, based on trivial things about me that brought to mind misconceptions, and it just possesses new forms it seems, no matter how collateral, never shrinking because it takes a self-feeding form. Sometimes it's like the minds of the world have been hacked because one minute I might be explaining such a thing to them and being told I'm being agreed with, and the next, they're being confronted by an antagonizer who barely says two words to them about the conspiracy theory of what I've done that I just got done alluding to as what it is, even involving positions of authority on occasion, and suddenly they've been wololo'd. So avoiding fulfilling the object of their fears does little to quell anything.