Ticked-Off Tuesday: Torrington

When I was 12 years old, a college student gave me my first beer. I was sleeping over at a friend's house on New Year's Eve. Her parents were out and her older brother and his friend were getting ready to do the same. I thought the friend was cute. Even though he was legally an adult. Hell, he may have been legally able to buy the beer, I have no idea. What do I remember is that he was older and nice to a couple of 12 year olds and let us have two of his beers before they left.

I thought he was the cutest boy ever. He gave the beers after we begged him to take us to the party he was going to. We had no idea what a party full of high school and college students would be like (we had not yet seen Sixteen Candles) or that, "Take us with you!" could be seen as a come on. Lucky for us, he said no. Giving us a couple of beers, sure. Taking us around a bunch of drunk teenagers? No. Taking advantage of our obvious crushes? No.

I haven't thought about that crush, or my first beer, in years. But when I heard the story about the 13 year old girls from Torrington and the 18 year old football players, I remembered.

That is a child, people. 

I feel like sending him a thank you letter. 

I don't know what happened to those girls in Torrington - whether they consented or not. Even if they did consent, they were not fucking old enough to do so. But I do know that they don't deserve all the victim blaming they're getting. When people say, "Why were they hanging around with 18 year old guys?" I want to scream. 

I was lucky that the 18 year old guys I knew at 12, 13 and 14 - the ones I had crushes on, the ones that maybe could have persuaded me to do things I had no business doing - were not rapists. 

Why isn't everyone asking, "Why were those 18 year olds hanging around 13 year olds?" What kind of guys do that? 

But once again, teenagers are so brainwashed that they're defending the rapists and attacking the victims. 

WTF?

I think it's time to overhaul our sexual education curricula.