[Legally Blind: The Book] Part 1: Chapter 18 - Follow the Candy

Maybe it was my lack of inbred morals, or my imperviousness to social conditioning as a result of living in my spectrum bubble, but in any case, I always had an unorthodox attitude toward the physical act of sex in that sex was something as common as eating or swimming, not a dark, murky swamp of taboos and shame.

Living on a farm was like living on an animal kingdom porn set. Special bulls were brought in to bang cows in the fields outside my window. I’d watched roosters violently attack and rape hens since I was five—I had chickens as a child, and later I sometimes worked in the chicken ranch across the street. My dog was always humping my leg, and other things. Before I’d even known what sex was, I’d had the panoramic tour thanks to nature. I didn’t think much about it though because watching animals fucking was right up there with watching them take a crap—just stuff animals did.

Having no stigma associated with sex, combined with a lack of awareness and/or fear about the world, can lead to problems. So when I was ten and I was approached by a child molester who offered me ten bucks to go into the woods with him, I said, “Sure!” He seemed OK, and I felt no threat, which was not unusual for me, even when it was warranted. The friend I was with at the time, the same boy who would teach me how to masturbate, of course told me not to go, and when I ignored him, he ran to the police station miles away. In the woods the young man asked if he could lie on top of me. I said OK, again, with no sense of concern. He did. Then he got up, and off I went ten dollars richer.

Later that night the police came to my house and told my distraught parents what happened, and would they please bring me downtown to identify the child molester. Waiting at the police station was the young man and his father. The father was horrified and tried to apologize but could barely look at me. I told him his son was nice to me and that I honestly didn’t see what the big deal was. I reluctantly said yes, this was the man who took me into the woods, but I made it clear he did nothing to harm me.

That my first encounter with the police happened to also involve my penis was unfortunate. When they asked me to return the ten dollars, I answered “no,” thinking they were actually asking me a question. Obviously, the ten dollars was mine. The request turned into a command and my response turned into a louder “NO!” Just because they didn’t approve of how I earned the cash didn’t give them the right to take it from me, I thought. “I didn’t do anything wrong! Why am I being punished?” was my irrefutable argument. No rational, fair person would condone such stupidity, I also thought. I refused. They demanded. I refused more. Now I had the police and my parents all screaming at me to give the ten dollars back. I did, under great protest. This was yet another encore appearance of Mrs. Brown as far as I was concerned, who now had her hands in my pocket. I was sorry for the young man but full of rage toward the police. I felt more violated by the police stealing my money than by the man with whom I’d made a private, mutually beneficial agreement.

The rest of the night was spent battling my parents—me having a hissy fit because I’d been robbed, and my parents, who were not only defending the robbers, but trying to convince me that what the man had done to me was a horrible, sick thing. Their argument was wasted on me. I couldn’t accept their reasoning considering how both parties involved got what they wanted. Where was the harm? I kept asking. Certainly as an adult I can see their position, but at ten years old all I could hear was the spouting of more of those arbitrary rules and regulations, now in the form of mores, and, from my perspective, their clearly misguided definitions of right and wrong, the same rules that I imagined allowed them to throw away my brother and, ostensibly, their other son.

Next -> Part 1: Chapter 19 -- "Why not?"—Timothy Leary (Coming Soon)

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THANKS FOR READING. You can follow me here for the rest of the story: @mishrahsigni

Duncan Stroud can currently be found dancing tango in Argentina. His book, "Legally Blind", is available in eBook and hardcopy