This post is strictly about expressing my thoughts and feelings. I don’t really have any points to make here. At least not at this moment of the timeline.
Context
yesterday I was writing a song for an animated series about psychogical horror. In the afternoon I read a book called “13 reasons why”, which is a fiction about a girl explaining why she killed herself. Then, at night, I saw endless posts on Thread discussing the newly released Epstein files. I was up all night scrolling until the sun came out.
Context of the Epstein files
Jeffrey Epstein was a multi-millionaire who ran a sex-trafficking ring that allegedly provided services including but not limited to Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Donald Trump and other influential figures. Some of his personal email exchanges also hinted at rape, forced pregnancy, kidnapping, torturing, murder, dismembering of bodies, cannibalism and raping of babies. One particular victim provided an account of people killing a human baby, before dismembering and consuming his body parts.
Initial reaction
I really wish I could be as astounded and reactive as the fellow netizens. But the truth is, I wasn’t. In fact, I recalled many personal anecdotes that led me to become the person I am today.
Anecdote 1: first sexual encounter
I was around 10 years old when I had my first anal sex experience. It was with a male cousin who was 3 years older than me. We grew up quite closely together up until I started going to high school. He used to bully and make fun of me a lot.
That night, I remember it being physically painful. Mentally, however, I was gleeful because he was kinder to me than usual. That experience changed the way I look at sex for the rest of my life.
First of all, I don’t know what normal adults think of sex, but for me, it feels like something that is casual and tradable. For the record, I never traded sex for money or special offers, but that’s simply because I like to win at life through hard work. However, I had a whole separate mental game about sex. In the years that followed, I started contemplating about collecting different body types, ethnicities, positions, venues and fetishes. At that age I was still a kid playing Pokémon on my old PC, but I was already on a mission for the other kind of “catch-them-all”.
I’ve heard people say that victims who are sexually abused as kids are prone to becoming hypersexual or asexual. Maybe they’re right. But I also want to say that I was very close to becoming a perpetrator myself.
Anecdote 2: first rape experience (I’d forgotten this one until last night)
Unfortunately, when you had your first experience too young and without consent, there’s a chance that your brain registers your own experience as the “norm”.
At that time, I was part of the school’s swimming team. One day, when we were showering after practice, I asked a teammate to join me in the same cubicle. I picked the most well-behaving boy. When I say well-behaving, I mean someone who doesn’t run their mouth. In my head I already knew the “blueprint”: hand job, then oral, and lastly anal. Mind you my balls hadn’t even started producing semen at that point. I gave him instructions, gently. I knew if I just said it gently he would do as I say.
And then he said no.
I was totally surprised. It wasn’t a possible reaction in my book. But I did have other tricks up my sleeves: I was physically stronger than him. My cousin taught me that applying force is ok as long as you can handle the adults afterwards.
So I cupped one hand over his mouth and used the other hand to push his head towards my crotch. Luckily for him, I was strong but not enough to silence him and rape him at the same time. Maybe my dick was momentarily in his mouth. Maybe not even. I can’t remember clearly, but eventually I let him go without getting what I’d planned for.
The next day, he told the entire class about it. That was surprisingly effective because I had a crush on a few other girls in my class and I cared what they thought of me. I also remember being super angry at him because what he did threatened my reputations.
Now, I’m not proud of this memory, and perhaps this is why I simply forgot about it until last night. I can’t remember clearly how my twisted mentality went away, but I’d say the internet forums played a significant role there.
Anecdote 3: porn and forums
Despite my failed rape attempt, I was looking for ways to satisfy my curiosity. I can’t remember how, but I did end up bumping into some internet porn. And yes, I found out about porn AFTER I had sex.
Unfortunately, the first porn videos that I ever watched were humans having sex with dogs, pigs, fish and horses. Then I found out about animated drawings of beastiality. And only after that I started seeing the “normal” stuff, which was animated drawings of little boys having sex with other little boys. This was my initial exposures. In chronological order.
Again, I started having these fap marathons before my balls could even produce precum. And yes, you can have dry orgasms even at that age. At the same time, I found out that people looked for hookups on the forums. I was looking for other boys close to my age. It had to be boys because I knew that doing the deeds with girls could potentially lead up to pregnancy, which was not something that I could resolve by myself.
Now my sexual history can fill more than one book, but the rest isn’t related to Epstein’s topic.
Anecdote 4: gore, torture and murder
It’s notable that when I was first exposed to internet porn, I also saw a lot of images of dead bodies, animal tortures and other gore. Most 90’s kids know what I’m talking about. I assume that most of us would find it predominantly repulsive.
But one thing that I want to point out here, is that your tolerance level and reaction changes a lot depending on your living environment.
When I was in university, I spent a year and a half in South Africa. In that particular part of the slum that I occasionally volunteered, murder and robbery were a daily occurrence. I used to be part of this WhatsApp group that shared images of freshly killed people. Every. Day.
I was shocked at first, but quickly became indifferent. One day, I did get robbed and stabbed. And I do remember my body trembling when I went back to the slum for the first time after the stabbing. However, trauma doesn’t always make you more emotionally reactive. If anything, that incident made me more numb?
When I studied ecology, we called this “habituation of fear response”. In simple words, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Your body wants to waste less brainpower on the things that can’t kill you (according to your brain), and redirect that brainpower for the things that your brain finds life-threatening.
Now, why am I saying all these things?
Part A. Repercussions of the Epstein case (pessimistic)
If I were to grossly oversimplify things, your reactions on Epstein’s files would either be arousal, repulsiveness, or indifference.
Well, I might get a lot of hate here, but I honestly think that Epstein was not an extreme case.
All the people involved were so typical. And average.
And I’m saying this after living in several first world and third world countries, in both the biggest cities and most rural villages, meeting both prestigious persons and criminals.
Well let me be clear here: these people are rich and powerful yes, but if you read through their emails, the way they belittle the people below, the way they